Centre for Irish Studies Newsletter

 Nuachtlitir Ionad an Léinn Éireannaigh 

Issue 2 Autumn 2005

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AUTUMN FEATURES

• Spanish Association for Irish Studies Conference in Tarragona
• Launch of Australian Journal of Irish Studies
• Centre for Irish Studies Day Symposium: Orality, Musicality, Textuality
• Sean-Nós Singer Marries!
• Farewell to the Basque Man
• Report on Edna O'Brien Conference
• Events

Spanish Association for Irish Studies Conference in Tarragona

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The Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI) holds an international conference every year in different Spanish universities, as the aim of the association is the publication of thematic books on Irish Studies as well as, the organization of conferences to promote Irish Studies in Spain. This year’s conference was held at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, in the scenic city of Tarragona in Catalonia. The conference between 26 ^th and 28 ^th of May dealt with the re-writing of boundaries in Ireland at large, whether they be spiritual, literary, spatial or translational.

Asier Altuna, postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Irish Studies since 2003 is also a founding member of the Spanish Association and was held responsible for encouraging a great number of scholars from Ireland, and especially the Centre for Irish Studies at NUI, Galway to attend the conference. As a result, almost six members of the centre related to it directly or indirectly formed the so-called Irish contingent from the Centre for Irish Studies. Among them the poet and Director of the Centre Dr Louis de Paor delivered a plenary lecture entitled, ’"A non-poet non-writing non-poetry in non-Irish for a non-people": the frontier poems of Seán Ó Ríordáin’, which demonstrated Dr de Paor’s scholarly mastery not only in Irish poetry, but also in transmitting new perspectives on critical approaches on Irish writing to a Spanish audience.

Other members of the Centre engaged in illuminating critical analyses of different perspectives of Irish Studies: nineteenth-century translation, feminism in nineteenth-century Ireland, native autobiography and poetry and music: Dr Asier Altuna, ’Re-writing Nineteenth-Century Translational Boundaries: James Clarence Mangan and Spain’, Seán Crosson, ’Re-writing Boundaries - Poetry and Music: An examination of changing perspectives on poetry and music and their relevance to the relationship between traditional Irish music and contemporary Irish poetry’, John Eastlake, ’Is No One an Island?’ The Boundaries of Blasket Island Autobiography’ and Dr Maureen O'Connor, ’Frances Power Cobbe and the Patriarchs’. The conference ended with a performance of Irish music and dance by Tuath, which was open to the general public, and was held at the Auditori Caixa Tarragona.

  Launch of Australian Journal of Irish Studies

The latest publication from the Centre for Irish Studies, Remembered Nations, Imagined Republics, was launched by Professor Frances Devlin Glass of Deakin University at the Fourteenth Irish Australian Conference convened by the Department of History at UCC in June. Remembered Nations, Imagined Republics contains the proceedings of the Twelfth Irish Australian Conference which was hosted by the Centre for Irish Studies in June 2002, edited by Maureen O’Connor, Louis de Paor, and Bob Reece and published by the Centres for Irish Studies at NUI, Galway and Murdoch University, Perth as a special issue of the Australian Journal of Irish Studies.

Speaking at the launch, Professor Devlin-Glass highlighted the interdisciplinary aspect of the proceedings, which include papers by scholars from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, and Britain on a broad range of issues including migration, ethnic identities, multiculturalism, industrial relations, health and gender, republicanism, history, literature, and the efforts of Irish missionaries in Australia. To illustrate the diversity of the material, she made special mention of Pat Jacobs' essay on the St John of God Sisters on the Kimberley Pearling Coast of Western Australia, Ruan O’Donnell’s treatment of Australian aspects of the 1803 rising and Rebecca Pelan’s comparative study of drama in Australia and Northern Ireland.

Also speaking at the launch, Louis de Paor welcomed the extraordinary growth of Irish Studies at institutional level in both Australia and New Zealand in recent years and urged delegates to develop the interdisciplinary aspect of the project beyond its traditional strengths in the disciplines of history and literature to include many of the additional areas covered in Remembered Nations, Imagined Republics. In particular, he stressed the need for further research on Irish-Aboriginal relations and on the significance of the Irish language in Australia.

Copies of Remembered Nations, Imagined Republics: Proceedings of the Twelfth Irish Australian Conference, edited by Maureen O’Connor, Louis de Paor, and Bob Reece, can be purchased directly from the Centre for Irish Studies for €15 including post and packaging.

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Centre for Irish Studies Day Symposium: Orality, Musicality, Textuality

"The Centre for Irish Studies’s first Day Symposium was a great success, with six speakers and over 20 participants attending. Mr. Seán Crosson and Mr. John Eastlake organized the Symposium following interests and issues generated by their own research at the Centre. The Symposium was conceived as an academically open space that would enable interdisciplinary and interstitial learning, exploration, and sharing between participants. The Symposium consisted of two panel sessions in the morning covering oral poetics, music, memory, tradition, and poetry across African, French, and Irish subject matters. In the afternoon, two workshops engaged the participants: the first used riddles, proverbs, and jokes as a way of examining the dynamic between orality and literacy, and the second, led by Sean-Nós Singer-in-Residence, Áine Ní Dhroighneáin, examined the nature of Sean-Nós, and even got the participants singing! It was a tremendously lively and productive session for all involved, and the Centre hopes to host another in the near future. Thanks to all the speakers and particpants!

(Please see Program for full details!)

Programme

Sean-Nós Singer Marries!

2002 was a providential year for the singer Bríd Ní Mhaoilchiaráin. As the sean-nós world knows, Bríd won the Corn Uí Riada and she was also appointed the first Sean Nós-Singer in Residence at NUI, Galway. As they say, good things happen in threes, and in the same year she started going out with Tommy Breathneach. The two tied the knot last Saturday in Carna, where they are both from, in Séipéal Mhuire.

Of course, sean nós is at the heart of this young woman’s life and as you’d expect  music and song were a strong feature of the wedding mass. Superstars of sean nós accompanied her when she was walking up the aisle with her father, Peadar. Joe McKiernan played music with Joe John Mac an Iomaire, Josie and Johnnie Sheáin Jeaic, Micheál Ó Cuaig and Máire Uí Choirbín. They weren’t without musical instruments either, and Josie Ó Ceannabháin, Róisín Nic Dhonnchadha and Nóirín Ní Shúilleabháin played at the wedding ceremony. Bríd’s cousin, Siobhán Éinniú performed the psalms and the master himself, Josie Sheáin Jeaic, completed the mass when he sang Bríd’s song, Coinnleach Deas an Fhomhair.

The parish priest of An Ceathrú Rua, Fr. Pádraig Audley, married the couple and the mass was co-celebrated by Fr. Peadar Ó’Conghaile and Fr. Proinsias Ó Maolatha. There were two bridesmaids, Bríd’s sister Máire and her old friend, Olive Manning, from her days in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. The groomsmen were John Feeney and Tom O’Donnell. Maireád Éinniú and Caoimhe Ní Fhlatharta were the flowergirls. Bríd wore a long veil and while her dress was a beautiful ivory colour, the bridesmaid’s dresses were maroon.

The reception was in Óstán na Páirce, Spidéal, and Tommy’s mother, Mairéad and Bríd’s parents, Barbara and Peadar, were already there to welcome the wedding party.  Fóidín Meara were the wedding band and with the songs and the sean-nós dancing, it was almost like the Oireachtas!

The couple will be spending their honeymoon in Italy before they return home to their native soil. Best wishes for their new life together!  (Translated from Foinse 17 July, 2005)

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Farewell to the Basque Man

Dr. Asier Altuna Garcia de Salazar has been a permanent feature of the Centre over the last two years, during which time he worked on representations of Spain and the Basque Country in Irish Romanticism. Asier defied everyone’s expectations from day one, and got involved in
contributing to both the intellectual and social life of the Centre. His time in Galway was spent with exemplary assiduity and proved to be very productive with numerous publications, conference papers, and seminars presented at NUI, Galway. Not one to neglect other aspects of academic life, Asier admirably maintained his sunny smile, and his culinary skills will be
very much missed this coming year when he returns home (we will literally be starved of his company!). We would all like to wish him the very best in his future work and not to forget his Atlantean counterparts in Galway upon his return to the Basque Country. Eskerrik asko Asier (let this not be the beginning of the end, but another chapter for your book!), and go raibh míle
maith agat le do chuid cairdeas.

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Report on Edna O'Brien Conference

On 23 April 2005, the first academic conference dedicated to Irish writer Edna O’Brien was held at NUI, Galway, hosted by the Centre for Irish Studies, the Women’s Studies Centre, and the Department of English.  The aim of the conference was to extend existing O’Brien criticism that resists returning to stereotypical representations of her writing, and to broaden the critical framework for O’Brien scholarship   Speakers came from France, Spain, Italy, Finland, the US, the UK, and Ireland, and included Amanda Greenwood, author of Edna O’Brien (2003) the first monograph on O’Brien to have been published in thirty years.  Plenary addresses were delivered by Rebecca Pelan, director of the Women’s Studies Centre, who offered ’Reflections on a "Connemara Dietrich"’ and Patricia Coughlan of University College Cork, who spoke on ’O’Brien, Abjection, and the Problem of Agency’.

Events

• New perspectives on The Quiet Man - Graduate Conference
• Link to forthcoming events in NUI, Galway

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