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The Centre for Irish Studies was a hive of singing and music making at the reception to mark the appointment of Joe John Mac An Iomaire as Sean-nós Singer in Residence for 2013. Joe’s family, friends and fellow singers were there in strength, and celebrated in style. It was house dance transplanted to the Centre, as Mícheál Ó Cuaig (a former recipient of the award himself), ably acted as Fear an Tí with Johnny Mháirtín Learaí, Josie Sheáin Jeaic, Áine Ní Dhroighneáin, Bartley Breathnach and Micheál himself among the singers who performed. The evening began with Dr Louis de Paor recognizing the incalculable value of the Sean-Nós Performer in Residence scheme, a sentiment echoed by Mícheál later in the evening. The dynamic relationship between the singers and the Centre, which has built up over the past ten years, was evidenced on the night in every musical contribution and indeed in the opening comments of Professor Gearóid Denvir who formally introduced Joe John as this year’s Sean-nós Singer in Residence. Joe John regaled the crowd with stories and sang one of his signature big songs ‘An Droighneáin Donn’. Also performing were young musicians and singers from Connemara. When Mícheál compared the harp playing of Séamus Ó Flatharta to the harpist of the Gaelic aristocracy, it was a fitting tribute to Joe John as our Taoiseach for the night.

Welcome to this December edition of Humanities Update! Issue 12

Many of us have walked round art galleries and wondered what those abstract works are all about. They have been with us for a hundred years but retain their power to puzzle and perplex. Paul Crowther – Professor of Philosophy at NUI Galway – has offered solutions to the puzzle. In the three books he has published since arriving at Galway in 2009, abstract art has been a central research interest for him. He has now co-edited and contributed chapters to an important collection of essays dedicated to the problem. The work is Meanings of Abstract Art: Between Nature and Theory which has just been published in the prestigious Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies series. Crowther and his co-editor Isabel Wunsche bring together scholars of international distinction, so as to focus on the major source of abstraction – nature. They are guided by the famous abstractionist Jackson Pollock’s remark ‘I am nature’. Pollock thought that action painting allowed abstract works to express symbols and ideas from the unconscious mind. Other abstract artists have different interests – and the book explores some of the most important of these. Professor Crowther’s own two chapters emphasize that – whatever the individual artist’s intentions – abstract works all involve optical illusion. This gives them the power to suggest such things as alien or unfamiliar perceptual environments, objects seen from unusual angles or under conditions of magnification or distortion. Ordinary pictures represent recognizable things, but abstract works allude to aspects of the visual field that are usually unnoticed or not accessible to ordinary vision.The book is the first publication from an international network of scholars working on abstract art. Professor Crowther will be working to build up this network, and to further internationalize his research in the coming year through sustained work on abstract art in major European and American collections.

Ireland's cultural capital, Galway has been a centre for innovative drama, theatre and performance for years and NUI Galway has provided a breeding ground for the development of artistic talent in successive generations of students. The city has seen the establishment of several flourishing theatre companies whose founder members were students of the University. Among the most illustrious of our graduates are the three Druid Theatre Company founding members, Tony-Award-winning Director, Garry Hynes and the actors Marie Mullen and the late Mike Lally. Recent graduates have gone on to achieve success with many leading theatres in Ireland and in London, joining such schemes as the Abbey Theatre's New Playwrights' Programme and the Rough Magic SEEDS project. In the last two years alone, NUI Galway graduates have won such awards as the PJ O'Connor Prize (RTE), the JMK Trust award for finding Britain's finest theatre directors, and more.The University has forged a number of dynamic partnerships with key arts organisations including Druid Theatre Company, the Galway Arts Festival,Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe (the national Irish language theatre) and more. Our students benefit from the University's unique combination of groundbreaking academic expertise, professional practice and access to some of lreland's leading artists.This new denominated BA programme will allow students to combine specialist knowledge in this area with another subject from the general Arts degree. Further details are available here.

Following on from the success of Mapping Spectral Traces IV international symposium, co-convened by Dr Nessa Cronin (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway) and Dr Karen Till (Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth) in April 2011, we are delighted to announce the international launch of the Mapping Spectral Traces Network website: www.mappingspectraltraces.org The April conference marked the launch of an Irish-wide collaboration between Ómós Áite, based at the Centre for Irish Studies at NUI Galway, and the Space&Place Research Collaborative based at the Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth, and was one of a series of events organized by the Mapping Spectral Traces International Network to take place in 7 institutions across 5 countries in 2011-12. The next Mapping Spectral Traces international conference will take place in Galway, April 2012, and further details will be announced later this year.Further details available at http://www.nuigalway.ie/research/centre_irish_studies/documents/mst_website_launch_autumn_2011.pdf contact Dr Nessa Cronin, Centre for Irish Studies. nessa.cronin@nuigalway.ie

Niall Culligan, a second-year student on the BA with Creative Writing programme who won the English Department’s Peel Prize for his essay writing in first year, has been awarded second place in the H.H. Stewart Prize of the National University of Ireland for his entire first-year portfolio of work for English.Cathy Hogan, a final-year student, has won the Best Screenplay Award at the Graham Greene International Festival 2011. This is Cathy’s second Greene award – she was awarded the prize for Best Fiction in 2010. The awards are adjudicated annually by the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust, Berkhamsted,Hertfordshire.Móna Wise, a third-year student, has recently enjoyed major success in her award of a Bord Bía fellowship to a food-writers’ workshop in Germany during the Summer. Móna worked on food-writing for her ‘Exploring Nonfiction’ module in first year and is currently writing a full-length food book for her third-year Independent Project. As a result of her experience on the workshop Mona now contributes to Galway Now magazine as a food-writer.