Centre for Irish Studies Newsletter

 Nuachtlitir Ionad an Léinn Éireannaigh                          Issue 8                Winter 2009

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COVER STORIES

• Focal ón Eagarthóir
• ACIS/GCIS Conference 2009
• Sean-nós Evening
• Launch of Anáil an Bhéil Bheo

Focal ón Eagarthóir

Ní rabhas ábalta gíog ar bith d’fháil ón stiúrthóir an uair seo. Is dóigh liom go bhfuil sé ar an slí amach. Is mise an téagarthóir nua agus is mór an trua é ach níl an Ghaeilge rólíofa agam. Beidh comórtas nua le duais mhór i gcóir an duine is mó a d’aimsigh botúin sa mhéid seo!

For those of you uneasy with printed Irish, the above is the statutory few words of greeting coupled with praise for the director. This is the normal practise of those, unlike myself, whose facility in the language is limited.

After a hotly contested struggle, those who make the decisions here have elected me to the much sought after position of editor

It has been an extremely busy year for the Centre and the highlight of 2009 had to be in June when the Galway Conference of Irish Studies was held in conjunction with the American Conference of Irish Studies. An idea of the scale of the whole gathering can be gleaned from the fact that some 250 papers were presented over four days.

Apart from the extraordinary range of topics covered and what was really a cerebral feast of exciting thinking, there were also a number of additional events, including a most significant series of interviews with prominent Irish personalities. What an enthralling and disparate set of characters they were. Opening with T.K. Whitaker, continuing with Bernadette Devlin and finishing with the late Cardinal Daly, these interviews with John Quinn of RTÉ, represented a fascinating cross section of contrasting contributions and positions in Irish life.

A number of book launches and poetry readings took place and there was Niall Ó Dochartaigh’s extraordinary coup, in acquiring the papers of Brendan Duddy, the man in the middle of the Peace Process, for the University. Then, of course, there was the Irish night. This, to admirers like myself (admittedly biased) made Riverdance look pedestrian. Our own Tim Collins, with his specially composed piece, ably assisted by Verena Commins, provided a feast of music that unfortunately can only be described properly by resorting to clichés. The sean nós dancing by Seosamh Ó Neachtain brought a flush to the cheeks of a certain recalcitrant observer, who was heard to mutter that he was going to take lessons. All of these events are detailed either in the links to the conferences or in special reports by our crack team of eyewitnesses.

The Centre’s own publications were launched at a session chaired by the ubiquitous Professor Jim Donnelly, who also covered more panels than anyone else. Anáil an Bhéil Bheo, was edited by Nessa Cronin, Seán Crosson and John Eastlake and had a contribution by our own Jenny McCarthy. It is a stimulating and wide ranging book concentrating on the oral tradition, acknowledging that ’Irish literate culture has ’always been embedded in a surrounding sea of orality’. William Desmond’s monograph Being Between was introduced by the author. It summarised some of his earlier work on what he has termed metaxologia – a neologism suggesting the liminal territory between states of awareness. Describing it as a philosophical study is unfair to what is a lyrical work that at times veers between sheer poetry and the transcendent.

The GCIS conference was run by the current graduate student cohort of the Centre for Irish Studies, with David Doyle and Méabh Ní Fhuartháin at the helm of an enthusiastic steering committee. The whole event took place with hardly an argument, apart from the odd steely glare (something they apparently train them for in the Déise country from birth.)

The ACIS internal committee comprised of Dr Louis de Paor, Dr Nessa Cronin and Samantha Williams all of the Centre for Irish Studies and Dr Patrick Lonergan, Department of English at NUIG, with Méabh Ní Fhuartháin as GCIS representative.  Dave Doyle acted as press officer for both conferences. Although academics are renowned for their level headedness, humility and practicality, the fact that such a concentration of them could be accommodated with so little spilt ink or anything worse suggests that NAMA and the other rescue bodies for this benighted island are looking in the wrong place for people to run them.

Finally, on a slightly down note, the conference marked the retirement of Professor Tadhg Foley and a special presentation was made to him. Tadhg apart from his other work has occupied the Chair of the Centre since its inception. This writer would like to remark that his kindness and assistance to him has obviously been experienced by many others as well, illustrious or no – there is hardly a book around in Irish Studies or related fields that does not feature either a dedication or reference to him.

Leo Keohane

Presentation by John Behan of his sculture Daniel O'Connell to Prof. Tadhg Foley at the ACIS/GCIS Conference in June 2009.

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ACIS/GCIS Conference 2009

In June 2009, scholars from all over the world attended the Second Galway Conference for Irish Studies.  The conference provided a platform for both established and emerging scholars to engage with new ideas and approaches to popular culture and ordinary life in contemporary Ireland. Convened almost concurrently to the seventieth birthday of Ireland’s most famous poet, writer and Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney, it would prove to be an extremely appropriate time for academic endeavour to take the journey back, in the words of Heaney himself, ’Into the heartland of the Ordinary’

The first Galway Conference for Irish Studies was held successfully in June 2005, but on this occasion, the programme proved to be even more diverse with the conference scheduled to run simultaneously with the annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies.

The conference was officially launched on Friday evening by the President of NUI Galway, Dr. James J. Browne. 

Dr James J. Browne, President, NUI Galway launching the ACIS/GCIS Conference in June 2009.

Click here for photographs from Conference

Conference Programme

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Sean-nós Evening

The Conference highlighted the vibrancy of Irish Music Studies in NUI Galway. Though this writer may be accused of bias, arguably the most powerful keynote event of the combined 2009 ACIS/GCIS was the sean-nós evening on Friday, 12 June 2009.  This showcased the place of Irish traditional performance arts at the Centre for Irish Studies and drew attention to the powerful possibilities of intersections between the cultural traditions of the region and the academy.  A particular feature of Irish Studies at Galway is the system support given to traditional performance arts through the artist-in-residence scheme and this is also reflected in research interests at the Centre.  Since its inception, the award has seen five sean-nós singers take up the appointment: Bríd Ní Mhaoilchiaráin, Josie Sheáin Jeaic MacDonncha, Áine Ní Dhroighneáin, Máire Uí Dhroighneáin and Mícheál Ó Cuaig.  All artists hail from Connemara, a rich repository of Irish language singing.  The current artist-in-residence is sean-nós dancer, Seosamh Ó Neachtain, also from Connemara. 

For the first time at NUIG all artists-in-residence were brought together to perform as part of the conference proceedings, under the thematic umbrella of the GCIS theme Into the Heartland of the Ordinary.   The opening address was delivered by Dr Lillis Ó Laoire, Scoil na Gaeilge, NUIG, himself a sean-nós singer, and he spoke of the indelible relationship between singer, song and place.  Sean-nós song, as Lillis described it, is embedded in the ordinary, through practice and lyrical content, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Connemara.  One of the challenges of running an event such as this is the linguistic reality of the performers’ first language being Irish, while the majority of our visitors to the conference had little or no Irish.  This was ably negotiated by TG4/Raidió na Gaeltachta broadcaster, Máirtín Tom Sheáinín, who filled the role of fear a’ tí  for the evening, and the bi-lingual performance was conducted seamlessly.   Each singer in turn spoke and sang providing a remarkable testament to the place of singing within this community. 

The final piece of the concert was arranged by one of our own PhD students, Tim Collins, a concertina player and stalwart of the famed Kilfenora Céílí Band.  Tim took the final song of the evening ’Johnny Seoige’, sung by Mícheál Ó Cuaig and arranged it as a dance tune to which Seosamh Ó Neachtain danced.   A band of musicians, including yet another PhD student, Verena Commins, was put together specifically for the piece.  Held in the O’Flaherty Lecture Theatre our intrepid technicians Nico and John ensured that the audience would view the dancers footwork on screen behind the performance, in real time.

Overall, the evening was a resounding success, with the only voiced complaint that it was too short (always a good indicator).  However, from the perspective of the Centre for Irish Studies, it was a confirmation of the centrality of Irish performance and Irish Music Studies to the project of Irish Studies itself at NUIG, and a portent of even better things to come.

Anáil an Bhéil Bheo

Anáil an Bhéil Bheo: Orality and Modern Irish Culture
Edited by Nessa Cronin, Seán Crosson and John Eastlake
(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009)

’No single account, oral or written, could be perfectly true. People nod, forget, make mistakes.’
— Henry Glassie, The Stars of Ballymenone

In June 2006, the Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway held the first Galway Conference of Irish Studies focusing on the theme, Orality and Modern Irish Culture, which emerged from the ongoing research and teaching at the Centre at that time.

One of the central aims of the conference was to address and sensitively navigate the critical faultlines that permeate and shape our understanding of Irish literate and oral cultures. An additional concern was to foster an interdisciplinary critique of Irish oral and textual cultures that would draw on many disciplines to disrupt and complicate the too easy and dichotomising alignment of orality with the Irish language, the traditional and rurality, and print literacy with the English language, modernity and urbanity.

A key organising principle of the conference was to provide space to address texts in both of Ireland’s main languages, Irish and English. To this end, a simultaneous translation facility was provided so that Irish-language scholars could deliver their papers in that language, and that non-Irish-speaking members of the audience would be in a position to engage with them. As the relationship between the two languages is key to furthering our understanding of the Irish Studies project, we sought to place the question of language and the politics of translation at the foreground of how Irish culture is produced, read and interpreted today

Anáil an Bhéil Bheo: Orality and Modern Irish Culture (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) is the result of the conversations, debates and dialogues held in Galway in June 2006. The essay collection brings together a stimulating range of interdisciplinary work considering the local, national and global connections between orality and modern Irish culture. It is dedicated to the memory of Martha Fox (1931-2000).

From literature to song, folklore to the visual arts, 17 critical essays examine not only the connections between oral and textual traditions in Ireland, but also the theoretical concept of “orality” itself and the corresponding significance of oral texts in Irish society. Featuring work by emerging scholars in the fields of history, literature, folklore, music, women’s studies, film and theatre studies the collection also includes contributions from scholars long engaged with issues of orality such as Gearóid Ó Crualaoich and Henry Glassie.

If you are interested in reading more about this title the Introduction, ’“The Sea of Orality”: An Introduction to Orality and Modern Irish Culture’, is available from the publisher’s website, along with Gearóid Ó Crualaoich’s ’Orality and Modern Irish Culture: A Personal Strand of the Weave’.

http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/978-1-4438-0152-2-sample.pdf

http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Anail-an-Bheil-Bheo--Orality-and-Modern-Irish-Culture1-4438-0152-6.htm

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This online newsletter is published by the Centre for Irish Studies.  Any views, comments, or suggestions are welcome and should be forwarded to Leo Keohane, Editor at leo.keohanenuigalway.ie or Samantha Williams, Technical Editor at samantha.williamsnuigalway.ie

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