Visiting Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters and Chair of the Fund for Irish Studies Fintan O’Toole interviews Academy Award-winning Irish film and television director Lenny Abrahamson on his career in film.
This lecture-recital by Professor of Arts Practice at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland, explores the musical and ritualistic evidence for the emergence and continuity of the Celtic ritual cycle, with a focus on the rituals of Imbolc and Samhain, a precursor of Halloween.
Inspired by language, landscape and mythology, Manchán Magan explores the insight and hidden wisdom native Irish culture offers to the people of Ireland and the world.
Dr. Geraldine Parsons, Senior Lecturer in Celtic and Gaelic and Head of Subject at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, lectures on the mythological hero Fionn MacCumhaill and her broader research on medieval Irish literature. Fionn MacCumhaill, also known as Finn McCool, was a 3rd century A.D. warrior and hunter in medieval Ireland. He led a clan of warriors called the Fianna Éireann, and his adventures are documented in the Fenian Cycle.
Critically acclaimed filmmaker Alison Millar screens her 2021 award-winning documentary film, Lyra, an emotive, intimate portrait of the life and death of Belfast journalist Lyra Mckee, who was murdered by the New IRA the day before Good Friday, April 2019. The film seeks answers to her senseless killing through Lyra’s own work and words. Followed by a discussion with Millar moderated by Fintan O’Toole, Chair of the Fund for Irish Studies.
Visiting Leonard L. Milberg ’52 Professor in Irish Letter Fintan O’Toole delivers the Robert Fagles Memorial Lecture, “Uneasy Peace: The Good Friday Agreement 25 Years On.” O’Toole examines Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in April 1998, a political deal designed to bring an end to 30 years of violent conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.
Elizabeth Boyle (University of Maynooth) lectures on “Fierce Appetites: Lessons from My Year of Untamed Thinking” on April 14
Burke’s talk will draw from her new book, Race, Politics, and Irish-America: A Gothic History (Oxford University Press, 2023). Using the words and lives of Black and white writers and public figures of Irish connection, she will discuss the complex cultural and political legacies of centuries of Irish presence in the Americas, from the forcibly transported and Scots-Irish to post-Famine Catholic immigrants.
Diarmaid Ferriter, Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin, lectures on the Irish Civil War.
Award-winning writer Barry McCrea will give a brief talk on “Language and the Irish Novel” followed by a reading from his novel-in-progress Miracle at Thorn Island. Introduced by Visiting Leonard L. Milberg ’52 Professor in Irish Letters Fintan O’Toole.