2024-25 Archives - The Fund for Irish Studies at Princeton University

Lecture on “Unmasking Conspiracy: Philip Graves and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion” by Fintan O’Toole

Fintan O’Toole notes that we live in an age of conspiracy theory and fake news, but emphasizes these are not new phenomena. He contends the most toxic forgery of all time is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which falsely purports to be the record of secret meetings of Jewish leaders plotting to take over the world. It was used as the basis for the most violent antisemitic propaganda of the 20th century and continues to circulate today.

In 1921, the Irish journalist Philip Graves was the first writer to expose The Protocols as a fake and to show how it was manufactured. Graves, who came from a very distinguished literary family, used the techniques of literary criticism to analyze the text of The Protocols and published his findings in the London Times.

O’Toole points out that Graves is now largely forgotten, but in this lecture, in memory of the great scholar-poet Robert Fagles, O’Toole tells the story of how Graves revealed the truth. He argues that what Graves managed to do is not merely of historical importance. It resonates very strongly with contemporary dilemmas and shows that critical skills are not marginal—they are vital to the survival of democracy and decency.

The Fund for Irish Studies Series is co-chaired by Jane Cox and Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters.

About Fintan O’Toole

Portrait of Fintan O'Toole — Photo credit: Nick Bradshaw / The Irish Times

Fintan O’Toole, one of Ireland’s leading public intellectuals, is a columnist for The Irish Times and advising editor of The New York Review of Books. He also writes for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Granta, The Guardian, The Observer, and other international publications. From 2012 to 2024, he was the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Visiting Lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University. His books on theater include works on William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Thomas Murphy. O’Toole’s books on politics include the bestsellers We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland, which was named by The New York Times as one of the ten best books of 2022; Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain; and Ship of Fools. He has received the A.T. Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism, the Millennium Social Inclusion Award, the Orwell Prize, the European Press Prize and the Robert Silvers Prize for Journalism. He has recently been appointed official biographer of Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. In 2023, O’Toole was named an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2024, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

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Directions

Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.

Accessibility

The James Stewart Film Theater is an accessible venue. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.

Reading by Niall Williams

A reading by Irish novelist and playwright Niall Williams, author of several novels, including This is Happiness, History of the Rain, and the recently published Time of the Child. Free; no tickets required.

A reading by Irish novelist and playwright Niall Williams, author of several novels, including This is Happiness, History of the Rain, and the recently published Time of the Child. Cosponsored by Princeton’s Humanities Council and Department of English.

The Fund for Irish Studies Series is co-chaired by Jane Cox and Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters.

About Niall Williams

Portrait of Niall Williams — Photo Credit: John Kelly

Niall Williams was born in Dublin. He is the author of ten novels, including History of the Rain, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and Four Letters of Love, which will soon be a major motion picture starring Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Gabriel Byrne. His 2019 novel, This Is Happiness, was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Book of the Year and longlisted for The Walter Scott Prize. His latest novel, Time of the Child, was published in the U.S. in November. He lives in Kiltumper in County Clare, Ireland.

Admission & Details

The reading is free and open to the public; no advance tickets or registration required.

Directions

Get directions to Labyrinth Bookstore, located at 122 Nassau Street in Princeton.

Accessibility

Labyrinth Books is an accessible venue. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.

Reading by Colm Tóibín

International bestselling and award-winning writer Colm Tóibín reads from his work as part of the 2024-25 Fund for Irish Studies Series. Tóibín is the author of 11 novels including Long Island, The Heather Blazing, Nora Webster, House of Names, The Blackwater Lightship (shortlisted for the BookerPrize), The Master, and Brooklyn, which was made into a film starring Saoirse Ronan that garnered four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.

The Fund for Irish Studies Series is co-chaired by Jane Cox, Director of Princeton’s Program in Theater & Music Theater, and Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters.

Tickets & Details

Tickets for the reading are currently sold out.

Directions

Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.

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About Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín stands and leans against a table and rests his hand on his chin — Photo credit: Reynaldo Rivera

The Irish writer Colm Tóibín grew up in a home where, he once said, there was “a great deal of silence”. He has since made a career of talking to the world through his many volumes of fiction and non-fiction, drama, and poetry.

The newest of Tóibín’s eleven novels is Long Island (Simon & Schuster, May 7, 2024). A New York Times bestseller, the book was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club and received star reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist. In their rave review the Star Tribune called the novel “a wonder, rich with yearning and regret.” Long Island continues the story of Eilis Lacey, first introduced in his acclaimed novel Brooklyn.

An international bestseller, Brooklyn is the unforgettable story a young Irish immigrant and the complications surrounding love and family which she finds in the early 1950s. Brooklyn was given the Costa Novel Award, while The Observer named it one of “The 10 best historical novels.” In 2019, the book was ranked 51st on The Guardian‘s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. In 2015, Tóibín’s celebrated novel was turned into a film starring Saoirse Ronan which garnered four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.

Tóibín is also the author of The Heather Blazing, Nora Webster, House of Names, and The Blackwater Lightship. The latter was shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Prize and the Booker Prize, and it was later made into a film starring Angela Lansbury.

His fifth novel, The Master, is a fictional account of the inner life of the American writer Henry James. It was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, Stonewall Book Award, and Lambda Literary Award. The New Yorker noted the novel’s portrait of a creative mind at work struck other writers as uncanny, while Cynthia Ozick praised Tóibín’s “writer’s wizardry.” Tóibín’s devotion to James led him to author All A Novelist Needs: Colm Tóibín on Henry James, a collection of critical essays.

More recently, Tóibín’s longtime interest in the German writer Thomas Mann led him to write The Magician, a New York Times Notable Book which was named the Best Book of the Year by NPR, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Time magazine stated, Tóibín had crafted “a complex but empathetic portrayal of a writer in a lifelong battle against his innermost desires, his family, and the tumultuous times they endure.” The Magician was given the Rathbones Folio Prize.

Tóibín’s literary conversation with the world explores a number of significant themes: the nature of Irish society, living in exile, the legacy of Catholicism, the process of creativity, and the preservation of personal identity, especially when confronted by loss.

Colm Tóibín (pronounced “cuh-lem toe-bean”) is many things—not only a novelist, but also a short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. Among his works of non-fiction are The Modern Library: the 200 Best Novels Since 1950 (with Carmen Callil), a book on the Irish revival, Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush, New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families, Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature, and A Guest at the Feast: Essays. His 2015 book, On Elizabeth Bishop, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Among the books he has edited is The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction. His book of poetry is titled Vinegar Hill. His newest work of non-fiction is On James Baldwin (Brandeis University Press, August 2, 2024), on the works of James Baldwin and their influence on his writing.

Over the years, Tóibín’s plays have been staged in Ireland and on Broadway. The Testament of Mary, which Tóibín based on his novella of the same name, was nominated for three Tony Awards, including Best Play.

Tóibín has been honored with the E. M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Irish PEN Award for contribution to Irish literature, Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, Premio Malaparte (Italy), Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award, David Cohen Prize for Literature, and the Bodley Medal. In 2022 the Arts Council of Ireland appointed him Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024. In 2024 he received the Medal of Honor for Achievement in Literature from the National Arts Club.

Tóibín is Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He has curated exhibits for the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan, and, with his agent, Peter Straus, runs a small publishing imprint in Dublin, Tuskar Rock Press.

Colm Tóibín lives in Ireland and the United States.

Conversation with Ruth McGowan & Derbhle Crotty from the Abbey Theatre

In the second conversation under a new partnership with Ireland’s Abbey Theatre, Fund for Irish Studies Co-chair and Director of the Program in Theater & Music Theater Jane Cox moderates a discussion on running a national theater with the Abbey’s Literary and New Work Director Ruth McGowan and Associate Artist Derbhle Crotty.

The Abbey Theatre’s Ruth McGowan, literary and new work director, and, Derbhle Crotty, actor and associate artist, will be in conversation around writing and performing in Ireland, moderated by Fund for Irish Studies Co-chair Jane Cox.

The Fund for Irish Studies Series is co-chaired by Cox and Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters.

About the Guest Artists

Ruth smiles with wavy shoulder length blonde hair. She wears thick rectangular glasses, a black leather jacket, and a gold necklace. — Ruth McGowan. Photo credit: Hazel Coonagh

Ruth McGowan joined the Abbey Theatre in the new role of Literary & New Work Director in 2023, working with playwrights and theater makers to generate future work for both stages of Ireland’s National Theatre. She works closely with artists, designing and delivering bespoke dramaturgical and practical supports to a dynamic range of commissions and ideas in development. Working as a dramaturg, programmer and producer since 2009, McGowan has built creative partnerships and championed new work across performance disciplines. She has produced world premieres in festival fields, above pubs, and in historic theaters from Letterkenny to the Lower East Side. In addition, McGowan was Artistic Director & CEO of Dublin Fringe Festival from 2018-2023. McGowan sits on Dublin City Council’s Arts & Culture Advisory Group. She holds a B.Ed with English from St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, and an M.Phil in Theatre and Performance from Trinity College Dublin.

Derbhle smiles with dark hair pulled back from her face. She wears earrings and a black blouse. — Derbhle Crotty. Photo courtesy the artist.

In a career spanning 33 years, Derbhle Crotty has acted on most of the main stages of Ireland and the UK, including those of the Abbey Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Druid, Royal Court and Bristol Old Vic. She has played title roles in Hecuba, Portia Coughlan, Miss Julie, and Henry IV, and she has played Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard and Arkadina in The Seagull. Derbhle has twice won the Best Actress award at the Irish Times Theatre Awards and is a recipient of the Ian Charleson Award. An associate of the Abbey Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, she is also a member of the Druid Ensemble.

Tickets & Details

The conversation is free & open to the public; advance tickets required. Tickets also available at the door prior to the start of the event.

Get tickets through University Ticketing

Directions

Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.

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A Conversation with the Abbey Theatre: Caitríona McLaughlin and Jen Coppinger

In a new partnership with Ireland’s Abbey Theatre, Fund for Irish Studies Co-chair and Director of the Program in Theater & Music Theater Jane Cox moderates a conversation on running a national theater with the Abbey’s Artistic Director Caitríona McLaughlin and Head of Producing Jen Coppinger.

The Fund for Irish Studies Series is co-chaired by Cox and Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters.

About the Guest Artists

Caitríona stands outdoors under a cloudy grey-blue sky. She wears a grey wool coat and her hair is blown back by the wind. — Caitríona McLaughlin/ Photo credit: Richard Gilligan

Caitríona McLaughlin is currently Artistic Director / Co-Director of the Abbey Theatre. Recent productions include Audrey or Sorrow by Marina Carr (in a co-production with Landmark Productions); The Weir by Conor McPherson; Translations by Brian Friel (an Abbey Theatre and Lyric Theatre, Belfast co-production) and winner of “Best Play Revival” at the 2022 UK Theatre Awards; and iGirl by Marina Carr.

McLaughlin was previously Associate Director at the Abbey Theatre from 2017-2020, where her productions included: The Great Hunger by Patrick Kavanagh; Citysong by Dylan Coburn Gray; On Raftery’s Hill by Marina Carr; and Two Pints by Roddy Doyle. She also worked with theatre and opera companies on both sides of the border, including Wexford Opera, HotForTheatre, Irish National Opera, The Local Group, and Landmark Productions.

Prior to moving into directing, McLaughlin worked as a drama facilitator in Northern Ireland with young people and in conflict resolution. In London, she directed numerous productions, focusing primarily on new writing, and collaborated with the Royal Court in sourcing and developing a new theatre space. She was awarded a Clore Fellowship in 2007 and subsequently spent six summers with LAByrinth Theatre Company in New York developing new plays and directing a number of plays including Killers and other Family, as well as plays at Atlantic Theatre, Rattlestick, and Bard Summerscape.

Jen Coppinger smiles widely. She has short red wavy hair and wears a denim shirt embroidered with red flowers. — Jen Coppinger. Photo courtesy of Jen Coppinger

Jen Coppinger joined the Abbey Theatre as Head of Producing in January 2018. She produces the shows that are performed both at the Abbey Theatre, on its Abbey and Peacock stages, as well as touring shows out of the Abbey. She also fosters the relationships that lead to the co-production of work and is responsible for new theater work, touring work and productions of existing plays.

Previously, Coppinger worked as Producer for HotForTheatre, TheEmergencyRoom and United Fall as well as with independent artists such as Kevin Barry, Paul Curley, Jody O’Neill, Shane O’Reilly, Raymond Scannell and Dylan Tighe. She has toured work extensively in Ireland and internationally including a production of riverrun at the Lewis Center for the Arts in 2014.

Coppinger was Project Manager for the Laureate for Irish Fiction Anne Enright from 2015-2018 for the Arts Council of Ireland, and she was Manager of Rough Magic Seeds. She was Chairperson of Youth Theatre Ireland and United Fall and has sat on the boards of Theatre Forum, Dublin Fringe Festival, and Recovery through Art, Drama and Education (RADE).

Admission & Details

The lecture is free and open to the public; no advance tickets or registration required.

Directions

Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.

Accessibility

“A History of Ireland in 10 Poems” by Paul Muldoon

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, Princeton’s Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Creative Writing, offers a brief survey of Irish history from earliest times to the present day through the prism of his own poems. Free with no tickets required.

About Paul Muldoon

Paul Muldoon, dressed in black, sits leaning with his right arm on right knee while he looks off to his left. — Photo credit: Christine Harris

Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh in 1951. He now lives in New York. A former radio and television producer for the BBC in Belfast, he has taught at Princeton University for thirty-five years. He is the author of fifteen collections of poetry including Joy in Service on Rue Tagore, published by FSG and Faber and Faber in 2024. Among his awards are the 1972 Eric Gregory Award, the 1980 Sir Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, the 1994 T.S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2006 European Prize for Poetry, the 2015 Pigott Poetry Prize, the 2017 Queens Gold Medal for Poetry, and the 2020 Michael Marks Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Admission & Details

The lecture is free and open to the public; no advance tickets or registration required.

Directions

Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.

Accessibility

Lecture by Robert Spoo on “James Joyce’s Ulysses in New York”

Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters and co-chair of the Fund for Irish Studies, lectures on “James Joyce’s Ulysses in New York: A Counterfactual View from Fifth Avenue.”

“James Joyce’s Ulysses in New York: A Counterfactual View from Fifth Avenue”

James Joyce’s Ulysses was famously first published as a book in 1922 in Paris, France, by the American bookseller Sylvia Beach (who had lived in Princeton as a young woman and is buried here). The centenary of this momentous literary event has recently been celebrated throughout the world. But what if Ulysses the book had first been published, not in Paris, but in New York, New York? After all, it came close to happening just that way. The history of Ulysses—and of New York’s role in modernist literature—would have been vastly different had Joyce’s masterpiece debuted from Fifth Avenue or West 40th Street rather than the rue de l’Odéon in Paris.

This talk by Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters, will perform the thought experiment of substituting New York for Paris as the birthplace of the unexpurgated Ulysses. Along the way, a lively cast of characters will take the stage: lavish patrons, overworked lawyers, timid and courageous publishers, a shameless literary pirate, censors and smuthounds, and the famous Irish author himself. Spoo co-chairs the 2024-25 Fund for Irish Studies Series with Jane Cox, Director of the Program in Theater & Music Theater in the Lewis Center.

About Robert Spoo

Photo credit: Sarah Malone

Robert Spoo is the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters at Princeton University. Previously, he held an endowed chair in Law at the University of Tulsa, where he was also Professor of English and edited the James Joyce Quarterly. He earned his Ph.D. in English at Princeton and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Spoo’s research and teaching merge interdisciplinary interests in literature, law, and theories of intellectual property and the public domain. His writing focuses on modern Irish figures, notably James Joyce and Oscar Wilde, and he is actively involved in the law-and-literature movement within modernist studies. Pairing his academic career with work as a practicing lawyer, he has assisted scholars, writers, and creative artists with the challenges of copyright and fair use and served as co-counsel in a groundbreaking lawsuit to free scholars from unwarranted copyright threats by the Estate of James Joyce. His books include James Joyce and the Language of History: Dedalus’s Nightmare (Oxford University Press, 1994); Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (Oxford University Press, 2013); Modernism and the Law (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018); and (with Omar Pound) Ezra Pound and Margaret Cravens: A Tragic Friendship, 1910-1912 (Duke University Press, 1988) and Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945-1946 (Oxford University Press, 1999). Spoo is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for 2016-2017; a Law and Public Affairs (LAPA) Fellowship at Princeton for 2020-2021; and an Oklahoma Center for the Humanities Fellowship for 2022-2023.

Admission & Details

The lecture is free and open to the public; no advance tickets or registration required.

Directions

Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.