St Mary's Centre for Irish Studies Update - Language, Film, Research

May has been an eventful month for the Centre for Irish Studies across the fields of Irish language, international arts and research outputs. Early in the month, St Mary’s students on the Irish language courses received certificates and fáinnes in recognition of their achievements, presented by HE Dan Mulhall at the Irish Embassy. Funded by the Irish Government, these courses have grown in popularity under the tutoring of Christy Evans. To round off the month, an MA Irish Studies student-led event took place on 26 May that celebrated novelist John McGahern, with a talk organized by Daniel Cassidy and John Ward that included a screening of a documentary biography of the writer. Last week saw Prof Lance Pettitt speak on The Ghost in the Machine: Yeats and Film at the Irish Lives conference and film festival in Florianopolis, Brazil, which he co-curated. Part funded with a grant from Culture Ireland, Irish Lives explored the relations between film and biography, featuring a retrospective of the work of Alan Gilsenan. The conference enjoyed the active participation of HE Brian Glynn, Ambassador to Brazil, Consul-General Sharon Lennon and film director Alan Gilsenan throughout the event. This event kick-started with the launch of THE ROAD TO GOD KNOWS WHERE, a bi-lingual book and DVD co-edited by Prof Pettitt and Prof. Kopschitz Bastos (UFSC) in Sao Paulo. This weekend in Dublin also saw the continued participation of Professor Shaun Richards, Research Fellow in Irish Studies at CIS at the Marginal Irish Modernisms research network event at Trinity College, Dublin, a 2-year AHRC funded project in which CIS is a Co-Investigator partner. This week, at the University of Vienna, Prof Pettitt will give a lecture: Risings, Reels and Revisionists on film representations of the 1916 Rising as part of special lecture series featuring academics from all over Europe, including CIS Research Fellow, Dr Keith Hopper, who spoke on Eimar Duffy’s fiction in mid-May. This wraps up a highly productive period for CIS and evidences its activity, recognition and influence in “Irish Studies” in the UK/Ireland, Europe and further afield. Follow Twitter @CISLondon For the lecture download “Yeats and Film”: www.lancepettitt.com/news