While welcoming papers on any aspect of Ireland, Irish Australia or Irish New Zealand, or the Irish diaspora generally, this conference will also have a specific focus around the idea of diversity. Recognition will be given to 2015 as the centenary of significant events and developments both in Ireland and in Australia and New Zealand and papers will be welcomed that relate to those events and issues. Specific sessions are proposed on the First World War and Irish, Australian and New Zealand involvement; on the Irish country house and its occupants, historically, culturally and in contemporary Irish society; on religious diversity, both historically and in the present; on Irish and diaspora literature; and on memory and myth in Irish literature and history. More generally offers of papers or roundtable sessions will be welcome on topics that illuminate ‘others’, those groups or individuals who fall outside what has been seen as the mainstreams of Irish history and life.
Keynote contributors will include Terence Dooley, Department of History, Maynooth University; Margaret Kelleher, Professor of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama, University College, Dublin; and Guy Beiner, Senior Lecturer, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Sessions will take place at Maynooth University, approximately 30 minutes from Dublin city centre, from the 18-20th of June.
The conference is convened under the auspices of the Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand and with the support of the Research Development Office of Maynooth University, the Department of English at Maynooth University, the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates and by the Department of Foreign Affair’s Peace and Reconciliation Fund.
The Conference Convenors are:
Philip Bull (Department of History, La Trobe University, Melbourne and CSHIHE, Maynooth) P.J.Bull@latrobe.edu.au
Oona Frawley (Department of English, National University of Ireland, Maynooth) Oona.Frawley@mu.ie
Pauric Travers (Department of History, St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra) Pauric.Travers@spd.dcu.ie
Further information is available here: https://isaanzmaynooth2015.wordpress.com/