On 9 April, Professor Mary Gilmartin gave her inaugural lecture on Placing Migration: the challenge of belonging in a precarious World.
Mary's lecture wove together her personal and family biography, her work with graduate students in Geography as well as with academics in other disciplines, and her sense of the importance of migration for the Irish experience of the modern world. Mary, as also in this interview, reviewed the political decisions embodied in definitions and data in this field. She noted the importance of coming and going for all Irish communities, both here and there, both now and then. With this context of continual movement Irish people should be well placed to extend to others the hospitality upon which in other places they have themselves relied upon. Yet, in the field of migration, there is all too often a hierarchy of concerns with good migrants identified in discriminatory, often racist, fashion. Allowing mobile others make a home as our neighbours is a recurring responsibility and Professor Gilmartin's work has described and explained the frequent inadequacy of the Irish response. This lecture was an exemplary exercise in public geography and the Department and Mary's other friends were made very proud.
Professors Karen Till, Mary Gilmartin and Jan Rigby before Professor Gilmartin's Inaugural lecture.
Professors Gerry Kearns and Mary Gilmartin
Professor Mary Gilmartin and President Philip Nolan