Events

Recent Public Events and Publications

• Maciej Ruczaj, an MA student of Irish Studies, was awarded a Mathesius Prize for the best thesis in the academic year 2006-7 for his work “(Post)Modern Inferno: Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman between Modern and Medieval Netherworlds“
• Publication of Ondřej Pilný, Irony and Identity in Modern Irish Drama (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006), and Clare Wallace (ed.), Monologues: Theatre, Performance, Subjectivity (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006).
• Exhibition on the life and the work of Samuel Beckett co-organised with the Embassy of Ireland to the Czech Republic (Karolinum, April 2006). Guest of honour: Václav Havel. Photos.
• Publication of J.M. Synge, Hrdina západu: dramata a próza, ed. Ondřej Pilný (Praha: Fraktály, 2006), an annotated edition of Synge’s work in new Czech translations. The translators have included a number of the Centre’s graduates.
• Joint publication of the Report of the Irish Forum on the Future of Irish Studies (Florence, November 2005) by the Forum and the Centre for Irish Studies; download Report; Forum website.
• Publication of Ondřej Pilný, Clare Wallace (eds.), Global Ireland: Irish Literatures for the New Millennium (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2005), a volume of essays resulting from the 2005 IASIL conference.
• Visit of poet Seamus Heaney (2002). Photos.
• Visit of Dr Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland (1999). Photos.

Conferences Organised by the Centre

• The Third Prague International James Joyce Colloquium took place in April 2007.
• An International Colloquium on Samuel Beckett (“The Deaths of Writing: Beckett, Author and Avant-texte,” November 2006).
• The 2005 annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL) which brought together over 300 scholars from all over the world to discuss "Ireland as a Global Village."
• The First Prague International James Joyce Colloquium focused on Hypertext and Genetics (September 2003), followed by a second colloquium which took place as part of the 2005 IASIL conference; a third colloquium is in preparation for May 2007.

Guest Speakers

2008

Professor Michael Cronin (Dublin City University)
Lecture: “The Politics of Accent”

Prof. Nicholas Grene (Trinity College Dublin))
Lecture: “Beckett and Irish Drama: An Offstage Presence”

2007

Dr Roisín Ní Ghairbhí (St Patrick's College, Drumcondra)
Lecture: “Contemporary Irish-Language Poetry”

David Doyle (National University of Ireland, Galway)
Lecture: “Section 1 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935: A Reappraisal (Sexual Transgression in the Irish Free State)”)
Seminar: “Methods and Sources of Archival Research in Ireland”

Prof. Brian Singleton (Trinity College Dublin; President of the International Federation for Theatre Research)
Lecture: “Masculinities and the Irish Theatre”

Prof. Joep Leerssen (University of Amsterdam)
Lecture: “Women’s Complaints in Irish Literature (Dónall Óg and the Keen for Art O’Leary): Orality, Canonicity, and the Balkan Connection”

Keith Hopper (Oxford University)
Lecture: “Ireland into Film: Adapting Irish Literature”

Dr Claire Connolly (Cardiff University)
Lecture: “Irish Literary Criticism from Romanticism to Postcolonialism”

2006

Prof. Patricia Coughlan (National University of Ireland, Cork)
Lecture: "Chipped and Tilted Marys: Emergent Irish Poetry"

Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (National University of Ireland, Galway)
Lecture: “Riverdance and Metaphor: Cultural Prescience of the Celtic Tiger”

Pádraic Ó Liatháin (Trinity College, Dublin)
Visiting speaker in Irish language courses.

Prof. R.F. Foster (Oxford University)
Lecture: “‘The Gift of Adaptability’: Anxious Influences in Yeats and Joyce”

Dr Carol Taaffe (Trinity College Dublin)
Lecture: “Flann O’Brien’s Work in Progress: At Swim-Two-Birds and the Irish Free State”

Dr Bruce Stewart (University of Ulster at Coleraine; November)
Lecture: “Count Dracula and the Spirit of the Nation: Irish Readings of the Vampire Classic”

2005

Prof. Elmer Kennedy-Andrews (University of Ulster at Coleraine)
Lecture: “Brian Friel’s Postcolonial Drama”

Dr Jerzy Jarniewicz (Lodz/Warsaw)
Lecture: “Poetry from Northern Ireland: In the Shadow of a Foreign Tongue”

Nessa Cronin (NUI Galway)
Lecture: “Cartography and the Politics of Translation”

Dr Lance Pettitt:(Leeds Metropolitan University)
Lecture: "'We're not fukkin' Ey-talians: Gangsters, genre and Irish Cinema"

Prof. Werner Huber (Chemnitz University of Technology/University of Vienna)
Lecture: "'Men of Aran': Liam O'Flaherty, Robert Flaherty and Ethnographic Documentaries from the West of Ireland"

Prof. Richard Deutsch (Université de Lyon III)
Lecture: "Success or Failure of the Northern Irish Peace Process?"

2004

Dr Fran Brearton (Queen’s University, Belfast)
Lecture: "Trying to Make Ourselves Heard: Michael Longley and Northern Irish Poetry"

Prof. Luke Gibbons (University of Notre Dame)
Lectures: "History off the Page: Text, Context and Narrative in Joyce" "Space of Time through Times of Space: Joyce, Ireland and Colonial Modernity"

Prof. Mícheál MacCraith (NUI Galway)
Lecture: "Charles Henry Wilson: The First Translator of Irish Poetry into English"

Prof. Declan Kiberd (University College Dublin)
Lecture: "James Joyce and Irish Modernism"

Dr Louis de Paor (NUI Galway)
Lecture: "An Inside-Outside Complex: Writing a Second Language" followed by a reading of his poetry.
Lecture: "The Unbearable Thingness of Things: Flann O'Brien and Early Irish Literature"

2003

Prof. Edna Longley (Queen’s University, Belfast)
Lecture: "Yeats and Irish Poetry"

Michael Longley
Poetry Reading at Damúza

Prof. Dennis Kennedy (Trinity College Dublin)
Lecture: “The Old Lady Says Yes: The Past Decade at the Abbey Theatre”

Dr Gerry Smyth (John Moores University Liverpool)
Lecture: “Ireland Unplugged: Folk and Traditional Music in the 1960s”
Seminar: “Beautiful Day: 40 Years of Irish Rock”