Year in Review2014-2015

Donald R. Keough: In Memoriam 1926-2015

From the Director

Christopher FoxProfessor of EnglishDirector, Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies

As I reflect on the last twenty-plus years of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, I cannot help but be struck by how far we have come in that short time. What began with the intellectual leadership of Seamus Deane and the generous support of the Keough and Naughton families has become even stronger through our great friends on the Ireland Council and the efforts of Notre Dame's faculty, students, and administration. As we join the University's newest school, the Keough School of Global Affairs, it is a point of pride that our Institute is now widely recognized as a preeminent center for Irish Studies worldwide.

Our move this year into the west of Ireland with the Kylemore Abbey Initiative can only serve to strengthen our desire to bring Ireland to Notre Dame and Notre Dame to Ireland. The Keough-Naughton Institute's new

internationally-aired television documentary on the 1916 rising, along with our partnership with the Irish government in a global series of seminars on "Re-Framing 1916," will help us bring Ireland to the world.

Despite these successes, it is always good to remember the advice of our late Ireland Council co-chair Don Keough that we should see our project as a journey and not a destination. We need to keep our momentum going and, in Don’s words, to “stay nervous.” I thank the entire Notre Dame community for its extraordinary spirit and support.

Bringing Ireland to Notre Dame

President of Ireland from 1997 to 2011, Mary McAleese was the Distinguished Martin and Carmel Naughton Visiting Scholar in the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Judge James J. Clynes Visiting Chair in the Notre Dame Law School in Spring 2015.

In the first event supported by the new Brian J. Logue Northern Ireland Initiative, former President McAleese spoke to the University community on March 15, 2015, on the Northern Ireland peace process and its future path. One theme of her address was “building bridges,” which she called “a straightforward metaphor for a difficult but essential undertaking…the attempt to redeem a divisive past by creating a shared future.”

Mary McAleese speaks on “The Irish Peace Process: Where to From Here?”

Two annual lectures are immensely important in the life of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies:

On August 28, 2014, the University community was invited to participate in the second annual Seamus Heaney Memorial Lecture. Titled “To Set the Darkness Echoing,” Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Professor John Kelly, St. John's Oxford, the year’s Donald R. Keough Visiting Fellow, offered poetry, prose, reflections and examination of the life and works of Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Laureate (1939-2013).

On March 31, 2015, Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literature at Harvard University, presented the second annual lecture in honor of the late Breandán Ó Buachalla. Breandán Ó Buachalla was the inaugural Thomas J. and Kathleen M. O’Donnell Chair of Irish Language and Literature at the University of Notre Dame and was instrumental to the success of both the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Department of Irish Language and Literature.

The Seamus Heaney and Breandán Ó Buachalla Memorial Lectures

John Kelly,Donald R. Keough Distinguished Professor (Emeritus Research Fellow in English, St. John’s College, Oxford)

Ian McBride,Patrick B. O'Donnell Visiting Professor of Irish Studies (Professor of Irish and British History, Kings College London)

Sophie Sweetman McConnell,Keough-Naughton Fellow (Author and Member of Notre Dame’s Ireland Council)

Sarah L. Townsend,Keough-Naughton Fellow (Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Dakota)

Colette Bryce,Herbert Allen and Donald R. Keough Visiting Faculty Fellow and Writer in Residence(Poet)

Mary McAleese,Distinguished Martin and Carmel Naughton Visiting Scholar in the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Judge James J. Clynes Visiting Chair in the Notre Dame Law School

Matthew GertkenUniversity of Texas, Austin Ph.D. English

Florence ImpensTrinity College Dublin Ph.D. English

2014-2015 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows

Spring 2015

Fall 2014

Visiting Scholars

Claire Dunne, from Trinity College Dublin, was the 2014-2015 Fulbright Foreign Language

Teaching Assistant.

FLTA

Irish Studies offered over 40 cross-listed classes, including

history, literature, film, theatre, anthropology, and Irish language

and literature.

Classes

Rev. Sean McGraw, C.S.C.: How Parties Win: Shaping the Irish Political Arena (University of Michigan Press, 2015)

Faculty Publishing Declan Kiberd and P.J. Mathews, Editors Handbook of the Irish Revival: An Anthology of Irish Cultural and Political Writings 1891-1922 (Abbey Theatre Press, 2015)

Barry McCrea: Languages of the Night: Minor Languages and the Literary Imagination in Twentieth-Century Ireland and Europe (Yale University Press, 2015)

Ian Kuijt (with Ryan Lash, William Donaruma, Katie Shakour, Tommy Burke) Island Places, Island Lives: Exploring Inishbofin and Inishark Heritage, County Galway, Ireland (Wordwell Books, 2015)

Faculty FellowsThe Faculty Fellows of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies comprise the interdisciplinarity that is at our core. Through our 28 fellows from 11 departments across the College of Arts and Letters and the Mendoza College of Business, the Keough-Naughton Institute fully engages with Irish history, literature, culture, and politics.

A new faculty fellow is Ian Newman, Assistant Professor of English. Professor Newman is a scholar of British and Irish literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. His research focuses on literature, balladry, politics, and urban space.

A graduate of Cambridge University and UCLA, Professor Newman has published a recent article titled "Edmund Burke in the Tavern," for the European Romantic Review.

Bringing Notre Dameto Ireland

InternshipsTen Notre Dame undergraduates spent Summer 2015 interning in Ireland:Graduate student Daniel O'Brien was

the 2014-2015 Murphy Irish Exchange Fellow, spending the year at Notre Dame. The Exchange Fellowship was established

to promote research in Irish Studies through a greater understanding between

graduate students at Notre Dame and University College Cork.

Exchange Fellowship

Keough Interns:

Julia Buff Gaelic Athletic Association, Media Relations/Communications

Seán Cotter National Gallery of Ireland, Education Department

Bridget Galassini Department of Foreign Affairs, Reconciliation Fund

Cecelia Heffron Department of Foreign Affairs, Press Office

Megan McCuen Fighting Words (children’s creative writing center)

Margaret McDowell Poetry Ireland

John McGinn National Folklore Collection

Graham Pilotte Abbey Theatre

Pfeiffer Irish Research Interns:Kelsey Sullivan and Kate Broadbent of Notre Dame joined their Irish counterparts Patrick Jordan (Carlow Institute of Technology) and Sarah McAvinchey (Trinity College Dublin) at the Don Bosco Care Center in Dublin, which provides residential care and support for young people who cannot live in their family home.

May the road rise up to meet you,May the wind be always at your back,

May the sunshine warm upon your face,The rain fall soft upon your fields,

And until we meet again,May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Bringing Ireland to the World

Brendan Behan Conference

2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Brendan Behan (1923-1964), one of the most talked-about but least studied of the major Irish writers of the mid-20th century. Behan’s writing has been overshadowed by his colorful life; but his work, in both English and Irish, was animated by a particular kind of revolutionary spirit.

Notre Dame's Rome Global Gateway hosted the first international conference on Behan’s work. Chaired by Barry McCrea, Donald R. Keough Family Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English, and John McCourt, Università Roma Tre, the two-day conference explored the author’s writings in both English and Irish while taking stock of his overall achievement and legacy. Speakers included Enrico Terrinoni (University for Foreigners, Perugia), Mícheál MacCraith (formerly of NUI Galway), Janet Behan (the writer’s niece and author of a play about his life), John Branningan (University College Dublin), Michael Pierse (Queen’s University Belfast), and many more.

IRISH Seminar Meets in Buenos AiresOver 20 graduate students—in disciplines ranging from English to

History to Medieval Studies—are affiliated with the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies.

Since 1999, the Institute has sponsored the summer IRISH seminar that brings together Irish scholars, graduate students, and faculty in Irish Studies. An intense intellectual exchange and experience, the Seminar has been a formative experience for scores of Notre Dame graduate students and their peers from universities around the world.

This year, for the first time, the seminar met outside of Europe—in Buenos Aires, at the Institute for Economic and Social Development. The theme: Peripheral Modernities? Ireland, Argentina, Latin America.

The Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies neared completion of the landmark documentary film, 1916 The Irish Rebellion, that presents the Easter Rising as a pivotal event in world history.

Narrated by Liam Neeson, the Irish Government has made the film a centerpiece of its commemoration of the Rising in 2016. Shot on location in Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, India, New York City, and South Bend, and underpinned by scholarship and commentary from over 35 prominent historians, the film’s Notre Dame executive producers are Institute Director Christopher Fox and Bríona Nic Dhiarmada, the Thomas J. & Kathleen M. O’Donnell Professor of Irish Studies and Concurrent Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre.

Both the three-part series of 1916 The Irish Rebellion and its shorter, feature-film version were conceived, written, and produced by Professor Nic Dhiarmada, directed by Ruán Magan and Pat Collins, and feature a score by Patrick Cassidy performed by the RTÉ National Concert Orchestra. Screenings of the film and broadcasts on public television stations around the world will begin in March 2016, with academic symposia and colloquia at more than 20 national and international universities and institutions of higher learning to begin in June 2016.

1916 Project

Lectures and EventsIan McBride King’s College London

Fearghal McGarry Queen’s University Belfast

Donald Sassoon Queen Mary University of London

Roy Foster Hertford College, University of Oxford

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick

Julie Fowlis Scottish Singer and Musician

Kara Donnelly University of Notre Dame

Sarah McKibben University of Notre Dame

Brian Ó Conchubhair University of Notre Dame

Sarah Townsend University of South Dakota

Isabelle Torrance University of Notre Dame

Jessica Lumsden University of Notre Dame

Marie-Louise Coolahan National University of Ireland Galway

Liz Carroll, John Williams, and Katie Grennan Traditional Irish Musicians

Christopher Morash Trinity College Dublin

Ursula Barry University College Dublin

Feargal Ó Béarra National University of Ireland Galway

Matthew Gertken 2014-2015 Keough-Naughton Institute National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow

Colette Bryce Poet

Florence Impens 2014-2015 Keough-Naughton Institute National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow

Celebrating Our Students

Ailbhe Darcy

Katie Brennan

Ailbhe Darcy, of the Department of English and the Keough-Naughton Institute, received her doctorate in May 2015 with an accompanying graduate minor in Irish Studies. At Commencement, Ailbhe won the Graduate School’s 2015 Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Award in the Humanities — the highest honor bestowed on a Notre Dame graduate student — for her extraordinary success both as a poet and as a literary critic. In 2012, her poem “Silt Whisper” was named “Poem of the Week” by The Guardian—one week after a poem by Shakespeare received this same honor.

Katie Brennan ’15 was awarded the Donald and Marilyn Keough Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Irish Studies. A Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar and Sociology major with a concentration in Peace Studies and minors in Irish Studies and Irish Language and Literature, Katie spent two summers in Ireland: interviewing youth in Belfast about their communities, the past, and their hopes for the future; teaching in a peace studies program; and interning on the Keough-Naughton-produced film 1916 The Irish Rebellion. She is now earning a master’s degree in conflict transformation and social justice at Queen’s University Belfast.

Keough-NaughtonPeople

Institute Director

Christopher FoxProfessor of English

Senior Administrative Assistant

Beth Bland

Assistant Director

Mary Hendriksen

Faculty FellowsJoseph ButtigiegWilliam R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Literature and Director, Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program

Aedín Ní Bhróithe ClementsAssociate Librarian

Edward "Mark" CummingsProfessor and Notre Dame Endowed Chairin Psychology

Seamus Deane Professor of English and Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies Emeritus

Sarah McKibben Associate Professor of Irish Language and Literature

Peter McQuillan Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Irish Language and Literature

Amy Mulligan Assistant Professor of Irish Language and Literature

Ian Newman Assistant Professor of English

Bríona Nic Dhiarmada Thomas J. and Kathleen M. O'Donnell Professor of Irish Studies and Concurrent Professor of Film, Television and Theatre

Mary O'Callaghan Assistant Teaching Professor of Irish Language and Literature

Brian Ó Conchubhair Associate Professor of Irish Language and Literature and Director, Center for the Study of Languages and Culture

Diarmuid Ó Giolláin Professor of Irish Language and Literature, Concurrent Professor of Anthropology

Abigail PalkoAssociate Director and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Gender Studies Program; Affiliate Faculty Member of the Department of Africana Studies

Rory RappleAssistant Professor of History

Robert SchmuhlDirector, John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics & Democracy, Walter H.Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Professor ofAmerican Studies and Journalism

John F. Sherry, Jr.Raymond W. & Kenneth G. Herrick Professor of Marketing, Concurrent Professor of Anthropology

Jim SmythProfessor of History

Isabelle TorranceAssociate Professor of Classics

Kevin WhelanMichael Smurfit Director of the Keough Naughton Centre in Dublin

Patrick Griffin Chair, Madden-Hennebry Professor of History

Susan Harris Associate Professor of English

Declan Kiberd Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies, Professor of English and Irish Language and Literature

Ian Kuijt Professor of Anthropology

Tara MacLeod Associate Teaching Professor of Irish Language and Literature

Sara Maurer Associate Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of English

Barry McCrea Donald R. Keough Family Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English, Irish Language and Literature, and Romance Languages and Literatures

Rev. Sean McGraw, C.S.C. Assistant Professor of Political Science

Learn MoreWebsiteirishstudies.nd.edu

Facebookfacebook.com/ndirishstudies

For more information about the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, please contact:Mary Hendriksen, Assistant Director mhendrik@nd.edu

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