BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Irish Literary Society - ECPv6.17.3//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Irish Literary Society
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20190331T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20191027T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20200329T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20201025T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20210328T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20211031T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20220327T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20221030T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20230326T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20231029T010000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:UTC
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:UTC
DTSTART:20130101T000000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20220929T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20220929T203000
DTSTAMP:20220911T144959Z
CREATED:20220707T112204Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220911T144959Z
UID:19287-1664479800-1664483400@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Irish Texts Society / ILS Annual Lecture - 29 September
DESCRIPTION:The scholar Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail visits the Society to deliver our joint annual Noel O’Connell memorial talk with the Irish Texts Society. Her subject is Thomas O’Connor (alias Tomás Ó Conchubhair\, b. 1798)\, originally from the civil parish of Templemolaga\, Co. Cork\, he emigrated to London in 1820 where he worked as a tailor until his death around 1870. \nThe evidence in extant Irish manuscripts suggests that he had already begun working as a scribe in his native home place\, but that this role progressed significantly during his years in the Victorian city. His scribal material (in Irish and in English) provides an intriguing insight into a native man of letters who appears to have integrated himself into his host society\, while at the same time preserving a distinctive Irish identity. Moreover\, his fascinating collection of correspondence in English reveals a man with informed views about the language and literature of his native country. And\, in his thirty or so poetic compositions\, personal vignettes come to the fore as well as a great admiration for the Young Ireland movement and\, in particular\, for William Smith O’Brien\, the fair-haired boy (an buachaill bán). \nNí Úrdail first discovered O’Connor while conducting research some years ago on a text known in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Irish manuscripts as Leabhar Oiris (Book of History)\, which is essentially an encomium of the O’Briens of Thomond and this dynasty’s battles for supremacy in Ireland in the tenth and eleventh centuries. She was intrigued to discover that of this work’s twenty-six sources\, one was completed outside Ireland in 1848 by O’Connor “in the city of London” (a ccathair Londoine). Subsequent findings have uncovered eighteen extant manuscripts written entirely or in part by this Cork scribe when he was living in London\, and these are preserved today in the National Library of Ireland\, the Royal Irish Academy\, University College Cork\, NUI Galway and St. Malachy’s College\, Belfast. A further source containing O’Connor’s Irish translation of the first book of Milton’s Paradise Lost (written about the year 1860) is now lost\, but a copy may be consulted on microfilm.  In looking through old MSS\, which I purchased in Dublin a good number of years ago\, I find a translation into Irish of the 1st Book of Paradise Lost. It is by one Thomas O’Connor\, who\, from letters accompanying it\, seems to have been a tailor\, resident for many years in London…Letter 23 December 1893\, from Monsignor James O’Laverty to Fr Eugene O’Growney \n  \nPresented in association with the Irish Texts Society:  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n\nSpeaker:  \nProfessor Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail\n\nMeidhbhín Ní Úrdail is Professor in\, and Head of Modern Irish at University College Dublin. Ní Úrdail’s areas of research include the Irish manuscript tradition; Ireland’s vernacular written tradition from medieval times to the nineteenth century; narrative discourse and historical representation; the complementary relationship between script and print in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland; and contemporary Irish writing and its heritage. Her most recent monograph\, Pádraig Ó Laoghaire (1870–1896): an Irish scholar from the Béarra Peninsula\, was published by Beara Historical Society (2021).
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/irish-texts-society-ils-annual-lecture-29-september/
LOCATION:Irish Cultural Centre\, Hammersmith\, 5 Black’s Road Hammersmith\, W6 9DT\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:biography,emigration,exile,Irish language,lecture,London-Irish
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/its_ils_2022.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20220627T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20220627T210000
DTSTAMP:20220621T183242Z
CREATED:20220510T134754Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220621T183242Z
UID:19066-1656358200-1656363600@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Multiple Joyce - 27 June 2022
DESCRIPTION:In this centenary year of the publication of Ulysses we are delighted to welcome David Collard back to the Society with his new book\, Multiple Joyce: One Hundred Short Essays About James Joyce’s Cultural Legacy (Sagging Meniscus Press\, June 2022). Springing from the essays we’ll have discussion\, song\, readings and music to mark the UK launch of the book and to bring our season to a close. \n The story goes that a man in  Zürich once asked James Joyce if he could kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses. Joyce declined\, saying that it had done many other things as well. Multiple Joyce is a book inspired by those other things – it fizzes and astonishes at every turn\, springing Joyce’s masterpiece free from the idolatry of academe and reminding us how strange and hip it must have seemed in 1922. John Mitchinson\, co-host of Backlisted Podcast\nHolding up a funhouse mirror to our times\, Collard finds a multitude of Joyces\, in often ludicrous disguises\, wherever he looks—whether at Anthony Burgess\, Cher\, first editions\, Flann O’Brien\, Guinness\, Hattie Jacques\, John Cage\, Kim Kardashian\, Lego\, Moby-Dick\, numismatics\, perfume\, pianos\, Princess Grace\, puns\, The Ramones\, Sally Rooney\, Stanley Unwin\, Star Wars\, waxworks or Zylo spectacles. Endlessly reinvented and exploited\, Joyce emerges as a ubiquitous\, indispensable and ruthlessly commodified Everyman. An excerpt riffing on Timon of Athens\, Walter Benjamin and Ironman can be read on the RTÉ site. As Rónán Hession puts it in his foreword\, Collard is above all “good company” and “I wish that the first time anyone heard about Joyce was from David Collard.” We’re delighted that Hession\, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul and Panenka will be joining Collard in discussion. \n Collard’s Joyce nerdiness excels! Eimear McBride\nThe event will be followed by a sale of Multiple Joyce and a signing by the author. There will also be a grand giveaway of Joyce titles. \n  Speakers and performers: \n  \n David Collard\n\n\n\n  David Collard\nDavid Collard is a London-based writer\, reviewer\, researcher\, editor and occasional broadcaster\, appearing regularly in the Times Literary Supplement\, Literary Review and elsewhere\, in print and online. Previous titles include About a Girl\, a reader’s guide to Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (C B Editions\, 2016).Find out more on David’s website. \n\nRónán Hession\n\n\n\n  Rónán Hession\nRónán Hession is a writer and musician based in Dublin. His debut novel\, Leonard and Hungry Paul\, was published by Bluemoose Books in 2019. The book was shortlisted for numerous awards and chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 50 great Irish novels of the 21st century. Ronán’s second novel. \n\n Melanie Pappenheim\n\n\n\n  Melanie Pappenheim\nMelanie Pappenheim is a singer\, performer and composer. Her versatility has allowed her to explore several different genres. She has worked with with many leading contemporary composers including Jocelyn Pook\, Orlando Gough\, Gavin Bryars and Graham Fitkin and performed in a huge variety of venues ranging from The Royal Opera House\, the ENO\, The Royal Albert Hall\, the National Theatre\, Glyndebourne\, a barge on the Thames\, a tent in Sussex\, a tower in Wells\, in clubs\, in lighthouses\, hillsides\, halls and basements everywhere. Find out more on Melanie’s website. \n Sarah Angliss\n\n\n\n  Sarah Angliss\nSarah Angliss’ music explores the sonorities of voices and ancient instruments\, revealing and augmenting them with her distinctive electronic techniques. In 2021 she received a Visionary Award from the Ivors Academy for her body of work. Sarah draws on her lifelong interest in European folksong\, cybernetics and esoteric sound culture. These inspire her progressive and strikingly original music for film\, theatre and the live music stage.Find out more on Sarah’s website \n Frank Grimes\n\n\n\n  Frank Grimes\nFrank Grimes was born in Dublin and trained at the Abbey Theatre School of Acting. He was a member of the Abbey Players for seven years and performed in O’Casey\, Synge\, Yeats\, Lady Gregory\, Joyce and O’Connor. He scored an early success as the young Brendan Behan in Borstal Boy. rank has worked extensively in the theatre in London; at the National Theatre\, Royal Shakespeare Company\, the Royal Court and in London’s West End\, as well as in Dublin and New York. Amongst his many Joyce related credits he performed in Anthony Burgess’s Joyce musical Blooms of Dublin and has previously performed his hit one-man show on James Joyce\, “…the he and the she of it…” in Dublin\, London and Paris.Find out more on Frank’s website \n\nStephanie Ellyne\n\n\n\n  Stephanie Ellyne\nStephanie Ellyne is an American actress based in London and Dublin. She recorded the 45-hour audio book of Booker nominee Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks\, Newburyport (Whole Story/W.F. Howes) in 2020\, and plays Amy Jennings in on-going British/American audio drama Dark Shadows with Big Finish\, nominated for the BBC Audio Drama Awards. Other work includes The Confessions of Dorian Gray (Big Finish; Open Book (BBC Radio 4); and The Man Behind The Prophet (BBC World Service). Stephanie records stories for the annual Costa Short Story Award\, and is a frequent narrator for RNIB Talking Books. Her most recent audio book is Things Are Against Us by Lucy Ellmann (W.F. Howes).   \n\n\n\n  \n 
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/multiple-joyce/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,emigration,exile,history,Joyce,music,Reading,research,Ulysses
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Multiple-Joyce-slider8.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200127T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200127T203000
DTSTAMP:20200203T161543Z
CREATED:20200117T115551Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T161543Z
UID:16281-1580153400-1580157000@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:The Female Detective - 27 Jan
DESCRIPTION:As we approach St Brigid’s Day we are delighted to welcome an all-female panel to an event considering the continuing popularity of Irish crime writing\, so-called “Emerald Noir”. Our guests will read from their work\, reflect on their portrayal of female detectives and as all three are UK-based we’ll consider their London and Dublin settings. In Maeve Kerrigan (Casey)\, Bridie Devine (Kidd) and Frankie Sheehan (Kiernan) we have three brilliantly drawn female detectives overcoming obstacles and prejudice. \nHow do we account for the huge growth in popularity of Irish crime writing\, is it connected to peace in Northern Ireland\, the economic collapse from 2008? Is generic labelling useful or does it signal a lack of appreciation of the quality of writing? Join our panel for an evening of readings and discussion on their work\, influences and perspectives on the crime fiction genre. \n\n ‘One of the most thoroughly human and convincing police officers in the fictional ranks’ The Guardian on Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan. \n‘Thrilling\, mysterious\, twisted’ Graham Norton on Jess Kidd’s Things in Jars \n‘Olivia Kiernan writes with a rare mastery . . . A total triumph’ Rachel Edwards\, on Olivia Kiernan’s The Killer in Me \n\n  \n\n\n \n The event will be followed by a sale and signing of books.   \n  \n \nChair: Katherine Armstrong\n\n\n \nKatherine Armstrong has worked in publishing for over fifteen years and is currently Editorial Director for Fiction at Bonnier Books UK. She has previously worked at Faber & Faber and Little\, Brown. Her speciality is crime and thriller fiction. She was one of the founding organisers of First Monday Crime Nights in London and is programme consultant for NOIReland\, a new international crime fiction festival in Belfast. Follow Katherine on twitter: @katherinecrime \n  \nSpeaker: Jane Casey\n\n\n \nCrime is a family affair for Jane Casey. Married to a criminal barrister\, she has a unique insight into the brutal underbelly of urban life\, from the smell of a police cell to the darkest motives of a serial killer. This gritty realism has made her books international bestsellers and critical successes; while Detective Maeve Kerrigan has quickly become one of the most popular characters in crime fiction. Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award for THE STRANGER YOU KNOW\, Jane also won The Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year 2019 for CRUEL ACTS. Her new Maeve Kerrigan novel THE CUTTING PLACE is publishing in April. Jane is also a member of Killer Women. Follow Jane on twitter: @JaneCaseyAuthor \n  \n  \n  \nSpeaker: Jess Kidd\n\n\n \nJess Kidd is the author of three novels and is the winner of the 2016 Costa Short Story Award. Jess’ debut novel\, Himself\, was published by Canongate in October 2016. The Hoarder\, her second novel\, hit the shelves in February 2018. Jess’s third book Things in Jars came out 4 April 2019 and features the intrepid detective Bridie Devine. She is also currently developing her own original TV projects with leading UK and international TV producers\, her children’s book Everyday Magic will be published in June 2020. Follow Jess on twitter: @JessKiddHerself \n  \nSpeaker: Olivia Kiernan Olivia Kiernan is an Irish writer. In a previous life\, she completed a diploma in anatomy and physiology then a BSc in Chiropractic before she succumbed to the creative itch and embarked on an MA in Creative writing. In 2015\, she began writing Too Close to Breathe\, a crime thriller that was published in 2018 and features Dublin detective\, Frankie Sheehan. The second in the series\, The Killer in Me was published April 2019. Follow Olivia on twitter: @LivKiernan. \n 
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/the-female-detective-27-jan/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:crime,exile,feminism,London-Irish,novel,Reading,women
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/female-detective_2.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20191125T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20191125T203000
DTSTAMP:20200203T214611Z
CREATED:20190915T181936Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T214611Z
UID:12390-1574710200-1574713800@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Polly Devlin\, Writing Home - 25 Nov
DESCRIPTION:Polly Devlin joins Joan Bakewell to discuss the latest collection of her work\, Writing Home\, and to reflect on a rich career as a writer\, her working as features editor of Vogue in London in the Swinging Sixties\, to encounters with Bob Dylan\, Janis Joplin\, Barbara Streisand\, John Lennon…In the pieces brought together in Writing Home\, Polly Devlin OBE\, covers subjects that range over her whole life and thought. She writes about places: about her childhood deep in the countryside of Northern Ireland (where\, in the late 1950s\, the first electricity poles looked ‘literally out of place’); her sudden transition\, at the age of twenty-one\, to Swinging Sixties London\, where she worked for Vogue and became very much part of the scene (although – ‘it’s like being a provincial at Versailles’)\, on to New York\, back to London\, then to the English countryside\, and to Paris\, Venice\, the world over – and always back to Ireland\, London and New York. \nShe writes about the people she has known\, among them Yoko Ono\, Mick Jagger\, Peggy Guggenheim\, Diana Vreeland (‘as fantastical as a unicorn’)\, Jean Shrimpton (‘she looks as though she sleeps in cathedral pews and sucks artichoke hearts for sustenance’)\, Princess Margaret (who came to dinner and did the washing up\, ‘which I gabbled she didn’t need to – she looked at me frostily and the royal hands went back into the Fairy Liquid’). And she writes about the issues that have preoccupied her: about emigration\, feminism (‘I grew up in a society where men were fundamental and women were secondary’)\, reading\, writing\, collecting\, shopping\, houses\, dogs\, rooks\, hares\, dreams\, friendship and the kindness of strangers; about daughters and mothers. \n \n \n\n“…affectionate sketches of friends including Nuala O’Faolain and her brother-in-law Seamus Heaney…ring with truth and tenderness.”Irish Times\n\nThe event will be followed by a book sale and signing by the author. \n  \nOur thanks to the publishers of Writing Home:  \n  \n\nSpeaker: Joan Bakewell\n\n\nJoan Bakewell has a distinguished career as an author\, journalist and broadcaster. She has served on the board of the National Theatre and as Chair of the British Film Institute and of the National Campaign for the Arts. Joan was made a CBE is 1999 and Dame in 2008. In January 2011 she took her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Bakewell of Stockport. In April 2013\, she became President of Birkbeck College.She has led some of the BBC’s most well-remembered documentaries and news programmes\, challenging taboos around sex; examining religion from a critical\, objective standpoint; and being a champion for arts and culture and their relevance to life. \n\n  \nSpeaker: Polly Devlin\n\n\nPolly Devlin is a writer\, broadcaster and filmmaker. She holds an OBE for services to literature. After spending her childhood in Northern Ireland\, at the age of twenty-two she took up her first job – as a writer\, and soon features editor\, on British Vogue\, at the heart of 1960s London. A couple of years later she was again transported\, to New York\, to work for Diana Vreeland on American Vogue – where\, once more\, she was very much part of the scene she wrote about in her newspaper column and articles including for The Sunday Times\, New Statesman and Observer. Her first book\, All of Us There\, is now a Virago Modern Classic. The most recent\, New York: Places to Write Home About (Pimpernel Press\, 2017; published in the United States by Gibbs Smith\, as New York: Behind Closed Doors) was greeted with delight on both sides of the Atlantic. She now divides her time between London and New York\, where\, until her recent retirement\, she taught Creative Non-Fiction at Barnard College\, Columbia University.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/polly-devlin-writing-home-25-nov/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:biography,book signing,exile,feminism,interview,Reading,research,social history,women
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/polly-devlin-slider.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20190930T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20190930T210000
DTSTAMP:20200203T213016Z
CREATED:20190903T204313Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200203T213016Z
UID:12007-1569871800-1569877200@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:I Wouldn't Start from Here - 30 Sept
DESCRIPTION:The ILS is delighted to start its 2019-20 season with a showcase of second-generation Irish writers in Britain. Not quite British\, not quite Irish\, through their essays\, fiction and poetry about music\, family\, and history these distinguished writers explore questions of identity and belonging and ask the perennial question: where is home – here or Ireland?  When questions of authenticity arise\, the slur “plastic Paddy” cannot be far behind and this shameful epithet is referenced in several of the essays here. Moy McRory’s excellent Memory and Authenticity states that the term was “in part given spurs…by the new influx of educated and highly-skilled Irish who encountered the seismic shock of how openly hostile they found their new neighbours on relocation to Britain. When we were lumped in together as ‘English’ we were made invisible. In this way\, a group who had been barely perceived and described were being excluded and silenced”. Martina Evans review in The Irish Times The event also launches the volume I Wouldn’t Start from Here from the new publishing house The Wild Geese Press set up to publish on the Irish diasporic experience. The writers gathered in the volume hold up a mirror to the diverse and complicated experience of the Irish in Britain. \nThe collection features essays\, fiction and poetry from Elizabeth Baines\, Maude Casey\, Ray French\, Maria C. McCarthy\, Dr Tony Murray\, Moy McCrory\, Kath Mckay and John O’Donoghue and many more. \nDuhig’s The Road reflects on his upbringing in London and of family talk of ‘home’ of Irish pub and music culture of North London ‘…near where my father worked in Cricklewood\, was the Galtymore pub/club complex\, a great barn of a place where Sligo flute player Roger Sherlock had been a regular performer in a semi-professional house band. Even so\, Nuala O’Connor’s Bringing It All Back Home reports him saying\, “It still wasn’t enough to make a living out of\, nothing like it.” He also worked “six days a week with pick and shovel . . . mostly roads\, you know\, which was hard work.” Near the Galtymore\, the Crown was effectively a labour exchange for Irish construction workers where cheques could be cashed on pay nights.’ \nThe event includes the editors and contributors to the collection and features the poet Ian Duhig. The moving and insightful essay Ian contributed to the volume was also featured in the Irish Times recently to great acclaim. A book sale and signing will follow the event. \n  \nL TO R: JOHN O’DONOGHUE (PUBLISHER); IAN DUHIG; RAY FRENCH; MOY MCCRORY; KATH MCKAY\, VINCE BURKE \nBefore the launch event on 30 September Vince Burke recorded interviews with the panel and the ILS Chairman\, James Lazar\, you can listen below: \n\n			\n		\n	\n	\n	\n	\n		I Wouldn't Start From Here- final version	\n	\n	\n\n	\n  \n  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n \nSpeaker: Ian Duhig\n\n\n \nIan Duhig became a full time writer after working with homeless people for fifteen years and having being made redundant. He has published since then\, among other things\, seven books of poetry\, most recently The Blind Roadmaker (Picador\, 2016) which was shortlisted for the TS Elliot and Forward prizes. He works with musicians\, artists and socially excluded groups\, recently editing Any Change: Poetry in a Hostile Environment (2018)\, a small poetry anthology from Leeds immigrant communities chosen as a Poetry School Book of the Year. Duhig has won the Forward Best Poem Prize once and the National Poetry Competition twice. Follow Ian on twitter: @ianduhig \n  \nSpeaker: Ray French\n \nRay French is the author of The Red Jag & other stories and the novels All This Is Mine and Going Under (both Vintage). He is also the co-author of Four Feathers and the co-editor of with Kath Mckay of End Notes: Ten stories about loss\, mourning and commemoration. His short stories have been broadcast on Radio 4 and appeared in numerous magazines and compilations\, including Best European Fiction 2013. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Hull. Some of his essays and podcasts can be found on the Royal Literary Fund website. Follow Ray on twitter @RayFrench15 \n  \n \n \n  \nSpeaker: Moy McCrory\n\n\n \nMoy McCrory is a writer and academic of Irish patronage who writes about identity and class. As a fiction writer she has had three collections of short stories and a novel published. Two of her books were serialised by the BBC and her work has been translated into 15 languages. Her short fiction is widely anthologised and she was included in the seminal Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. She was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Award. She is a Hawthornden Fellow\, a Senior Fellow of the HEA\, has lectured in Bremen University\, London University and is currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Derby and is a PhD examiner. \n  \nSpeaker: Kath Mckay\n\n\n \nKath Mckay has published two novels\, three poetry collections\, and short stories. Work includes Hard Wired (Moth\, 2016)\, Collision Forces (Wrecking Ball\, 2015) and Telling the Bees (Smiths Knoll\, 2014). Her short stories are anthologised and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She taught creative writing in London and now lectures at the University of Hull. Her most recent book (co-edited with Ray French) is End Notes: Ten stories about loss\, mourning and commemoration (2017).
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/i-wouldnt-start-from-here-30-sept/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell St\, London\, WC1B 3NN\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:archive,book signing,exile,London-Irish,poetry,politics,Reading,research,social history,tradition,women
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/start-from-here-slider.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20181119T060000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20181119T200000
DTSTAMP:20181003T201353Z
CREATED:20180912T131231Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20181003T201353Z
UID:10798-1542607200-1542657600@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:On the Pavement Grey: WB Yeats in Utopian Bedford Park - 19 Nov
DESCRIPTION:Lecture by Cahal Dallat with guests Ciarán Hinds and Anne-Marie Fyfe & launch of the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project\n \nNobel-prizewinning poet\, WB Yeats\, though much inspired by Irish legend\, landscape and longing\, spent two-thirds of his youth in London\, the majority of that time in Chiswick’s Bedford Park\, the Utopian/aesthetic garden-suburb/artists’-colony whose diverse inhabitants fostered his literary talent and endeavours. Irish poet and literary critic\, Cahal Dallat\, has lived within a few blocks of the Yeats family’s two Bedford Park homes for all of his adult life and\, fascinated by the way Willie\, his father\, and his artistic siblings\, negotiated the metropolis’s social networks\, while dreaming of Sleuth Wood or Ben Bulben\, has lectured on the importance to Victorian London of Irish artists (poets\, painters\, playwrights\, composers\, and politicians\, for politics\, too\, is an art in Ireland) … and on the usefulness of London’s complex intersections and patronage to often-penniless\, in a genteel way\, exiled geniuses. In Bedford Park’s heady progressive atmosphere (and its winding if artificially villagey avenues) lay the seeds of Yeats’s genius\, not to mention contemporary theatre\, Modernist poetry and political and cultural changes that would invert the social and imperial order in the 20th century. With contributions and readings from Yeats’s letters and poems by actor Ciarán Hinds and poet Anne-Marie Fyfe.\n \nThe 2018 Irish Literary Society WB Yeats Lecture at the Embassy of Ireland launches the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project founded to mark Yeats’s role in Bedford Park and Bedford Park’s role in Yeats’s artistic development and life\, by placing a permanent artwork at the heart of this progressive\, 19c\, and beautifully preserved\, garden suburb. \nTo apply for an ILS members ticket contact the Hon. Secretary: irishlitsoc@gmail.com Image credit: Camille Pissarro\, Fete de Jubilee a Bedford Park\, 1897. \nSpeakers:  Cahal DallatCahal Dallat is a poet\, musician\, critic (b. Ballycastle\, Co. Antrim)\, regular BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review contributor since 1998\, reviewer for TLS and Guardian among others\, founder/organiser of WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project\, and Charles Causley Trust Centenary musician/poet-in-residence. Former winner of Ireland’s leading poetry prize\, the Strokestown International\, his recent awards include the 2017 Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize\, and a 2018 Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship at University of Texas in Austin (supported by CP Snow Memorial Fund). Latest collection The Year of Not Dancing (Blackstaff); www.cahaldallat.com \n Ciarán Hinds \nCiarán Hinds was born in Belfast: his television roles include Gaius Julius Caesar in the series Rome and Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones while film has included the lead role in John Banville’s The Sea\, and playing opposite Daniel Day Lewis in Upton Sinclair’s There Will Be Blood.  As a stage actor his recent appearances include Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive\, Hamlet with Bendict Cumberbatch at the Barbican\, McPherson’s ‘Bob Dylan musical’ The Girl from the North Country at the Old Vic\,  and the role of Hugh O’Donnell in Brian Friel’s Translations at the National.   \n Anne-Marie Fyfe \nAfter five poetry collections including House of Small Absences (Seren\, 2015)\, poet\, arts organiser\, creative-writing teacher & former Poetry Society chair\,  Anne-Marie Fyfe\, is currently embarked on a unique Arts-Council-funded 18-month teaching/writing/performing tour\, The Voyage Out\, exploring coastal regions & lives in Britain\, Ireland\, US & Canada\, leading to a new hybrid poetry/prose/travel-writing memoir (due\, Seren\, Spring 2019). Born in Cushendall\, Co. Antrim\, Anne-Marie lives in London where she has run Coffee-House Poetry’s readings & classes at London’s leading live literature venue\, the Troubadour\, since 1997. www.annemariefyfe.com
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/on-the-pavement-grey-wb-yeats-in-utopian-bedford-park-19-nov/
LOCATION:The Embassy of Ireland\, 17 Grosvenor Pl\, London \, London\, SW1X 7HR
CATEGORIES:architecture,biography,Collaboration,exile,history,poetry,social history,special event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/pavement-gray.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20181016T110000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20181016T123000
DTSTAMP:20181004T071700Z
CREATED:20181003T165420Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20181004T071700Z
UID:10959-1539687600-1539693000@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Archive of the Irish in Britain visit - 16 Oct
DESCRIPTION:We are delighted to announce a special members-only visit to the Archive of the Irish in Britain. The Archive consists of collections of documents\, audio and video recordings\, books\, photographs and ephemera cataloguing the history of the Irish in Britain from the late nineteenth century to the present day.  \nDr Tony Murray\, the curator of the archive\, will give an introductory talk and lead two groups through unique materials in the archive before leading a question and answer session.  There are two sessions available to paid-up ILS members with a capacity of 10 members for each session\, so we’ll have to operate on a first-come\, first-served basis for this visit. If you would like to book for the visit please e-mail the Honorary Secretary stating your time-slot preference: irishlitsoc@gmail.com. We expect this event will be over-subscribed so we’re sorry if we cannot accommodate everybody on this occasion. \nSLOT 1: 11am-12.30pm \nSLOT 2: 2pm-3.30pm   \nThe archive has been a crucial resource for the development of The Irish Studies Centre\, see the video above for more details on the history of the archive and the centre.  \n  \nTransport:  \nNearest underground (Tube): Aldgate East (Circle and Hammersmith & City) and Aldgate (Metropolitan) \nNearest Bus(es): 415\, 25\, 67\, 115\, 205\, 254Parking Details: Parking is very restricted.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/archive-of-the-irish-in-britain-visit-16-oct/
LOCATION:Archive of the Irish in Britain\, 16 Goulston Street\, London\, E1 7TP\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:archive,Collaboration,documentary,exile,history,Members only-event,research,social history
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20180219T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20180219T210000
DTSTAMP:20180208T101132Z
CREATED:20171207T203821Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20180208T101132Z
UID:9857-1519068600-1519074000@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Jews in Irish Literature - 19 Feb
DESCRIPTION:The Irish Literary Society is engaging with writers and academics to reflect on ‘Representations of Jews in Irish Literature’. The innovative research project of the same title was developed out of NUI Galway and Ulster University and forms the centre of tonight’s event. The main objective of the project is to analyse representations of Jews in Irish literature from the earliest times to the present. The project is investigating references to Jews in Irish literature\, whether in Irish or English\, and is collecting more substantial references into an anthology of such writing. In addition to a talk on the findings we will be welcoming a novelist\, poet and scriptwriter to read from and reflect on their work which explores Jewish-Irish connections.  \nThe academic and creative work presented explores the processes of othering by investigating the forces in consciousness and culture which generate the assumptions\, biases\, stereotypes and myths out of which the Jewish other is produced. The representation of the Jew in Irish literature actually tells us much more about Irish than about Jewish identity\, how in fact a whole psychohistory of Irishness is hidden in these neglected representations. \nPresented in association with the Representations of the Jews in Irish Literature Project:\n\n\nSpeaker:\n\nDr Barry Montgomery \nBarry Montgomery is an Irish literary scholar specialising in Irish Jewish Studies and Irish Fiction. He has contributed seven chapters (from the Early Modern Period to the present in Irish fiction\, drama and poetry) to the forthcoming co-authored critical volume of the AHRC funded Ulster University and NUI Galway Representations of Jews in Irish Literature project. He forms part of the project team for the accompanying Exhibition\, which he has promoted on RTÉ radio\, Irish television\, and newspaper interviews\, delivering lectures on Irish Jewish Literary Studies at the Royal Irish Academy\, Dublin\, at The Linen Hall Library\, Belfast (to mark Holocaust Memorial Day\, 2017)\, and related conference papers at The University of Notre Dame\, Indiana\, and Georgetown University\, Washington DC. He has written on Ruth Gilligan’s Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan\, has contributed to the forthcoming Crime Fiction – A Critical Casebook (Peter Lang)\, writing on Richard Head’s The English Rogue (1665)\, and contributed several entries on early nineteenth century fiction to The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel\, 1660-1820.\n  \n\nRuth Gilligan\nRuth Gilligan is an Irish novelist and journalist now living in London and working as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. She has published four novels to date\, and was the youngest ever person to reach number one on the Irish bestsellers’ list. Her most recent novel\, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan (2016)\, was based around the history of the Jewish community in Ireland\, and garnered major critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Her short stories have appeared in publications such as The Istanbul Review\, The Irish Pages\, Ambit and Banshee Lit. She writes regular literary reviews for the Guardian\, the TLS\, the LA Review of Books and the Irish Independent where she was a columnist for a number of years. She is also part of the global organisation Narrative 4 which uses storytelling as a tool to foster empathy between diverse communities. \n  \n\nSimon Lewis\nSimon Lewis was the winner of the Hennessy Prize for Emerging Poetry and the runner up in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2015. He also featured in Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series the same year. He has been shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Award\, Listowel Poetry Prize\, Strokestown International Poetry Prize and Bridport Prize and received commendations in the Gregory O’Donoghue prize and Dromineer Literary Prize. He has also been published in many literary journals and magazines including The Stony Thursday\, Boyne Berries\, Literary Orphans\, The Stinging Fly\, Bare Hands\, and Irish Literary Review. His first collection\, Jewtown\, was published in 2016 by Doire Press. \nSpread the word:
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/jews-in-irish-literature-19-feb/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,exile,folklore,history,interview,judaism,lecture,novel,poetry,politics,Reading,religion,research,social history
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/jews-irish-lit-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20171127T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20171127T210000
DTSTAMP:20171123T220522Z
CREATED:20170812T121644Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20171123T220522Z
UID:9350-1511811000-1511816400@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Eimear McBride - 27 Nov
DESCRIPTION:Eimear McBride joins the Irish Literary Society to discuss and read from her work. Described by the Times Literary Supplement as ‘a writer of remarkable power and originality\,’ McBride’s debut A Girl is a Half-formed Thing received the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize\, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. Her short stories have appeared in Dubliners 100\, The Long Gaze Back and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She writes and reviews for the The Guardian\, New Statesman and the TLS.\n“Blazingly daring…[McBride’s] prose is a visceral throb\, and the sentences run meanings together to produce a kind of compression in which words\, freed from the tedious march of sequence\, seem to want to merge with one another\, as paint and musical notes can. The results are thrilling\, and also thrillingly efficient. The language plunges us into the centre of experiences that are often raw\, unpleasant\, frightening\, but also vital.”James Wood\, The New Yorker\nHer most recent novel\, The Lesser Bohemians\, follows a young Irish woman who arrives in London from Ireland in the 1990s\, to study drama and falls passionately\, dangerously in love with an older actor. The older man has a disturbing past for which the young girl is unprepared and her troubled past becomes apparent. A bold and subversive story about sexual passion\, The Lesser Bohemians is also a celebration of love\, and how it can both destroy and create. McBride will be in conversation with Shevaun Wilder.  \nSpeaker: Eimear McBride\n \nEimear McBride was born in 1976 in Liverpool to Northern Irish parents. Aged two she and her family returned to Ireland and her childhood was mostly spent in Tubbercurry\, Co. Sligo. At fourteen they moved again to Castlebar\, Co Mayo. In 1994\, at seventeen\, she went to London and spent the next three years studying acting at Drama Centre. Much of her twenties were spent temping and travelling. At twenty-seven she wrote A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. It won the 2013 Goldsmiths Prize\, was shortlisted for the 2014 Folio Prize and won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2014. She moved to Cork in 2006\, and Norwich in 2011\, where she currently lives with her husband and daughter.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/eimear-mcbride-27-nov/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:exile,interview,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Eimear-McBride-slider.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20171030T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20171030T203000
DTSTAMP:20180117T005153Z
CREATED:20170903T131534Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20180117T005153Z
UID:9456-1509391800-1509395400@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Writing Gay Irish Lives - 30 Oct
DESCRIPTION:In light of social and legal changes in Ireland over recent years the ILS is drawing together Irish writers to consider the representation of queer people in Irish literature. Our panel will be reflecting on London as a place of escape\, queer representation in Irish writing\, homosexuality in the discourse of what constitutes Irishness\, and the integration of queer characters and narratives into the wider culture. Here in London the 50-year anniversary since it stopped being illegal for two men (criminal law\, until Section 28\, targeted only men) to be in a relationship in England and Wales has been widely celebrated\, the law changed in Scotland and Northern Ireland later – not until 1993 was same-sex sexual activity decriminalised in Ireland. Historically many Irish queer people felt compelled to emigrate in search of a more supportive social climate\, the attraction of London was obvious as a metropolitan centre associated with tolerance of sexual diversity and established queer communities. Yet now Ireland now has gay marriage (passed by 62% vote share)\, a young\, openly gay taoiseach and progressive trans recognition legislation – the influence of Catholic dogma has clearly waned. The rich and varied work of our panel will be discussed in the context of these changes and each writer will read from their work.  \nSpeakers:\n\nDr Michael G Cronin\nMichael G Cronin is a Lecturer in English\, specialising in twentieth-century and contemporary Irish literature and in sexuality studies. He received his MA from the University of Sussex\, having studied on the renowned Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change programme. He subsequently completed a doctorate on the twentieth-century Irish Catholic bildungsroman at Maynooth University\, where he was an IRCHSS Government of Ireland scholar.  Along with Impure Thoughts\, he has published essays on twentieth-century and contemporary Irish fiction\, and on contemporary Irish sexual politics.  He was Guest Editor of a special issue of Irish Review (Irish Review 46\, Autumn 2013) on Irish Studies in the wake of the 2008 crash. He is currently working on a project provisionally entitled ‘Revolutionary Bodies: homoeroticism and the political imagination in Irish writing’.  \n\nMary Dorcey – UNFORTUNATELY MARY WILL NOT NOW BE ABLE TO APPEAR AT THIS EVENT\, 30 OCT\nThe critically acclaimed poet\, short story writer and novelist\, Mary Dorcey was born in County Dublin\, Ireland. She is a member by peer election of ‘Aosdana’ the Irish Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 she won the Rooney Prize for Literature for her short story collection: ‘A Noise from the Woodshed.’ Her bestselling novel Biography of Desire (Poolbeg) was published in September of 1997 to critical acclaim and reprinted three times. She was writer in residence at Trinity College for the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies for ten years where she gives seminars in contemporary English literature and taught a creative writing course. She also taught for four years at University College Dublin. Dorcey’s most recent collection is Perhaps the Heart is Constant after All. (Salmon Poetry. October 2012) \n\nBarry McCrea\nThe Chair of our panel is Barry McCrea\, a novelist and scholar of modern European\, Latin American\, and Irish literature. He most recent book is Languages of the Night: Minor Languages and the Literary Imagination in Twentieth-Century Ireland and Europe (Yale University Press\, 2015)\, which won the American Comparative Literature Association’s René Wellek prize for the best book of 2016. He is the author of The First Verse\, a novel\, winner of a number of awards including the 2006 Ferro-Grumley prize for fiction and a Barnes and Noble “Discover” prize\, and of In the Company of Strangers: Narrative and Family in Dickens\, Conan Doyle\, Joyce and Proust (Columbia University Press\, 2011)\, which won the Yale Heyman Prize for scholarship in the humanities.Professor McCrea holds has a BA in Romance languages from Trinity College Dublin\, and a PhD in comparative literature from Princeton. Before joining Notre Dame\, he taught comparative literature at Yale University\, where he was appointed full professor in 2012. Professor McCrea teaches fall semesters in the Rome and Dublin Global Gateways and spring semesters on campus. \n\nJamie O’Neill\nJamie O’Neill was born in Dún Laoghaire in 1962. He left for England at the age of 17 and lived and worked in England for two decades\, he now lives in Galway. His first novel\, Disturbance\, was published in 1989 and followed by Kilbrack in 1990. Thereafter O’Neill struggled to write and on parting company with both his agent and publisher he took the job as a night porter at the Cassell Hospital\, a psychiatric institution in Surrey from 1990 up to 2000. His critically-acclaimed novel\, At Swim\, Two Boys (2001) earned him the highest advance ever paid for an Irish novel and frequent claims that he was the natural successor to James Joyce\, Flann O’Brien and Samuel Beckett. At Swim\, Two Boys was re-issued this year to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. The novel describes a burgeoning love between two teenage boys\, Jim Mack and Doyler\, childhood friends – “cara macree\, pal o’ my heart” – in the early years of the 20th century in Dublin. They meet again some years later in a flute band as 15-year old Doyler teaches Jim to swim. They make a pact – on Easter Sunday 1916\, they will swim to Muglin’s Rock to claim it for themselves and for Ireland.  \n\nCherry Smyth\nCherry Smyth is a poet\, novelist and art critic. Her first poetry collection When the Lights Go Up (Lagan Press\, 2001) traces her move from Ireland to London and the negotiations of identity required in a new country. One Wanted Thing (Lagan Press\, 2006)\, her second volume\, is less concerned with loss than with a buoyant affirmation of love\, acceptance and the wider issues of the fall-out of events like 9/11 and 7/7: how these changed our world-view. In Test\, Orange (Pindrop Press\, 2012)\, she brings together a range of poetic forms from haiku to longer free-verse poems dealing with things we face in a female body. In 2000–01\, Cherry was writer-in-residence in a women’s prison and published their extraordinary work in A Strong Voice in a Small Space (Cherry Picking Press\, 2002)\, which won the Raymond Williams community-publishing prize in 2003. She has been teaching writing poetry in the Creative Writing Department of the University of Greenwich since 2004. She was appointed a Royal Literary Fellow\, 2014-2016. Her novel Hold Still (Holland Park Press\, 2013) charts the role of Irish woman Jo Hiffernan as muse to both Whistler and Courbet. \nSpread the word:
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/writing-gay-lives/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:book signing,exile,history,interview,novel,poetry,politics,Reading,social history,tradition
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/gay-lives_3.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20170626T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20170626T210000
DTSTAMP:20171123T225429Z
CREATED:20170418T182200Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20171123T225429Z
UID:9088-1498505400-1498510800@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Eavan Boland - 26 June 2017
DESCRIPTION:Widely considered to be one of Ireland’s most important contemporary poets\, Eavan Boland is currently a Professor of Humanities and Director of the Creative Writing Programme at Stanford University\, where she has taught since 1996. In 2015 a New Collected Poems was published\, and Eavan Boland: Inside History\, a book celebrating her long and distinguished career\, was recently published by Arlen House\, its editor will join in conversation with Boland. In January 2017 Boland was appointed editor of Poetry Ireland Review.\nPoetry has been an integral part of Eavan Boland’s life since she was a young girl. In college she wrote her first publication\, 23 Poems. She has gone on to publish nearly 20 books of poetry\, winning awards and accolades from readers and critics alike. Boland\, a self-described “woman poet\,” has always had trouble reconciling those two words. “It was like there was a magnetic opposition between the two concepts\,” she said. “The woman coming from the collective sense of nurture in Ireland\, and the poet coming from the much more individualist\, creative realm.” Mary Robinson quoted Eavan Boland’s poetry during her inaugural speech as President of Ireland in Dublin Castle on 3 December 1990\, and on 15 March 2016 President Obama quoted lines from her poem “On a Thirtieth Anniversary” (from Against Love Poetry) in his remarks at a reception in the White House to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. \nBoland’s is a fascinating career which develops from her early attachment to Yeats\, her growing unease with the absence of women’s writing\, her encounter with pioneering American poets like Sylvia Plath\, Elizabeth Bishop\, and Adrienne Rich\, and her lucid\, critical engagement through poetry and prose with Ireland’s poetic tradition. \nThis event was formerly advertised as the ILS Annual Dinner\, the dinner part of the evening has now been cancelled. \nGuest of Honour: Eavan Boland\n \nBoland\, the youngest of five children\, was born in Dublin in 1944. Her father was a diplomat\, her mother\, Frances Kelly\, an artist. The family moved to London when Boland was six and she went to school there until 1956. Her poem An Irish Childhood in England: 1951 recalls her sense of otherness at this early age: \n…the teacher in the London convent who\,\nwhen I produced “I amn’t” in the classroom\nturned and said — “You’re not in Ireland now.” \nDuring her father’s next posting\, from 1956 until 1960\, the family lived in New York. Boland returned to Dublin and to boarding school at the Convent of the Holy Child in Killiney when she was fifteen. At Trinity College she studied Latin and English and graduated with a first-class honours degree in 1966. She lectured in Trinity 1967-1968 and then resigned to devote her time to writing. She wrote poems as a child and had published poems in the Irish Times while still an undergraduate. She published her first collection\, New Territory\, in 1967\, when she was twenty-two. During the 1970s she gave writing workshops throughout Ireland and in 1980 she co-founded Arlen House\, an Irish feminist press. \nFor Boland\, what she calls ‘the placelessness of her childhood’ and ‘her emphatic sense of living in a suburb in her own home’ were important influences on her work. In 1969\, in her mid-twenties\, she married the novelist Kevin Casey. They moved to a house in the Dublin suburbs in the early 1970s and have two daughters. A grandchild was born in 2014. She has written of motherhood and suburban life and according to Declan Kiberd ‘She is one of the very few Irish poets to describe with any fidelity the lives now lived by half a million people in the suburbs of Dublin.’ \nSince 1996\, Boland spends the academic year at Stanford College\, Palo Alto\, California\, where she is a Professor of Humanities and Director of the Creative Writing Programme\, but she calls Dundrum home. Speaking in 1988\, Boland said of herself: ‘I see myself as an Irish poet\, I think it’s important that Irish poets have a discourse with the idea of Irishness\, and I think it’s probably very important that an Irish woman poet doesn’t shirk that discourse because there have been gaps\, vacancies or silences in literature’.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/annual-dinner-eavan-boland-26-june-2017/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:America,art,biography,book signing,exile,history,interview,poetry,politics,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/eavan-boland3-slider.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20140424T073000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20140424T203000
DTSTAMP:20171123T235006Z
CREATED:20161013T221030Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20171123T235006Z
UID:8465-1398324600-1398371400@irishliterarysociety.org
SUMMARY:Women and Exile - 24 April
DESCRIPTION:This talk will look at the place of the Irish woman migrant in contemporary Irish fiction and examine how Irish writers have demonstrated a sustained interest in recovering the story of the Irish woman emigrant\, a story that until relatively recently was absent or under-represented in both historical accounts and literary representations of Irish emigration. In spite of the fact that the theme of ‘exile’ has near cult status in Irish literature\, it seems to be a cultural preoccupation that overlooked the experience of the woman emigrant; it too often appointed her to roles that served only to define the losses suffered by her male counterpart and\, in particular\, the male artist in his journey into the world. \nEdna O’Brien and Colm Tóibín offer two different models for recovering this history. Toibin’s work\, particularly his novel Brooklyn (2009)\, shows an historically sensitive concern with the vanishing Irish woman emigrant in Ireland of the 1950s\, while O’Brien’s more recent writing\, especially her 2006 novel\, The Light of Evening\, remodels the familiar paradigm of the Irish artist in exile in ways most meaningful to the Irish woman writer. Drawing on archival material from the Tóibín Papers at the National Library of Ireland and the O’Brien Papers at the James Joyce Library at University College Dublin\, McWilliams makes a case study of how these authors contribute to the larger recovery of the history of the woman migrant in contemporary Irish fiction.\nSpeaker:\n\nEllen McWilliams\nEllen’s teaching and research interests are in the fields of women’s writing\, Irish\, American\, and Canadian literature\, and writing and diasporic identity. She has written two monographs\, Margaret Atwood and the Female Bildungsroman (2009) and Women and Exile in Contemporary Irish Fiction (2013)\, and is working on a new book\, Irishness in North American Women’s Writing: Transatlantic Affinities. She has a special interest in New York magazine culture and has recently completed a series of articles on Maeve Brennan’s writing for The New Yorker\, including an essay for Women: A Cultural Review: ‘”A Sort of Rathmines Version of a Dior Design”: Maeve Brennan\, Self-Fashioning\, and the Uses of Style’. Ellen has received a number of awards for research\, including an AHRC Fellowship\, a Fulbright Scholar Award\, and a British Library-Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship in North American Studies.
URL:https://irishliterarysociety.org/event/women-and-exile-24-april/
LOCATION:The Bloomsbury Hotel\, The Bloomsbury Hotel\, 16-22 Great Russell Street\, London\, WC1B 3NN \, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:exile,history,lecture,research,social history
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://irishliterarysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mcwilliams.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR