Talks/Readings/
Writing Beyond the University
Resting Places: Readings/Discussions
Autumn-Winter 2023
Wednesday October 25th, School of English and Creative Writing, University College Cork (with historian Andy Bielenberg and peace activist Stephen Travers, survivor of the Miami Showband Massacre, Newry 1975)
Wednesday November 8th, Dunmanway Massacre Discussion Group Symposium, Dublin
(organised by Neale Jagoe, the Grandson of one of the survivors of the Dunmanway Massacre, and chaired by Jeffrey Dudgeon, former Unionist politician and human rights activist)
Monday November 13th, '"Forgetful Remembrance": Remembering the Dunmanway Massacre of April 1922', Institute for Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast (a shared event with Neale Jagoe)
Thursday November 23rd -Friday November 24th, 'Mothers and Daughters Symposium', Boston College, Ireland
Monday November 27th, Irish Literary Society, London (chaired by poet and novelist Martina Evans)
Spring-Summer 2024
Wednesday March 6th, 'The Shadows of Colonial Violence: On Wounds, War and the Irish Revolution', University of Bristol
Friday March 15th, Reading at the Arnolfini Arts Centre (in association with the West of England Irish Community Group)
Sunday April 21st, 'Revolution And What Happens After: Transgenerational Aftershocks', Bristol Radical History Group Festival, The Cube Cinema
Tuesday August 6th, 'Resting Places: The Legacies of Civil War', Féile an Phobail, Belfast
Saturday September 7th (with Neale Jagoe), 'Between Memory and Legacy: Navigating the Dark Past of Irish History', Chaired by Pat Hynes (Community and Politcal Dialogue Manager), Symposium to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation.
Autumn-Winter 2024
Wednesday November 25th (with Claire Mitchell), 'The Ghosts Who Run Our Lives: Loss, Recovery and Repair in The Ghost Limb: Alternative Protestants and the Spirit of 1798 and Resting Places: On Wounds, War and the Irish Revolution', Chaired by Professor Bill Rolston (Beyond the Pale Books), Áras Uí Chonghaile/James Connolly Centre, Belfast.
I have written for the Irish Post and the Irish Times and edited a series for the Books Section of the Irish Times to celebrate Women Writers in Irish America. The series included essays by Angela Bourke, Claire Bracken, Patricia Coughlan, and Sinéad Moynihan and a tribute I wrote to Mary McCarthy, 'Unsettling Irish America: Mary McCarthy and the Cure for Nostalgia'. I contributed to an RTE Radio1 Book Show programme with Angela Bourke and Sinéad Gleeson about the life and work of Maeve Brennan and contributed to a symposium on Brennan at UCD – my talk on 'Style and Self-Invention in the Writing of Maeve Brennan' is available as part of the UCD Humanities podcast series.
The academic article I enjoyed researching most, 'Maeve Brennan, Celebrity, and Harper's Bazaar in the 1940s', is available as open access and was the product of long and happy hours working in the Berg Collection and the periodicals archive of the New York Public Library.
I was one of the academic consultants for a Toy Factory Films documentary about the London Irish Women's Centre and ran a project with the Centre on Women and Exile in Irish Literature and Culture. I was also a consultant for and appeared in the BBC 1 Imagine documentary dedicated to Margaret Atwood (directed by Katy Homan and presented by Alan Yentob). I am currently in discussion with producer and director Jonathan Beamish of Local Colour films about a new documentary dedicated to the history I write about in Resting Places.
'Life Underground', permanent public artwork by Tom Otterness, New York City Subway, 14th Street/Eight Avenue Station, 2001.
photo credit: John McWilliams
