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The 2026 volume of the Australasian Journal of Irish Studies will be a special issue honouring the life and career of Elizabeth Malcom who died on 19 May this year. It will include an obituary in which the editors of the journal record her massive contribution to Irish Studies and to related activities, as well as a bibliography of her extensive publications. Also included in this issue will be Elizabeth’s scholarly article on Anna Maria Bunn, Australia’s first woman novelist, published here for the first time.

22-25 Jan 2027. Cumman Gaeilge Melbourne will be hosting Scoil Samhraidh at Newman College. Costs are being finalised and a registration page will be posted soon. Mark your calendar.

27 October 2026. The seminar outlines the significance of the career of Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847) as the founding father of Irish democracy. It will describe the set of political principles enunciated by O’Connell which not only permanently shaped early Irish democratic practice but are of universal significance in respect of our democratic future in the twenty-first century. O’Connell was an advanced radical democrat and a humanitarian with a European and world-wide reputation unparalleled by that of any other Irish political figure.

29 September 2026. This lecture will explore the life of Virginia Richards-Orpen, who was born in 1916, and grew up at Monksgrange, the family ancestral home in Co. Wexford. Her intellectual qualities saw her going to Oxford where she immersed herself in studies for a language’s degree, the recreational opportunities of college life and a significant involvement in German-related activities.

31 October 2026. The Easter 1916 Proclamation promised to ‘cherish all of the children of the nation equally’. With the Easter Rising now over a century old, we invite researchers and writers to Aotearoa New Zealand to consider all the varied resonances and implications of the phrase ‘children of the nation’. How has our sense of the nation and its children changed since 1916, or even since the decade of centenaries? What are the new approaches to the expansion of the nation, with its diasporic identities including, but also moving far beyond, the ‘exiled children’ that the Proclamation locates in America? We invite abstracts of 250-300 words, with 100-word speaker bios, for proposed 20-minute papers in English, nó as Gaeilge, on a range of themes. Proposals can be for individual talks, panels (3 speakers) or roundtables (3-5 speakers). We strongly recommend that panel and roundtable proposals should include scholars at different points in their career and from a range of institutions.

18 October 2026. Applications are open for an Assistant Professor of the Practice / Assistant Director of Irish Studies at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA. This is a full-time, non-tenure-track, three-year renewable contract faculty position that comes with an attractive benefits package. The deadline for applications is 18 October 2026.

12 September 2026. 11:00am – 1:00pm. Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney. Come together at this free event to remember and honour Ireland and her history of an Gorta Mor, and the arrival of thousands from Ireland to Australia as a consequence. Guest speaker is Dr Anne Casey, with music and song by McMolly and harpist Cliona Molins. Lay flowers as a tribute at the memorial wall during the commemoration. This is a heartfelt gathering to reflect on and celebrate Irish heritage and Australian history. Explore the barracks, first home to many Irish in the early colony including the Irish Orphan Girls here as a consequence of the famine. Join in the craic after the event at PJ O’Briens, 57 King Street, a short walk away, where food and drinks will be available for purchase, and a free tea/coffee available.

4 August – 9 September 2026. Conradh na Gaeilge Aotearoa will be running a free Winter lecture series over the coming weeks, looking at various aspects of Irish. Everyone is welcome. There will be some Irish language content but the talks will be suitable for all, including those with no Irish!

12 August 2026. Diasporic literature comprises works composed away from authors’ homelands. Many such texts grapple with identity negotiation, cultural hybridity, nostalgia and alienation; other diasporic writers centre indigenous cultural heritage to reach international readers. James Joyce (1882–1942) represents the former tendency, while Lin Yutang (1895–1976) exemplifies the latter. Both spent decades living abroad and produced major works in English, drawing core motifs from their respective national storytelling traditions.

29 July 2026. State Library Victoria houses a range of important Irish works that document the history of printing in Latin, Irish and English. This viewing will explore a range of unusual historical, linguistic and literary works, the debates they generated, and their representation of continuing literary traditions. Featured will be texts from the seventeenth to the twentieth century by authors such as Roderic O’Flaherty (1629-1718) and Thomas Carve (1590-1672), the Paris works of Hugh MacCurtin (1680-1755) and James Joyce, through to the migrant fiction of Mary Ann Sadlier and literary texts of the Celtic Revival.