Category: Events

Events

Prophet of a Coming Time

by isaanz
Prophet of a Coming Time

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.

Events

Virginia and the Hitler Youth

by isaanz
Virginia and the Hitler Youth

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.

Events

Great Irish Famine Commemoration 2026

by isaanz
Great Irish Famine Commemoration 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.

Events

Winter Lecture Series

by isaanz
Winter Lecture Series

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!

Events

Diasporic Reconstruction of Narrative Traditions

by isaanz
Diasporic Reconstruction of Narrative Traditions

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.

Events

Irish Texts in SLV Rare Books

by isaanz
Irish Texts in SLV Rare Books

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.

Events

Bound for Australia

by isaanz
Bound for Australia

24 June 2026. Amongst the possessions that Irish-born Anne Trotter packed in her trunk to start a new life in Australia was her needlework specimen book. Arriving in Port Phillip in 1844, Anne Trotter was one of many assisted migrants who, along with other members of her family, were deemed suitable emigrants to the colony. Donated to Museums Victoria by a descendant in 2014, Anne's needlework book, which includes various plain sewing exercises and finely-stitched miniature shirts and a dress, provides an insight into the formal schooling provided to young working class girls in nineteenth century Ireland and the skills which they brought to Australia. This lecture will discuss the context of the needlework book and posit its value to a young female emigrant.

Events

Bloomsday in Melbourne

by isaanz
Bloomsday in Melbourne

21 June 2026. Bloomsday in Melbourne has been celebrating 16th June for more than thirty years with staged productions of his work. This year they bring a brand new play to the stage, Between The Lines: The James Joyce/Groucho Marx Letters. A young female academic makes the find of a lifetime - and has to negotiate her way through the patriarchal world of academe in the mid-1980s. Bloomsday in Melbourne is also presenting their annual Bloomsday Seminar and Lunch on Sunday 21st June at The Wild Geese in Brunswick, where a panel will discuss, among other things, the repercussions of Helen Garner's 1995 book The First Stone.

Events

In relation to the ocean

by isaanz
In relation to the ocean

15 April 2025. Accounts of the Ocean in premodern periods are often analysed against the background of what was not yet known at the time: studies abound in premodern seafarings, premodern zoologies, premodern geographies, premodern cosmographies. We often investigate the early medieval worldview in terms of what we now know that they did not. However, any study of the Ocean in the modern milieu immediately reveals that our current relationship with the Ocean goes far beyond what we know and do not know about it. This paper will attempt to review a few accounts of the Ocean from early medieval Ireland from this emerging perspective, in order to see whether we might find more in common with them than the often-discussed knowledge gap suggests.

Events

Claire Keegan’s (Re)past

by isaanz
Claire Keegan’s (Re)past

18 March 2025. This paper focalizes provision in Claire Keegan's fiction. Food transgresses boundaries between the natural and domestic worlds and problematizes comfortable notions of autonomy. Her work establishes a complex nexus of need and desire. I explore how scenes of consumption in Keegan's short stories reveal economic, social, and moral vulnerabilities. This paper investigates how, through a fundamental preoccupation with desire and control, Keegan situates the dinner table as a space of reconstitution and manipulation.