20 April 2021. What was the relationship between Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels (1726) and his own experience of contemporary Anglo-Irish travel? The Irish Sea made Swift into a restless and necessary traveller capable of living in the space between an imperial England and a colonised Ireland, never at home in any one place.
23rd March 2021. Join this international online book launch and discussion of a new book on women and the commemorations of the Irish revolutionary period. Women and the Decade of Commemorations, edited by Oona Frawley, highlights not only the responsibilities of Irish women, past and present, but it also privileges women's scholarship in an attempt to redress what has been a long-standing imbalance.
23 March 2021. No study has yet undertaken a detailed analysis of how the Great Irish Famine and negative stereotypes about the Irish affected the rate of their incarceration in Canadian lunatic asylums. Drawing on asylum admission records, case files, annual reports, casebooks, and administrative letters, this paper investigates how being Irish affected the medical treatment offered in Canadian colonial lunatic asylums and the gendered significance these medical determinations had on beliefs about the Irish before Canadian Confederation in 1867.
A Name for Herself , a play about Constance Markievicz written by Meg McNena and directed by Dublin-born Lynda Fleming premieres for two shows on 13 March at the Renaissance Theatre, East Kew, Melbourne. Sisters: a militant rebel and a pacifist poet strive to set women and Ireland free; one sentenced to death - can the [...]
A remarkable figure in Victoria’s Irish-Australian community, Gerry Higgins and his family generously funded the Gerry Higgins Chair of Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne. It remains the only chair of Irish Studies in the whole of Australia. Gerry’s philanthropy has enabled hundreds of students to understand better Ireland and its part in world [...]
BRIGIDFEST committee are delighted to announce that as Victorian Government restrictions around Covid-19 have eased, BrigidFest will go ahead as a live event. With The Celtic Club’s support, the lunch will be held at a new venue, the historic hotel, Batman’s Hill on Collins. To ensure the viability of the event, we ask that you book early [...]
The 2021 ISAANZ postgraduate essay competition is now open, with entries accepted from anyone enrolled in an MA or PhD between June 2020 and June 2021 at any tertiary institution. Essays on any aspect of Irish Studies will be considered, and must be submitted by 15 February 2021.
15 October, 19 November & 17 December, 2020. The British Association for Irish Studies have scheduled online talks on 15 October: Race, Representation & Resistance in Contemporary Irish Writing & Culture'. Also 19 November: Becoming Irish? Brexit, Identity & Citizenship. And 17 December: A celebration of Irish Studies in Britain.
The 13th Annual General Meeting of the Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand (ISAANZ) will be held online via Zoom on Wednesday 9th December 2020 at 7:00pm ACDT (Adelaide), 7:30PM AEDT (Melbourne), 9:30PM NZDT (Wellington). Meeting agenda, minutes and annual reports can be found on the ISAANZ AGM page.
8 December, 2020. November 11 is a date that resonates in Australian history. But more than a half century before Kerr’s coup, November 11 was associated with another dismissal. For on that day in 1920 the Labor member for Kalgoorlie, Irish-born Hugh Mahon, was expelled from parliament for his criticism of British rule in Ireland. Jeff Kildea will discuss how that dismissal came about and how the echoes of the controversy continue to be heard down to the present.
