Conferences
18.10.2024 Eleanor Knott Memorial Lecture
The Department of Irish and Celtic Lanaguges is delighted to announce the second 'Eleanor Knott Memorial Lecture' on the 18th October. It will take place at 6pm in The Long Room Hub and the lecture will begiven by Dr Katharine Simms (Trinity College, Dublin).
Further information about the lecture, the topic and location available if you click here. All are welcome.
17-18.5.2024 Comhdháil na Tríonóide
The Department of Irish and Celtic Studies, Trinity College, Dublin, are delighted to host a two-day conference on the 17th and 18th May 2024, on campus at the Long Room Hub. The theme for this year is
Irish Poetry 1500-1700 Texts and Contexts - A conference on the world of Irish poetry and its role in society 1500-1700.
Proceedings and events will be through English and Irish.
Further information about the lectures, the topics and speakers available if you click here. All are welcome.
8.3.2024 Lá Idirnáisiúnta na mBan
The Department of Irish and Celtic Languages is delighted to announce a one-day conference 'Lá Idirnáisiúnta na mBan: Ceiliúradh ar Scoláireacht na mBan agus ar Cheist na hInscne i Léann na Gaeilge' on the 8th March. It will take place from 9.30am until 6pm in the Long Room Hub.
Further information about the lectures, the topics and speakers available if you click here. All are welcome. The day's events will be through the medium of Irish.
9.11.2023 Eleanor Knott Memorial Lecture
The Department of Irish and Celtic Lanaguges is delighted to announce the inaugural 'Eleanor Knott Memorial Lecture' on the 9th November. It will take place at 6pm in Téatar Mháirtín Uí Chadhain and the lecture will begiven by Professor Ailbhe Ó Corráin (University of Ulster).
Further information about the lecture, the topic and location available if you click here. All are welcome.
26.5.2023 Athchuairt ar Silva Gadelica / Silva Gadelica revisited
The Irish Department at Trinity College will host a Conference on the 26th May 2023. The conference will take place on campus at the Long Room Hub. The theme this year is "Athchuairt ar Silva Gadelica / Silva Gadelica revisited."
You'll find more information on the Conference, on the speakers and how to get tickets here. All are welcome. The conference events will be run through Irish and English.
20.5.2022 Dánta cogaidh agus dánta síochána ó lár an 17ú haois
The Irish Department at Trinity College will host a Conference on the 20th May 2022. We are hopeful that the conference will take place on campus as well as online, depending on public health advice at the time. The theme this year is "Dánta Cogaidh agus dánta síochána ó lár an 17ú haois."
You'll find more information on the Conference, on the speakers and how to get tickets here. Free to register. All are welcome. The conference will be run through Irish.
21.5.2021 Conference: A Day of Talks for Damian McManus.
The Irish Department at Trinity College will host an online Conference to mark the retirement of Damian McManus, Professor of Early Irish, Trinity College Dublin.
You'll find more information on the Conference, on the speakers and how to get tickets here. Free to register. All are welcome. The conference will be run through both English and Irish.
20.11.2020 Comhdháil Uí Chadhain
Comhdháil Uí Chadhain 2020
The Irish Department at Trinity College will host an online Conference celebrating the life and work of the renowned author, Máirtín Ó Cadhain.
You'll find more information on the Conference, on the speakers and how to get tickets here. Free to register. All are welcome. The conference will be run through the medium of Irish.
23.7.2019 - Irish Language Poetry reading
Irish language poetry reading - Tuesday 23 July 2019 ag 7.30pm
Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh
Biddy Jenkinson
Caitríona Ní Chléirchín
Three Irish-language poets will be reading from their work as part of the 2019 IASIL conference. The proceedings will be mainly in Irish but the poems will be explained in English too.
Where? The Royal Irish Academy 19 Dawson Street (beside the Mansion House)
Admission free All welcome
This reading is being organised by Irish Department, Trinity College Dublin, as part of the 2019 Conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures with the generous support of Foras na Gaeilge.
Tales and Anecdotes from Irish Manuscripts
Thursday, 16 May, 9am – Friday, 17 May 2019, 10am
A conference organised by Trinity Department of Irish and Celtic Studies.
Storytelling is at the heart of Irish literature from the early medieval period right up to today. A story well told has the efficacy of a prayer, and we know that a prayer or a psalm can release the unfortunate damned soul from the pains of Hell, even if it is merely rhymed off without any great concentration! The colophon following the Táin Bó Cúailnge in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster in TCD gives a blessing on all who would memorise the version of the tale presented in that manuscript, and not tolerate any modification to it (Bendacht ar cech óen mebraigfes go hindraic Táin amlaidseo 7 na tuillfe cruth aile furri). More interestingly, we are told regarding the story Altram Tige dá Medar—featuring the stunningly-beautiful Eithne of the Túatha Dé Danann and her Christian credentials—that Saint Patrick ordered that no one was to sleep or speak while it was being recited, but that its recitation would guarantee the story-teller a happy and fruitful marriage, the pub-goer a peaceful evening in his local, the traveller a safe journey, a taoiseach his re-election, a prisoner his release from bondage and so on. For reciting a story in the late sixteenth century as guest at the home of Maol Mórdha Mac Sweeney, Tadhg Dall tells us he received as payment four treasures (an each ballach ‘dappled steed’, aonrogha chon Cláir Dá Thí ‘the choicest wolf-hound of Dá Thí’s plain i.e. Ireland, mionn leabhair ‘a precious book’ (containing stories of the type tána ‘cattle-raids’, tochmhairc ‘wooings’ and toghla ‘destructions’) and cruit ollamhan fhola Búrcach ‘the harp of the poet of the Burkes’); not bad work if you can get it! More recently, stories could be traded for food, in Inishmaan in 1934!
The celebrated sagas in Irish literature are well known. In this conference we will be shining a light on some less-well-known material, ranging from the ‘story’ or ‘story within a story’ to the ‘anecdote’, to the ‘marginal’ comment or verse. Scholars of Old, Middle and Modern Irish from Trinity College, Dublin, and further afield, will share some of the choice stories and anecdotes they have discovered in the course of their research with a view to highlighting the richness, variety, importance and artistry of Irish literature over more than a millennium and a half and the wealth of work that remains to be done on this literature. Whether any of this will save the souls of attendees and participants is not certain, but it will entertain, and be good for the soul!
Thursday 16 May
9.30 –9.40 Opening address by Prof Damian McManus
9.45–10.10 Dr Eoghan Ó Raghallaigh: ‘The border wall of bones: a bardic prophecy’.
10.10–10.35 Dr Christina Cleary: ‘Wrathful wives in medieval Irish literature’.
10.35–11.00 Deirdre Nic Chárthaigh: ‘An bodach agus bean an bharúin; eachtra imeallach’.
11.00–11.45 Coffee break
11.45–12.00 Marginalia Medley (1) Verses
12.00–12.45 Prof. Liam Breatnach: ‘Marginalia in TCD MS H 3. 17’.
12.45–2.30 Lunch break
2.30–3.00 Dr Mícheál Hoyne: ‘Merchants and monkeys in medieval Ireland’.
3.00–3.25 Dr Katharine Simms: ‘The exception of the cat in the larder: adultery justified - the dindshenchas of Inis Saimér’.
3.30–4.00 Prof Cathal Ó Háinle ‘A lost story from the banks of the Shannon’.
4.00–4.15 Marginalia Medley (2) Scribal notes
Reception. 4.30
Friday May 17th
9.00 –9.30 Prof Damian McManus: “Body and soul: tales from ‘this’ and the ‘other’ side in medieval Irish literature”.
9.30–10.00 Dr Andrea Palandri: “Salamanders or Asbestos? The ‘horizon of expectation’ in the Irish Marco Polo”.
10.00–10.30 Peter Weakliam: ‘An scéal laistigh de na scéalta: scéal na teicneolaíochta i bhficsean Phádraig Uí Chíobháin’.
10.30–11.00 Marginalia Medley (3) Verses
11.00–11.45 Coffee break
11.45–12.15 Dr Eoin Mac Cárthaigh: ‘An scéal laistiar de nóta imill in Stonyhurst A II 20 (imleabhar 1)’.
12.15–12.40 Dr Nike Stam: ‘Céile Críst’s adventure in Rome’.
12.40–1.00 Ariana Malthaner: ‘The intersection of literature and law: the saga of Fergus mac Léti’.
1.00–2.15 Lunch break
2.15–2.40 Philip Mac a’ Ghoill: ‘Coimirce, marú agus bagairt aoire: Díbirt Chú Choigcríche Uí Chléirigh, 1546’.
2.40–3.10 Dr Chantal Kobel ‘Peripheral voices: scribal marginalia in TCD MS H 3.18 (1337)’.
3.10–3.25 Anecdotes Medley
3.45–4.30 Prof. Joseph Falaky Nagy: ‘Stories Cú Chulainn tells in Tochmarc Emire’
17th-18th May 2018: The Irish manuscripts in the library of Trinity College Dublin
A two-day conference organised by the Department of Irish and Celtic languages
in conjunction with TCD Library and the Long Room Hub
May 17th-18th , 2018, in the Long Room Hub, TCD
This event is being organised to celebrate the centenary of the establishment of what is now the TCD Department of Irish and Celtic Languages as an academic unit independent of the School of Divinity in 1918. The Irish manuscripts in the Trinity College Library collection cover over a thousand years of Irish literature and learning, and the staff of the Irish Department, among others, are committed to the task of investigating this priceless scholarly resource with a view to elucidating its contents and bringing them to a wider public. As part of that endeavour, some speakers at this conference will focus on individual manuscripts of their choice, ranging in date from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, while others will seek to outline how the collection as a whole came to be, and where it goes from now. Digital images will be used to illustrate the talks and some of the manuscripts featuring in the talks will be on exhibition in the Old Library for all to see. There is more information available at https://irishmssoftcd.wordpress.com/
The speakers:
Professor Richard Sharpe FBA, Faculty of History, Oxford
Professor Liam Breatnach, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Professor Damian McManus, Irish Department, TCD
Dr Jürgen Uhlich, Irish Department, TCD
Dr Eoin Mac Cárthaigh, Irish Department, TCD
Dr Eoghan Ó Raghallaigh, Irish Department, Maynooth University
Caoimhe Ní Ghormáin, Assistant Librarian, Manuscripts & Archives Research Library, TCD
Dr Mícheál Hoyne, Bergin Fellow at the School of Celtic Studies, DIAS
Dr Chantal Kobel, O'Donovan Scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, DIAS
Christina Cleary, Irish Department, TCD