Congratulations to Sophie McGurk, PhD candidate, on being awarded the A.J. Leventhal Scholarship in 2024. Sophie reports here on her A.J. Leventhal Scholarship funded research trip to the ERC funded project, Classical Influences and Irish Culture, in the Centre for Irish Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark, in March 2025.
As a result of being awarded the A. J. Leventhal Scholarship, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the European Research Council (ERC) funded project, Classical Influences and Irish Culture, headed by TCD Classics alum, Professor Isabelle Torrance, in the Centre for Irish Studies at Aarhus University.
I had a great week meeting Professor Torrance and her team at Aarhus as they approach the final stages of this project. While there, I was able to learn about the process and progress of the project, including its growing research database and many publications. The database that Professor Torrance’s team is creating is comprised of any/all classical references and allusions in Irish literature and has been immensely helpful to my PhD project – which, at its heart, is an interdisciplinary exploration of Irish classical reception and the tradition of classicism as it manifests in Irish literature, and the lives of Irish literary figures, from the late 19th century to present.
Both my doctoral project and Classical Influences and Irish Culture are picking up where W. B. Stanford's Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1976) left off. However, our methodologies differ, and this divergence generated space for fresh and interesting discourse, further aiding the scope of my research development (alongside the rare and privileged experience of directly engaging with a prestigious ERC project, feeding into my personal and post-doctoral goals).
In Aarhus they are working to continue Stanford's investigation and cataloguing of classical interaction in Ireland, with the added benefits of a thematic approach. My thesis varies in the way that I am re-thinking both the terminology surrounding ‘Classics’ in Ireland and the very question of what makes a 'tradition'. My project aims to show how a term like the 'Irish Classical Tradition' is unsatisfactory in how it does not portray the tensions that arise from the complex cultural conditions that are present in the history of Irish classicism. It is for this reason that I have elected to use a new term to classify this very non-traditional tradition: 'Hibernian Philhellenism'. Here, my re-naming of the tradition goes beyond contributing to an established frame but, rather, works to redefine said frame.
Professor Torrance's project is an extremely welcome, exhaustive, and growing resource that compliments my research but also provides a grounding, seminal context for me in conjunction with Stanford's preceding work. Thus, this award allowed me to observe the creation of one of my major resources - granting me new and important insights. Similarly, as this work is ongoing in Aarhus until the project's end-date in 2025, the A. J. Leventhal Scholarship permitted me access to research and perspectives that have not yet been made readily available in the existing academic literature.
My trip culminated with the presentation of a paper derived from my doctoral research to members of the project, the Centre for Irish Studies and the Department of English at Aarhus University. The talk was entitled: ‘A Certain Greek Kinship: Ireland, Ancient Greece and Hibernian Philhellenism’; and it was followed by a very enlightening and constructive Q&A and discussion. In addition to making valuable connections within my field, this visit gave me the opportunity to disseminate my research to the leaders in my subject, as well as to receive feedback and advice that will prove integral to me as I enter the final months of my PhD Programme.
A.J. Leventhal Scholarship
The A.J. Leventhal Scholarship, funded by private donation and by the T.C.D. Trust, was created to enable graduates of Irish universities who are pursuing postgraduate studies in Trinity College, Dublin in modern languages or modern literature to further their studies in Europe. It is an annual scholarship, and applications are invited from registered postgraduate students in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences who are pursuing research in modern languages or modern literature. Final year undergraduate students who expect to graduate this year and to register for a research degree in modern languages or modern literature may also apply. Further details are available from the Faculty Office by emailing <artshss@tcd.ie>.
Images of Aarhus and Aarhus University by Sophie McGurk.
