John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies
About the Institute
The John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies is a research institute aimed at enhancing the understanding of the Ireland and the Irish people around the world. It was founded in UNSW in November 2010 under the Directorship of the Australian Ireland Fund Chair in Modern Irish Studies, Professor Rónán McDonald. It operates as a sister to the UCD John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies, founded in University College Dublin in 2007.
The University of New South Wales has a proud tradition in the field of Irish and Irish-Australian history, especially the pioneering work of Professor Patrick O’Farrell the leading historian in the field. Professor O’Farrell was appointed to a personal chair in History at UNSW in 1972 and was the first Scientia Professor from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences until his death in 2004. Together with the appointment of the Chair in Modern Irish Studies, JHIGIS is a continuation of this tradition.
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Research
Eighty million people around the world identify themselves in some way with Ireland and with Irishness. This includes approximately two million Australians. The UNSW John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies will place the Irish Diaspora as a people, and the idea of Irishness as an identity and an image, at the centre of its research remit. It will be an avowedly interdisciplinary academic institute drawing and building on existing strengths across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in UNSW and collaborating with other Irish Studies initiatives around the world.
Research will focus on modern Irish history, culture, society, politics and economics, and aims to enhance scholarship and public understanding of the Irish diaspora in Australian and around the world.
Research Aims
› The JHIGIS welcomes applications from prospective doctoral students in all aspects of Irish studies.
Collaboration
JHIGIS is affiliated to the Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand and is the sister of the UCD John Hume Global Irish Studies Institute. UCD is a fellow Universitas 21 institution, and this collaboration will afford opportunities to make the activities of the new institute global in scale. As JHIGIS grows it will become a major international research hub for the study of Ireland and its diaspora.
Director
Rónán McDonald was born in Dublin, Ireland and educated at University College Dublin. He went to the University of Oxford on a National University of Ireland Travelling Studentship and took a doctorate in English literature. While a graduate student in Oxford, he edited Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal. His first book, Tragedy and Irish Literature was published in 2002 and his Cambridge Introduction to Beckett in 2007. He was appointed as a College Lecturer in English at the University of Reading in 2000 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2007. At Reading, he was the Director of the Samuel Beckett International Foundation and oversaw major commemorations for the Beckett centenary in 2006. He is an author of numerous articles, essays and reviews on Irish culture and is a regular contributor to the national press. His most recent book is The Death of the Critic (2008)
Contact details
Email:r.mcdonald@unsw.edu.au
Telephone:
News
16/11/2011 - The Irish Question
30/05/2011 - UNSW wakes finn again - Campus Review
29/04/2011- FASS partners with 2011 Sydney Writers’ Festival - event New Finnegans Wake celebrates FASS Research Centre - the John Hume Institute of Global Irish Studies
30/04/2010 - First Chair in Modern Irish Studies, Professor Ronan McDonald a leading Samuel Beckett scholar, literary critic and historian of Irish modernism, has been appointed as the Australian Ireland Fund Chair in Modern Irish Studies at UNSW read more
What's On
A celebration of W B Yeats
Tuesday 8 November, 2011
UNSW Kensington Campus
The Inagural Patrick O'Farrell Lecture
Wednesday 9 November, 2011
UNSW Kensington Campus
Strange Enlightenments: Flann O'Brien and Modernism Conference
Friday 11 November, 2011
UNSW Kensington Campus
Previous Events
GIST: The discreet charm of the STV
Tuesday 18 October, 2011
327, Robert Webster Building, UNSW Kensington Campus
GIST: For better or for worse
Thursday 8 September, 2011
327, Robert Webster Building, UNSW Kensington Campus
Professor Rónán McDonald - W.B. Yeats, Ireland and the Modern World
Monday 5 September, 10:30am - 11:30am
Friends Room, Mitchell Building, NSW State Library
GIST: The meaning of missing
Wednesday 10 August, 2011
327, Robert Webster Building, UNSW Kensington Campus
Bloomsday
Thursday 16 June, 2011
Sydney Gaelic Club
The New Finnegans Wake
Friday, 20 May, 4pm – 5pm
Sydney Theatre, Richard Wherrett Studio
Facilitator: Ronan McDonald
Danis Rose tells Ronan McDonald and Gabrielle Carey about the 30 years of work making 9,000 editorial changes to James Joyce’s last masterpiece, much of it written when Joyce was almost blind.
Everything around us was in shades of grey: Political prisoner experiences of Long Kesh Prison
Dr Laura McAtackney, John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies, University College Dublin
Thursday 12 Mayl, 2011
Ireland's Economic Crisis: Who Bears the Cost?
Professor Brian Nolan, School of Applied Social Science, University College Dublin
Tuesday 5 April, 2011
States of Ireland, States of Crisis
Justin O'Brien, UNSW
Thursday 24 March, 2011
Mixed marriage and the myth of 'Anglo-Celtic' Australia
Siobhán McHugh, University of Wollongong
Friday 11 March, 2011
So, what? lecture and launch of The John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies
Beyond Ireland: cultures of encounter and exchange, Professor Ronan McDonald
Wednesday 17 November 2010
