The Network aims to open up a critical dialogue across multidisciplinary aspects of, and international contexts for, memory studies, with a view to generating discussion across disciplinary boundaries and, it is hoped, laying the foundations for collaborative research work. These collaborations are made possible through lecture series, workshop events, and conferences. The purpose of these events, and of the Network more generally, is to raise the visibility of our research, to promote interaction and exchange, and to provide a hub for researchers both nationally and internationally in the fields of memory studies. To this end, the majority of Network events have been recorded for podcasting. These podcasts, recorded by Real Smart Media, have proven to be tremendously popular with more than 6,000 downloads since 2013. Click on the links to listen to the podcasts.
2016
Podcasts of keynote lectures by Marianne Hirsch and Mike Cronin from ‘1916: Home: 2016’ which took place in University College Dublin in October 2016. The ‘1916: Home: 2016’ conference was part of a collaborative project between UCD and NUI Galway to mark the 20th anniversary of the closure of Ireland’s last Magdalen Laundry. This project complicates the narrative of the 1916 commemorations by engaging in debate about the realities of the State that resulted from the idea of the nation proclaimed during Easter week. The conference was generously hosted by the UCD Humanities Institute and funded by the UCD Decade of Centenaries Programme. Podcasting was by Real Smart Media.
Professor Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University)Epi-Memory, Art and Action
Professor Mike Cronin (Boston College Ireland)Commemorating 1916 and the absence of State Formation
Locating and Dislocating Memory
COST NETWORK: In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe (ISTME)
The ISTME network (2012-2016) aims to investigate the transcultural dynamics of memory in Europe today. The final ISTME conference took place in UCD in September 2016. It focused on the ways in which memory is located and dislocated through processes of production, transmission and reception. Podcast keynote lectures by Professor Astrid Erll (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt), Professor Michael Rothberg (UCLA) and Professor Francoise Vergès (Collège D’études Mondiales).
Professor Astrid Erll (Goethe, Frankfurt)Odyssean Travels: Searching for Europe’s ‘First Memories’
Professor Michael Rothberg (UCLA)Inheritance Trouble: Transcultural Holocaust Memory in the Mirror of Migration
Professor Françoise Vergès (FMSH)Decolonizing Europe. On the Boomerang-Effect of Colonialism, Memory and Dis-Location
After the War: Commemorating the Great War in Ireland
The symposium took place in Boston College on 7-8 July, 2016 and was funded by the UCD Decade of Centenaries Programme, the UCD Humanities Institute and run by the Irish Memory Studies Network. Keynote lectures by Professor Fran Brearton (Queens University Belfast) and Professor Tea Sindbæk Andersen (University of Copenhagen).
Professor Fran Brearton (QUB)Poetry and Sacrifice: 1912, 1914, 1916
Professor Tea Sindbæk Andersen (Copenhagen)Shatter zone memory: Croatia, Yugoslavia and the First World War
Memory and the origins of the hunger strike
Lecture by Dr Joseph Lennon (Villanova)
Dreams that hunger makes: Memory and the origins of the hunger strikeDr Joseph Lennon (Villanova)
2015
Researching Revolutionaries During the Decade of Centenaries
This All Island Commemoration Network event took place in Maynooth University on 25 November 2015 and featured two speakers: Dr Eve Morrison (IRC postdoctoral fellow in the UCD School of History) & Dr Maureen O’Connor (UCC). The event was funded by the Irish Research Council (New Foundations), the Irish Memory Studies Network, and the Peace and Reconciliation Fund.
Researching Revolutionaries During the Decade of CentenariesDr Eve Morrison (UCD) & Dr Maureen O’Connor (UCC).
Talking About Perpetrators
The Talking About Perpetrators seminar was held in Dublin Castle on 29 October 2015. The event was co-organised by UCD Artist-in-Residence Dominic Thorpe and IMSN, and funded by the IRC New Foundations 2014/15.
Dr Niamh NicGhabhann (UL)Dr Niamh NicGhabhann (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick)
Representing the history of mental health treatment and care in the museum – negotiating issues of history, memory and responsibility.
Dr Marie Keenan (UCD)Dr Marie Keenan (School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin)
Them and Us: Talking about Perpetrators of Sexual Violence.
Dr Liam Thornton (UCD)Dr Liam Thornton (Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin)
Perpetrating Direct Provision: Law, Politics and the Polity.
Sinead O'Shea (journalist & filmmaker)Sinead O’Shea (Film-maker and Journalist)
How perpetrators are presented in the media.
Dominic Thorpe (UCD Artist-in-Residence)Dominic Thorpe (UCD Artist-in-Residence)
Emilie Pine (UCD)Emilie Pine (UCD)
Panel DiscussionTalking About Perpetrators Panel Discussion
‘Memory, Space and New Technologies’ Symposium.
The ‘Memory, Space and New Technologies’ symposium took place at IADT in June 2015. The event was co-organised by IADT and IMSN, and funded by Spatial Arts and Visualisation project; a collaboration between UCD, NCAD and IADT and financially supported by the HEA.
Dr Ronit Lentin (TCD)
“We managed not to know”: Asylum seekers, Ireland, and the return of the repressed.
Michael O’Rourke (Skopje)
Thalassopolitics.
Prof Brian Singleton (TCD)
ANU Productions Monto Cycle: Performative Encounters and Acts of Memory.
Methodologies of Memory: Distinguished Lecture Series.
The third lecture series of the Irish Memory Studies Network, on the theme of ‘Methodologies of Memory’, was hosted by the Humanities Institute, University College Dublin, from December 2014 – April 2015. The series was generously funded by UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies and the Irish Research Council New Foundations.
Professor Martijn Meeter (December 2)
Cognitive Models of Memory, Trauma and Truth.
Professor Ann Rigney (February 19)
Transnational Memory: Bloody Sunday 1887-2014
Professor Keith Murphy (March 24)
The Neurobiology of Memory Encoding
Dr Fred Cummins (April 7)
The Folly of the Engram: Considering Individual and Collective Memory
Professor Danielle Clarke (April 14)
Memory as Method: The Practice of Memorialisation/Memorisation in Early Modern Women’s Poetry
Dr Naomi McAreavey (April 21)
Memory and Reconciliation: The 1641 Rebellion in (Northern) Irish History and Memory
Dr Kate Kenny (April 28)
Whistleblowing in Banks and the Role of Time
2014
Ways of Representing the Past: Documentary Theatre in Ireland and Brazil.
Documentary Theatre in Ireland and Brazil.
Attilio Favorini opens the Introduction to Voicings: Ten Plays from the Documentary Theatre (1995) with Herodotus’ comments on The Capture of Miletus, a play on the recent Persian Wars by Phrynichus, performed in Athens in 492 BC, only some two years after the events it depicted. According to Herodotus, ‘the whole audience at the theatre burst into tears and fined Phrynichus a thousand drachmas for reminding them of a calamity that was their very own; they also forbade any future production of the play.’ The origins of documentary drama are then as old as that of western theatre itself and the form has lost none of its power to shock. This panel considers the ‘calamities’ that are our own.Panellists:Aideen Howard is Literary Director of the Abbey Theatre, commissioned No Escape and devised Down off his Stilts, a play about Yeats and the Abbey.Colin Murphy is a journalist and author of Guaranteed!, a play about the government’s underwriting of the banking collapse, which is now also a film.Jimmy Murphy is author of Brothers of the Brush and Kings of the Kilburn High Road is currently developing Of this Brave Time, a documentary about the Easter Rising for production by the Abbey in 2016.Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos is literary advisor and produce of Cia Ludens, the Sao Paulo based company currently developing Amazon Diaries, a documentary play on Roger Casement’s time in the Amazon.Alinne Fernandes has a PhD in Theatre and Translation from QUB and is currently working on the translation of Irish documentary plays (including No Escape) for a series of rehearsed readings by Cia Ludens.
2nd Lecture Series of the Irish Memory Studies Network – Memory and Community.
The second lecture series of the Irish Memory Studies Network focused on aspects of memory in relation to concepts of society and community, and considered the role of memory in community formation and cohesion.
Professor Richard Kearney (March 3)
The Politics of Memory: Between History and Imagination
Professor Guy Beiner (April 1)
Intra-Community Remembering and Forgetting: Commemorative Possessiveness and Envy in Ulster
Dr Fionnuala Dillane (April 8)
Affective Historiography, Effective Anne Enright: narrative, aesthetics and memory making
2013
Memory and Trauma: The Body in Pain in Irish Culture
Conference of the Irish Memory Studies Network, September 2013
Keynote Lecture: Dr Kali Tal, ‘Issues in Contemporary Trauma Studies’
First Lecture Series of the Memory Studies Network – Gender and Commemoration
The first lecture series of the Irish Memory Studies Network, hosted by the UCD Humanities Institute in Spring 2013, featured work on diverse aspects of the ethics of commemoration and the role of gender in shaping commemorative practices and reception.
Lecture 1: Dr Oona Frawley, ‘Irish Memory Studies’
In this lecture, Dr Oona Frawley outlines the context for discussing memory studies in Irish literature and culture.
Lecture 2: Louise Lowe, ‘Laundry and the Memory of the Magdalen Laundries’
In this lecture, Louise Lowe, Director of Anu Productions, discusses the genesis and making of the award-winning 2012 theatre piece Laundry.
Lecture 3: Professor Cahal McLaughlin, ‘Armagh Women’s Prison Memories (Prisons Memory Archive)’
In this lecture Professor Cahal McLaughlin discusses the film project Prisons Memory Archive and the use of film in excavating a divisive past (available via
UCD Scholarcasts).
Lecture 4: Professor Margaret Kelleher, ‘Memory studies and Famine studies: Gender, Genealogy, History’
In this lecture Professor Margaret Kelleher discusses recent approaches to the narrativisation and commemoration of the Irish Famine (available via
UCD Scholarcasts).
Lecture 5: Dr Emily Mark-Fitzgerald, ‘Famine Commemoration and Migration’
In this lecture Dr Emily Mark-Fitzgerald discusses international practice in monuments dedicated to the Irish Famine (available via
UCD Scholarcasts).
Lecture 6: Dr Emilie Pine, ‘Commemorating Abuse: Gender politics and Making Space’
In this lecture Dr Emilie Pine discusses recent work in Irish culture which commemorates institutional abuse (available via
UCD Scholarcasts).
