The 2022 Annual Breandán Ó Buachalla Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Clíona Ní Ríordáin, Professor of English at the University Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, where she teaches Irish literature and translation studies and convenes the Master’s programme in Irish Studies.
In the lecture, Professor Ní Ríordáin will look at the way in which the Irish language has been central to a number of recent books within contemporary English language literature in Ireland. Some examples she will discuss are Thirty-Two Words for Field by Manchán Magan, Thin Places by Kerry ní Dochartaigh, and The Colony by Audrey Magee. She will trace the trend back to earlier texts, like The Last Geraldine Officer by Thomas McCarthy, and to one of Seamus Heaney's early poems, 'For the Commander of the Eliza.'
This annual lecture honors the memory of Breandán Ó Buachalla (1936-2010), who was the inaugural Thomas J. and Kathleen M. O'Donnell Chair of Irish Language and Literature at the University of Notre Dame and instrumental to the success of both the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Department of Irish Language and Literature.
The lecture will take place during Professor Ní Ríordáin's stay at the Institute as a short-term visitor. To discover more about her life and scholarship, please see her installment of "Three Questions with . . ".
Immediately after the lecture, the Institute will host a reception on the third floor of Jenkins Hall to honor Professor Ní Ríordáin and to celebrate the start of the new academic year.
Photo credit: Conor Horgan, taken at the Paris Centre Culturel Irlandais, a frequent collaborator of Professor Ní Ríordáin.
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