Recording Ireland
The idea of "Recording Ireland" may be understood in a generous way: in the imaginative representations of artists, in the less subjective work of journalists, historians and ethnographers, or in between as in the hybrid forms of travel writers and essayists. Such "recordings", generated from within Ireland and from outside, are the subject of discussion for the Merriman Summer School 2003.
Speakers at the School
The School will be opened by Professor Brian Farrell, who as distinguished broadcaster and academic has himself spent many years recording Ireland. Treatments of local topics include Michael Griffin on Tom Darmody, the 18th century poète maudit and dissolute Clareman, Tom Munnelly on song and song collectors (being an eminent one himself), Patricia Lysaght both on aspects of the traditional culture of Clare and on an important recorder of it, and Brian Ó Dálaigh on the great Clare scholar Eugene O’Curry.
Art forms that address the Irish and imaginatively record aspects of their experience are the subjects for Pat Burke, speaking on Brian Friel’s plays, for Helena Wulff, examining dance in Ireland, for Máirín Nic Eoin, looking at contemporary literature in Irish, for Desmond Bell, addressing aspects of the making of films of which he himself is an award‑winning exponent, and for the Reacaireacht, the poetry reading selected by Máire Ní Mhurchú and presented by Eoghan Ó hAnluain, Doireann Ní Bhriain and David Hanly.
Irish manuscripts, the longest continuous records of Ireland spanning almost a millennium and a half and works both of the literary and historical imagination, are the subject for Neil Buttimer, while Tim Robinson deals with another voluminous source of native historical knowledge and imagination in the words of the seanchaí. Such knowledge is an aspect of Guy Beiner’s treatment of the oral traditions of 1798, a major source for the history "from below" of the events of that tumultuous year. Ricca Edmondson deals with those outsiders who recorded Ireland using the methods of the social sciences, scholars such as Arensberg and Kimball whose pioneering anthropological study (the recent Clasp Press re-edition of which she co‑edited) was carried out in Clare in the 1930s. Eminent journalists give us their perspectives on recording Ireland in the media, Susan Mc Kay on reporting the North, Cathal Goan — whose recent appointment as Director General of RTÉ will give particular interest to his views — on the role of television in putting Ireland in the picture and Brendán Delap on the Irish‑language media.
The Irish language
Ireland is recorded in its two native languages. The Irish language is the source of most of our placenames, and these are the subject of Pádraig Ó Cearbhaill’s talk. As a spoken language, a record of a changing Ireland in itself, the Irish language is discussed by Siobhán Ní Laoire. Fidelma Ní Ghallchobhair deals with another aspect of the living language: the need to create new terms in order to to represent changing realities. Mícheál Ó Conghaile treats the living language from a more literary perspective, and plays his own part in recording Ireland as a major Irish‑language publishers. And each morning, Eoghan Ó hAnluain will conduct a language class for those who wish to renew their Irish.
E.U. Reception
Mr Peter Doyle will host an EU Reception for the participants. A full day guided tour will take the participants to South‑West Clare — to Loop Head, Kilbaha, Carrigaholt, Kilkee and Kilrush. The usual dancing classes will be an integral part of the school with Johnny Morrissey and Betty Mc Coy in charge, and a céilí will be held each night to the music of the Four Courts Céilí Band. There will also be an evening devoted to Clare music.
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