Press Release Announcing the 2006 Merriman Summer School

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This year’s Merriman Summer School will take place in Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare. It begins on August 19 and concludes on August 26. The Director is Dr. Michael Griffin, a Lecturer in English at The University of Limerick.

The 2006 Summer School will be opened on Saturday evening, August 19, by the renowned broadcaster, and voice of Gaelic games, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh.

The theme of this year’s School is Michael Cusack and his Time; with this theme, the School honours the centenary of the death of the founder of the GAA. The Clareman’s life was a period of intensified revivalist activity: linguistic, literary, and sporting. Lectures and seminars will address themes related to:

• Cusack’s career and the cultural, political and educational milieu which produced him.
• The roles played by the Gaelic Union, the Gaelic Journal, and the Gaelic Athletic Association in the project of de‑Anglicization.
• Issues of citizenship and identity in contemporary Irish society, and the present‑day status and image of Gaelic games.
• The received image of Cusack in the writings of Liam P. Ó Caithnia and James Joyce.

The programme includes Merriman’s perennial series of seminars on local history, and on Irish language and literature, as well as poetry readings. As usual, there will be ‘Renew your Irish’ sessions, set dancing classes with the acclaimed dance teachers Betty Mc Coy and Johnny Morrissey, song sessions, and Club Merriman, the nightly gathering of Summer School participants with conviviality and set dancing guaranteed, and outbreaks of song very likely. There will also be a guided tour of the area in the Burren around Cusack’s birthplace in Carron, during which aspects of the human and cultural geography of Cusack’s early environs will be explained and discussed.

The school will feature a dramatic perfomance by Balloonatics Theatre Company of the Cyclops Episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses, a raucous tale of pints and prejudice in a Dublin pub.

Among the participants in the 2006 Summer School will be:

• Bob Collins
• Patricia Coughlan
• Brendan Dunford
• Neal Garnham
• Luke Gibbons
• Niamh Hourigan
• Biddy Jenkinson
• Seán Kelly
• Aifric Mac Aodha
• Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin
• Mathúin Mac Fheorais
• John Mc Auliffe
• Dónal Mc Anallen
• Daniel Mc Carthy
• Br. Seán Mc Namara
• Fildelma Mullane
• John A. Murphy
• Róisín Ní Ghairbhí
• Brian Ó Conchubhair
• Breandán Ó Cathaoir
• Brian Ó Dálaigh
• Eoghan Ó hAnluain
• Dáithí Ó hÓgáin
• Máirtín Ó Murchú
• Barry O’Brien
• Patrick J. O’Connor
• Bernard O’Donoghue
• Tina O’Toole
• Joe Power
• Frank Shovlin
• Alan Titley
• Kevin Whelan

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Press Officer: Máire Ní Neachtain