Events

2022 23rd Irish Texts Society Seminar

The Twenty-Third ITS Seminar, jointly organised by the Irish Texts Society and the combined Departments of Irish, UCC, will be held in West Wing 6, UCC, on Saturday, 5th November, 2022. The subject of this year's event will be Oidheadh Chloinne hUisneach 'The Violent Death of the Children of Uisneach', edited by C. Mac Giolla Léith, Irish Texts Society Main Series, vol. 56 (1992). Speakers: N. Buttimer, K. Mathis, C. Ó Gallchóir, C. Ó Gealbháin, A. Pagé.

The proceedings of the ITS / UCC seminars are published in the Irish Texts Society's Subsidiary Series.

The Noel O’Connell Lecture

The Noel O’Connell Lecture in association with the Irish Literary Society is held in London each year in the spring.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 Noel O’Connell Lecture which was due to be given by Prof. Méidhbhín Ní Úrdail, University College Dublin (on ‘An Irish emigré living in 19th century London’), had to be postponed. It is hoped to reschedule this talk at a future date.

The Breandán Ó Buachalla Lecture

The Breandán Ó Buachalla Lecture is held annually.

Thursday, 1 December 2022, 6.30 p.m. – online
Free, online (book here to receive the link)

Title: Dr Katharine Simms, 'Mixed Marriages in Medieval Ireland'

Speaker: Dr Katharine Simms, MRIA, FTCD, lectured in Medieval History at Trinity College Dublin to 2010. She has written From Kings to Warlords (1987), Medieval Gaelic Sources (2009) and Gaelic Ulster (2020), as well as numerous articles on Gaelic Ireland 13th to 15th centuries.
Please book online at EventBrite so that you will receive the link

Subject of talk: From 1169 to the sixteenth century, two groups – the Gaelic Irish and the Anglo-Irish – shared the same island. Originally distinguished from each other both by law and language, by the late fifteenth century they were rapidly merging culturally, a process much assisted by intermarriage. However, opposition to this merging, and particularly to intermarriage, came from two sources, and was backed by legislation in the Anglo-Irish parliament. The Dublin government feared that Anglo-Irish aristocrats who married into the Gaelic nobility might side with their in-laws against the Crown, whereas the minor gentry and townspeople of the Pale objected to the Brehon laws on property depriving widows of their dower, and allowing the bestowal of a lord’s daughters in marriage to seal a vassalage contract, with the girl’s dowry forming the rath or fief of submission. Gaelic lords, on the other hand, had a very positive view of intermarriage, if one is to judge by the treatment of the topic in bardic poetry.

The Society has embarked upon a programme to publish these talks under its Occasional Lecture Series.