“Famous in East Germany, Unknown in Ireland?” Book Launch and Public Events in Dublin and Berlin on the Life and Work of Elizabeth Shaw.
As part of “Elizabeth Shaw’s Irish Berlin”, a DAAD-funded research project, running from 2025-2026, led by PI Associate Prof Sabine Egger (MIC), with Co-PIs Apl. Prof Fergal Lenehan (University of Jena) and Assistant Prof. Aine McGillicuddy (DCU), the following events took place in 2025. Elizabeth Shaw’s memoir, How I Came to Berlin: An Artist’s Journey from Belfast and the London Blitz to a Cold-War City, was published in English for the first time. Richly illustrated with original drawings by Shaw, edited by Sabine Egger & Fergal Lenehan, Lilliput Press launched the book on 17 September at Books Upstairs, Dublin, for a wider English-speaking readership within and outside the island of Ireland. Elizabeth Shaw (1920-1992) was a Belfast-born artist who became one of the most popular children’s book authors and illustrators in East Germany. She remains a continuing influence and may be seen as an embodiment of Irish-British-German cultural relations. In her works, which are among the classics of German children’s literature, she brought a sense of Irishness and innovative creative ideas to post-WWII Berlin, informed by her experience of Ireland and of 1940’s cosmopolitan London. She reflects on this in her memoir.
On 21 November, the editors, Sabine Egger and Fergal Lenehan, were invited by the Embassy of Ireland, Berlin, to present a public evening lecture on Elizabeth Shaw. The sold-out lecture concluded this year's Berlin Irish Studies Conference hosted by the Embassy. We were delighted to be joined by Elizabeth Shaw’s daughter and her son on the evening.
The third major public event this year, taking place in Dublin on 4 December, included a keynote by Prof Emer O’Sullivan (Leuphana University, Lüneburg), following welcome notes by the German Ambassador, David Gill, and the director of the Goethe Institute, Noemi Njangiru, and a panel of writers and illustrators discussing Shaw’s work from Irish and Northern Irish perspectives, followed by a reception. The event was co-hosted by the German Embassy and the Goethe Institute Ireland. We invited four contemporary Irish children’s authors and laureates to reflect on Shaw’s life and oeuvre: PJ Lynch, Siobhán Parkinson, Margaret Anne Suggs and Emer O’Sullivan. Topics discussed included the relevance of Shaw’s work and life in today’s multicultural and multilingual Ireland, and how it can be situated in the context of Irish and international book markets? Several members of Shaw’s family from England, Northern Ireland and Germany attended the evening.
We are looking forward to sharing excerpts of the evening through audio and visual media in the new year, and to the next project steps in 2026. These will include an international conference with a focus on Irish autobiographies, and the development of teaching resources for Irish primary schools. For more on the project see Elizabeth Shaw | Mary Immaculate College.
