Irish Exceptionalism Conference Programme image
Monday, 13 April 2026

Through AHSS Conference Presentation Funding, Dr Sean O'Rourke (EIC) was able to co-present a paper entitled “‘I am your way out’: Sinners and the Ambivalence of Irish Solidarity” at the 2026 French Society for Irish Studies conference. This conference focused on the topic of Irish exceptionalism, inviting talks from literature and history scholars that contest the ways in which Ireland is constructed and constructs itself as anomalous in a variety of national and international perspectives.

Dr O'Rourke co-presented this paper with Dr Sandrine Uwase Ndahiro, a specialist in black postcolonialism who graduated with a doctorate from UL in 2025 and now lectures at Maynooth University. Their joint talk discussed the Irish political implications of the ambivalence endemic to depictions of vampires. In particular, they discussed the American vampire film Sinners (2025), which features an Irish vampire assaulting an African American community, and how it continues a tradition of ambivalent vampires who provide fruitful commentary on Irish political issues. In their paper, vampires provide a useful means of contending with the complicated nature of Ireland’s supposedly exceptional postcoloniality, and how even the oppressed and socially conscious, much like present-day Irish communities, might embody ambivalent, vampiric visions of solidarity. 

Dr O'Rourke and  Dr Sandrine Uwase Ndahiro, are developing a chapter based on this research for a forthcoming edited collection from Routledge called Global Vampires. Further, alongside opportunities for creating new professional connections with diverse international partners, the conference enabled them to offer mentorship to postgraduates, many of whom were presenting for the first time at a conference. They were also able to identify possible future collaborators, among early-career and established scholars alike, for a collection being edited on the future of Irish studies.