Media/Interviews/Recordings
Professor Joseph O'Connor at 'Hugh Leonard: A Life in Words'
Professor Joseph O'Connor gave a talk at 'Hugh Leonard: A Life in Words', a commemorative event for the playwright's centenary, at the Lexicon Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, on 7th November.
Professor Joseph O'Connor's poetry published in the Sunday Independent (Nov 2026)
Professor Joseph O'Connor's poem 'The All-Souls Hotel' was published in the Sunday Independent on 1st November.
Professor Joseph O'Connor's poem 'In Memoriam Hugh Leonard' was published in the Sunday Independent on 8th November.
Dr Sorcha de Brún media appearances (Feb/Mar 2025)
LitCitizen Lit. Citizen: Interview with Sorcha de Brún Part 1 of 2 Parts
Antioch University Los Angeles Master of Fine Arts
https://antiochlitcit.libsyn.com/antioch-litcit-57-sorcha-de-brn-part-1
7.03.2025
Nuacht TG4: TV.
22.02.2025
RTE News: TV
https://www.rte.ie/player/series/rt%C3%A9-news-six-one/SI0000001474?epguid=IH10008758-25-0069
2.03.2025
RTE News Website
https://www.rte.ie/gaeilge/2025/0211/1496030-shakespeare-saviour-of-the-irish-language/
11.02.2025
Peig.ie: newsletter
https://peig.ie/2025/02/gaeilge-curtha-ar-shoineid-shakespeare-ag-leachtoir-in-ollscoil-luimnigh/
18.02.2025
Tuairisc.ie: newspaper
https://tuairisc.ie/gaeilge-curtha-ar-shoineid-shakespeare-ag-leachtoir-in-ollscoil-luimnigh/
18.02.2025
Limerick Live: Radio interview
19.02.25
Limerick Leader: Newspaper
Limerick lecturer translates Shakespeare's sonnets into Irish - Limerick Live
Radio na Life: Radio Interview on Fios Feasa by Oisín Mac Uigeann
Pléisiúr an Aistriúcháin - Soinéid Shakespeare as Gaeilge - Dr. Sorcha De Brún by Raidió na Life
12.02.25
Raidió Fáilte Belfast, Northern Ireland. Interview with Storm Eaton-Kilgallen.
https://raidiofailte.com/podcasts/?lang=en
21.02.2025
Connemara Community Radio: Radio Interview
https://audio.com/connemararadioarchives?page=2
18.02.2025
Raidió na Life: Radio Interview on Fada agus Fairsing with Lisa Nic an Bhreithimh
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3EV6K6hB5acpj7C5Ut0gNT?si=ajanuKKBRlG9dfpHP1SvVg
Joseph O'Connor reads excerpt from new novel The Ghosts of Rome on RTÉ Radio 1 (March 2025)
Professor Joseph O'Connor recently read from and discussed his thrilling new novel The Ghosts of Rome on RTÉ Radio 1.
Professor Michael Griffin on BBC 4 'In Our Time' (Feb 2025)
Professor Michael Griffin was on BBC 4's In Our Time, presented by Malvyn Bragg, to talk about Goldsmith with Dr David O'Shaughnessy and Professor Judith Hawley.
Prof Joseph O'Connor's new novel 'The Ghosts of Rome' entered the bestsellers' list at number one (Jan 2025)
Prof Joseph O'Connor's new novel 'The Ghosts of Rome' has entered the bestsellers' list at number one.
Published on 30 January, the book has received rave reviews from the Sunday Times, Irish Times, Guardian, The Times, and New York Times.
His essay on the real-life women involved in the Rome Escape Line assisting fugitives from the Nazis was published in the Sunday Independent on 2 February.
Joe recently appeared on Brendan O'Connor's RTE Radio 1 programme segment, 'My Life in Five Songs', choosing music from the Boomtown Rats, the Smiths, the Undertones, Hildegard von Bingen and Coleman Hawkins, and speaking about the research involved in 'The Ghosts of Rome'.
Congratulations Joe!
Dr Emily Cullen Reads at TradFest 2025 (Jan 2025)
Dr Emily Cullen was invited to read, alongside fellow poets, Paul Muldoon and Felispeaks, at a special tribute event to honour actor, Stephen Rea as part of TradFest 2025.
The unique evening of poetry and music, ‘Celebrating Stephen Rea: Rhymes, Reason & Rascality’, took place at The Lark Theatre, Balbriggan, Co. Dublin on Wednesday, 22 January to a packed, appreciative audience.
Stephen Rea is one of the most iconic and important cultural figures not alone of his own but of any generation to come from Ireland. The event was part of a series programmed across four nights at The Lark Theatre for TradFest, to honour Stephen through words and music.
Well done Emily!
How Breton folktales from France connect to traditional Irish folklore, July 24
The bean sí (banshee) from Irish folklore is similar to a French folk tale character from Brittany.
Síle de Cléir
Enter a mysterious, enchanting world where a handsome prince steps out of the belly of a cat; where a black horse blocks the night traveller’s way at every turn; where a vintage bottle of wine is presented as an aid to getting into heaven.
Cinderella but not as you know her: wonder tales in Irish tradition. Nuashonraithe Iúil 2024
Le Ailbhe Nic Giolla Chomhaill
Analysis: Wonder tales transport the listener from the mundane world of day-to-day life to the marvellous sphere of the supernatural
In his book Passing the Time in Ballymenone: culture and history of an Ulster community, folklorist Henry Glassie writes that 'stories are narratives artfully ordered to do the serious work of entertainment, pleasing their listeners in the present, then carrying them into the future with something to think about'. As entertainment, stories feed and nurture us, offering a temporary escape from the humdrum of daily life and work routines, and creating a space in which belief can be suspended, and alternative ways of being imagined.
Shakespeare (1564 – 1616). Aistriúcháin le Dr. Sorcha de Brún
'Soinéid 19 agus 29 le Shakespeare: Aistriúcháin go Gaeilge' / Shakespeare's Sonnets 19 and 29: Translations to Irish'.
'Devouring Time, blunt thou the Lion's Paws' (19); agus
'When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes' (29). Comhar, Bealtaine 2024.
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald: "We’ll coat our nails black with lacquer, dress like men, & I will scrub away his blaring lurid murals"
Professor Sarah Moore Fitzgerald features in Splonk with some flash fiction
Splonk is an online flash fiction journal set up in January 2019 by a group of flash writers and editors in Ireland. The word ‘splonk’ is the anglicised form of the Irish word ‘splanc’:
splanc, noun fem. flash, spark. A splaincín (derived from splanc) is a spirited, fiery female.
Issue 1 of Splonk was published the 1st of May 2019.
In some shining slice of time, not hers, not mine, we will be friends. I’ll enter slowly through the door-less frame at Roquebrune, and we will sit behind her concertina glass in chairs designed for happiness. On the balcony we’ll drink (by day, iced water, dry white wine by night). Often we will clamber down the rocky path to swim.
Sometimes the sea will have a pulse, hot and sharp like toothache. Breakfast will be served on steely tables that can be raised or lowered according to our changing moods. I will drive with her on fragrant coastal roads.
One evening, drunk, I’ll tell her I think Badovici is no good, and behind Le Corbusier’s suntanned back I’ll ask, ‘Who chooses for himself a name like that?’ We’ll tear his dark-wood cabin down, his colour-coded bunkhouses. Our laughter will be filled with liberty and vindication. We’ll coat our nails black with lacquer, dress like men, and I will scrub away his blaring lurid murals, sand down her walls, and paint them clean again.
If you wish to learn some more about Irish Architect Eileen Gray follow this link
Why everything you thought you knew about Peig Sayers is wrong!
RTÉ Brainstorm Analysis: Look beyond the photo on the cover of her autobiography and the Kerrywoman's story reflects issues that still concern us today with Dr. Sorcha de Brún
The importance of home is one of the most enduring aspects of Peig, and the teenage longing for her own place becomes increasingly important as she grows from girlhood into womanhood. This is fuelled not only by the harsh conditions of her second period as a domestic servant, but also by a desire to be free from oppression, which she describes as ‘daorsmacht’.
Forced by circumstances (including a jealous sister-in-law) into domestic servitude aged fourteen and leaving her beloved, ailing mother behind, homesickness and loneliness are palpable in Sayer's account of teenage employment. She describes what it like to be under the cosh, ‘fé bhais an chait’ and what it is to be powerless, ‘fé dhaoirse’. In a significant passage in the autobiography, she gives an account of what in current parlance we call sexist language, gender discrimination and gas lighting Read the full article
Aengus Ó Fionnagáin - Place names and their contribution to climate action (April 2024)
Aengus Ó Fionnagáin: An ról atá ag logainmneacha sa ghníomhaíocht aeráide
Is léachtóir le Teanga agus Litríocht na Gaeilge in Ollscoil Luimnigh é Aengus Ó Fionnagáin. San fhíseán seo, labhraíonn sé faoina chuid oibre le pobail éagsúla agus an nasc a mbíonn acu leis na logainmneacha áitiúla timpeall orthu. Comhrá i nGaeilge le fotheidil Bhéarla.
Féach anois
Aengus Ó Fionnagáin: Place names and their contribution to climate action
Aengus Ó Fionnagáin is a lecturer in Irish Language and Literature in the University of Limerick. In this video he discusses his work with communities and their connection to place names. Conversation in Irish with English subtitles.
Watch now
University of Limerick unveils journalism competition in memory of Joe Drennan, March 24
Following the tragic loss of a pioneering student & editor, the Joe Drennan Memorial Competition for Inclusive Journalism was organised with the aim to foster a deeper understanding of marginalised communities.
Read Here: University of Limerick unveils journalism competition in memory of Joe Drennan | Hotpress
The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2024.
Credit: Hotpress
Dr. Tina O'Toole contributes to 'Croíthe Radacacha' [Radical Hearts] screened by TG4 Dec 23.
Croíthe Radacacha
TG4: A documentary about 'the love that dares not speak its name' - found at the very heart of the Irish Revolution.
The hidden stories of eight female couples who were central in the fight that freed Ireland from the British Empire, including Kathleen Lynn, Eva Gore-Booth, and Helena Moloney.
Directed by Ciara Hyland & based on the historical research of Dr Mary McAuliffe and individual contributors (including O'Toole and Bríona Nic Dhiarmada, among others).
The Grass Ceiling by SEIC doctoral researcher Eimear Ryan - an Post Irish Book of the Year 2023 Winner, Nov 23
an Post: Eimear Ryan’s writing has appeared in Granta, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review and The Stinging Fly. She is a co-founder of the literary journal Banshee and its publishing imprint, Banshee Press. Her first novel, Holding Her Breath, was shortlisted for the Newcomer of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and for the John McGahern Prize. A native of Co. Tipperary, Eimear now lives in Cork city.
June O'Sullivan (MA Creative Writing) has a piece of flash fiction, “Above and Below” in Issue 6 of The Waxed Lemon, Nov 23.
June O'Sullivan (MA Creative Writing) has a piece of flash fiction, “Above and Below” in Issue 6 of The Waxed Lemon.
Another flash "The Boathouse" in Issue 3 of The The Storms Journal.
June also has short story "The Hurler" in Sonder Issue VIII, which features short stories, creative nonfiction and flash fiction.
Professor O'Connor, Donal Ryan, and Professor Sarah Moore Fitzgerald have had pieces published in the new Sunday Miscellany Anthology, edited by Sarah Binchy, Nov 23.
The long-awaited latest book in the much loved Sunday Miscellany series from RTÉ Radio 1.
Sunday Miscellany — NEW ISLAND BOOKS
Professor O'Connor's novel My Father's House was featured on BBC 2 television's book programme, 'Between the Covers', Nov 23.
Jo says: It’s a novel based on a true story. It’s about an Irish priest in the Vatican during the Second World War, who set up escape routes for prisoners of the Nazis because there’s a specific camp just outside Rome. And he calls his group The Choir and they meet under the auspices of being a choir. And there are a lot of very disparate characters – there’s a countess, and there's also a guy that runs a newspaper stand, and they all have a place.
And, being an Irish writer, the language is really, really special. A bit Joyce-ian but not full-on, full-blown Joyce that makes you go ‘Argh, give me a drink!’. Right up until the end, it is frightening and some of it is hard to read, but it's got wonderful characters and it’s very sensitive... and it's very funny as well.
BBC Sounds: UL's Dr. Laura Ryan contributes to New Thinking- Modernism, exile and homelessness.
From “A Room of One’s Own” to “Down and Out in Paris and London” – how have writers in the first decades of the twentieth century thought about ideas of home, exile and poverty.
Arts & Ideas - New Thinking: Modernism, exile and homelessness - BBC Sounds
‘Ragged, Livid & On Fire’ has been curated by Dr Christina Morin of the University of Limerick and Dr Jason McElligott of Marsh’s Library.
A celebration of the publication in 1820 of Melmoth the Wanderer by the Dublin writer Charles Robert Maturin.
Maturin lived close to Marsh’s Library and was a regular visitor to the building. This exhibition shows that Maturin used a familiarity with 16th- and 17th-century printed material to condemn religious hypocrisy, and to draw a sharp distinction between the light of culture and the darkness of fanaticism.
‘Ragged, Livid & On Fire’ has been curated by Dr Christina Morin of the University of Limerick and Dr Jason McElligott of Marsh’s Library.
