A Global Gathering to Discuss the Irish Diaspora
News
24 July 2017
UCD welcomes researchers from around the world to the first international congress on the Global Irish Diaspora
August 15th – 19th
UCD O’Brien Centre for Science
UCD is hosting the largest ever gathering of researchers to discuss and debate the histories, cultures, heritages and identities of Irish diaspora communities, past and present.
Over four days more than 150 speakers from around the world will take to the podium to present original research on the Irish who migrated to places as close as England, France and Spain, and as distant as Canada, South America, southern Africa, eastern Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Historians, folklorists, archaeologists, musicologists and many others will explore why Irish people migrated in huge numbers, what they experienced when they migrated, how they remembered their Irishness, and how their descendants celebrate their Irishness today.
The congress will feature keynote lectures from Professor Dónal McCracken of University of KwaZulu-Natal and Professor Angela Bourke of UCD, and will culminate in a round table discussion chaired by Professor Joe Lee of University College Cork.
More than 70 million people worldwide can claim descent from Irish emigrants. The sheer scale of the diaspora has made it difficult in the past for researchers to meet each other in one place and exchange ideas. This congress meets that need. It is entirely appropriate that it should be held in Ireland, but every three years it will be held in a different location in the world. The UCD gathering promises to be an historic event in the study of the Global Irish Diaspora.
For more information see: www.ucd.ie/globalirishdiaspora
