NEWS & EVENTS

 

Projects

Major ongoing projects run by the Centre for Irish Studies include the publication of the online international journal Hypermedia Joyce Studies and an extensive bibliography on Czech-Irish Relations. In order to facilitate easier research, all Irish-interest books housed in our library have been arranged in an electronic catalogue (see links in the right-hand column). Also available online from the site of the Centre for Irish Studies is METRE: A Magazine of Poetry, a database of articles and poems from the Irish journal edited by Justin Quinn & David Wheatley.
 

Recent Events and Publications

  • A reading by novelist Lisa McInerney on the occasion of the publication of The Blood Miracles in Czech translation, featuring a discussion with the translator, Tereza Marková (19 November 2019). View poster and photo.
  • A concert by Zoë Conway and John Mc Intyre, organised as part of the EFACIS Irish Itinerary project (22 October 2019). View poster and photo.
  • A Bloomsday reading by the Centre’s staff and students, accompanied by a commented performance of songs related to the work of James Joyce by Prof. Gerry Smyth and Esther Smyth (hosted by the Ambassador of Ireland, 12 June 2019).
  • A St. Patrick’s Day festival which took place at Kampus Hybernská in Prague featuring a crash course of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, a reading of Czech translations of Irish fiction and poetry, and a concert of Irish music performed by the Prague-based band Conamara Chaos (17 March 2019).
  • A reading by celebrated Irish-language poet Biddy Jenkinson, with translations by Daniela Theinová and Martin Světlík and music by Conamara Chaos (20 November 2018). View photos.
  • Publication of a thematic issue of the Litteraria Pragensia journal, "Irish-Language and Scottish Gaelic Literatures: A Global Context", ed. Radvan Markus and Petra Johana Poncarová (28.55, July 2018).
  • Publication of the Czech translation of Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Cré na Cille (Hřbitovní hlína), translated and annotated by Radvan Markus (November 2017). Winner of the national Magnesia Litera award for translation. Photos from the Prague book launch.
  • An evening of Irish literature and music featuring poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, writer Alan Titley and their Czech translators, and musicians Kateřina García and Síle Denvir (15 September 2017). View poster in Irish or in Czech. View photos.
  • A Bloomsday reading featuring a staged reading from Joyce's Ulysses, hosted by the Ambassador of Ireland (16 June 2017). View photo.
  • A book launch and a reading by Kevin Barry from his award-winning novel City of Bohane (22 November 2016). View photos.
  • A bilingual gala night of Czech and Irish literature that took place as part of the IMRAM Festival in Dublin on 10 October 2016. View photos and report. 
  • Publication of The Grotesque in Contemporary Anglophone Drama by Ondřej Pilný (August 2016).
  • Publication of a thematic issue of the Litteraria Pragensia journal, "Irish Theatre and Central Europe", ed. Ondřej Pilný (25.50, December 2015).
  • Commemoration of W.B. Yeats at 150, hosted by the Ambassador of Ireland (November 2015). View photo.
  • Concert by Niamh Parsons and Graham Dunne, organised within the EFACIS Irish Itinerary project (October 2015). View photo.
  • Publication of Jan Pařez and Hedvika Kuchařová, The Irish Franciscans in Prague, 1629-1786 (2015).
  • Publication of Radvan Markus, Echoes of the Rebellion: The Year 1798 in Twentieth-Century Irish Fiction and Drama (2015).
  • Concert by Mary McPartlan, Padraic Keane and Aiden Brennan, organised within the EFACIS Irish Itinerary project (November 2014). View photo.
  • Seamus Heaney Commemoration hosted by the Ambassador of Ireland (April 2014). View photos.
  • Publication of Gerald Power, Ondřej Pilný, eds. Ireland and the Czech Lands: Contacts and Comparisons in History and Culture (2014). View photos from the launch.
  • Publication of selected short stories by Pádraic Ó Conaire, Biskupova duše, trans. Radvan Markus (2013).
  • As part of the EFACIS Irish Itinerary project, the Centre hosted a poetry reading by Medbh McGuckian (photos) and a performance of "Songs of Joyce" by Sinead Murphy and Darina Gallagher (photos) (April 2013).
  • Publication of a thematic issue of the Litteraria Pragensia journal, "Neglected Irish Fiction", eds. Neil Murphy, Keith Hopper and Ondřej Pilný (22.44, December 2012).
  • Publication of Praharfeast: James Joyce in Prague, edited by David Vichnar, David Spurr and Michael Groden (2012).
  • Publication of Joyce Against Theory by David Vichnar (2010).
  • An Evening of Irish Poetry and Music with Louis de Paor, Ronan Browne, Lillis Ó Laoire and Ken Ó Donnchú and friends (November 2009). View poster.
  • Publication of Stewart Parker, Television Plays and Stewart Parker, Dramatis Personae and Other Writings (December 2008).
  • Publication of The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800-2000 by Justin Quinn (2008).
  • David Vichnar was awarded a Mathesius Prize for the best thesis in the academic year 2007-8 for his work “Joyce Against Theory“.
  • Ondřej Pilný was presented the Ambassador’s Award 2008 by H.E. Donal Hamill, “in recognition of his outstanding personal contribution towards strengthening cultural awareness, friendship and understanding between Ireland and the Czech Republic”. Photo.
  • The Irish-language TV station TG4 produced a “Thar Sáile” documentary on the Irish language in Prague which featured the Centre’s staff and students. The programme was broadcast in March 2008, receiving favourable reviews (see, for instance, The Irish Times, 5 March 2008).
  • The first round of European certificates Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge A1 issued by examiners from National University of Ireland, Maynooth, were handed over to our students in May 2008. The Centre for Irish Studies was the first third-level institution outside Ireland to offer European examinations in the Irish language. Photos.
  • Publication of a thematic issue of the Litteraria Pragensia journal, “Samuel Beckett: Textual Genesis and Reception”, eds. Ondřej Pilný and Louis Armand (17.33, 2007).
  • Publication of Clare Wallace, Suspect Cultures: Narrative, Identity and Citation in 1990s New Drama (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006/7).
  • Exhibition on the life and the work of Samuel Beckett co-organised with the Embassy of Ireland to the Czech Republic (Karolinum, April 2006). Guest of honour: Václav Havel. Photos.
  • Publication of J.M. Synge, Hrdina západu: dramata a próza, ed. Ondřej Pilný (Praha: Fraktály, 2006), an annotated edition of Synge’s work in new Czech translations. The translators have included a number of the Centre’s graduates.
  • Joint publication of the Report of the Irish Forum on the Future of Irish Studies (Florence, November 2005) by the Forum and the Centre for Irish Studies.
  • Visit of poet Seamus Heaney (2002). Photo.
  • Visit of Dr Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland (1999). Photo.

Conferences Organised by the Centre

Guest Speakers 

  • 2019

    Prof. Máirín nic Eoin (DCU) 
    Lecture: "Minor, National or Global? Perspectives on Modern Irish-language Literature"

    Dr Ken Ó Donnchú (UCC) 
    Lecture: "'Deite mi chliba': Literary Remnants of the Irish Franciscans in Prague?"

    Dr Michael D’Arcy (St. Francis Xavier University) 
    Lecture: "Krapp's Last Tape and the End of Art"

    Dr Barry Sheils (Durham University) 
    Lecture: "W.B. Yeats and the Scale of Poetry"

  • 2018

    Biddy Jenkinson (Wicklow) 
    Lecture: "The Muse and the Hippopotamus: Questions of Inspiration, Responsibility and Audience in Poetry" and a poetry reading.

    Prof. Mícheál MacCraith (NUI Galway) 
    Lecture: "Negotiating Pietas Austriaca: Irish Exiles in Habsburg Europe"

    Dr Sonja Lawrenson (Manchester Metropolitan University) 
    Lecture: "Popular Fiction in Romantic Ireland"

  • 2017

    Prof. Alexandra Poulain (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3)
    Lecture: "W.B. Yeats's Plays for Dancers"

    Dr Marilynn Richtarik (Georgia State University)
    Lecture: "Brian Friel and Field Day"

  • 2016

    Dr Cathy Leeney (University College Dublin)
    Lecture: "Familial, Gendered and National Spaces in Edna O'Brien's A Pagan Place and Tom Murphy's A Whistle in the Dark"

    Eoin Byrne (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: "'Listen to My Voice': Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Cré na Cille and Postcolonial Modernisms"

    Prof. Barry McCrea (University of Notre Dame)
    A Symposium on his book Languages of the Night with respondents from Charles University (Dr Alice Flemrová, Dr Daniela Theinová, Dr Radvan Markus, Petra Poncarová), moderated by Dr Justin Quinn.

    Richard Pine (Corfu)
    Lecture: "Identity After History" 

    Prof. Brían Ó Conchubhair (University of Notre Dame)
    Lecture: "New Modernist Studies and the Irish Language"

  • 2015

    Prof. Christopher Morash (Trinity College Dublin)
    Lecture: "Yeats, Modernism, and a 'Theatre without Spectators'"

    Dr Gerald Power (Metropolitan University, Prague)
    Lecture: "The Tudor Conquest of Ireland"

    Dr Catherine Flynn (University of California, Berkeley)
    Lecture: "'Everybody here is under arrest': Translation & Politics in Cruiskeen Lawn" (part of the III Intl. Flann O'Brien Conference)

    Dr Joseph Brooker (Birkbeck, University of London)
    Lecture: "Do Bicycles Dream of Molecular Sheep? (part of the III Intl. Flann O'Brien Conference)

    Prof. Brían Ó Conchubhair (University of Notre Dame)
    Lecture: "Flann O'Brien: Beyond & Behind An Beál Bocht" (part of the III Intl. Flann O'Brien Conference)

    Kevin Barry (Sligo)
    Reading and a public Q&A (part of the III Intl. Flann O'Brien Conference)

  • 2014

    Dr Keith Hopper (University of Oxford/St Mary's University, London)
    Lecture: "Imagining Otherwise: Neil Jordan's 'Troubles' Trilogy"

    Dr Verena Commins (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: "Music, Meaning and Monuments: Commemorating Irish Traditional Music"

    Mary McPartlan (Galway)
    Concert of Irish music with Aidan Brennan and Pádraic Keane. Lecture on Traditional Irish Singers 

  • 2013

    Dr Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: "Gaelic League: Dancing the Nation, 1893 to 1940"

    Prof. Matthew Campbell (University of York)
    Lecture: "The Irish Longing for Rhyme"

    Medbh McGuckian
    Poetry reading at the Shakespeare and Sons bookshop

  • 2012

    Aifric Mac Aodha
    Poetry reading at Cafe FRA
    Panel discussion on poetry translation with Daniela Theinová and Justin Quinn.

    Dr Christina Hunt Mahony (Trinity College Dublin)
    Lecture: "Twentieth-century Irish Literary Autobiography: The Legacy of Yeats and Joyce"

    Dr John McCourt (Università Roma Tre)
    Lecture: "Trollope's Adulterous Irish Texts"

    Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: "Seán Ó Ríordáin and Irish-language Poetry", and a poetry reading with music by Conamara Chaos.

  • 2011

    Prof. Mícheál MacCraith (NUI Galway/S. Isidoro, Roma) 
    Lecture: "Tadhg Ó Cianáin: An Early Modern Gaelic Travel Narrative"

    Dr Leo Keohane (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: "Small Town Corner Boys: Men of Metaxologia, 1920-1970"

    Dr Ben Levitas (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
    Lecture: "Bishops' Bonfires and 'Nipple Nuttiness': Censorship and Sensuality in 1950s Irish  Theatre"

    Dr Alan Gillis (University of Edinburgh)
    Lecture: "Edwin Morgan and Contemporary British and Irish Poetry"
    Poetry reading at Cafe FRA

  • 2010

    Leo Keohane (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: "Red Never Green: Anarchists in 1916"

    Dr Eugene McNulty (St Patrick's College Drumcondra) 
    Lecture: “Satire and the North: The Ulster Literary Theatre's Counter-Canon”

  • 2009

    Dr Patrick Lonergan (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: “The Value of Irish Theatre”

    Dr Peter McDonald (Oxford University)
    Lecture: “Yeats and/or Eliot: The Choice”

    Dr Lillis Ó Laoire (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: “Fighting Words and Music: Masculinity in Three Songs Sung by Joe Heaney”

    Dr Louis de Paor (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: “The Pedantic Poems of Liam S. Gógan”

    Dr Matthew Campbell (University of Sheffield)
    Lecture: “Hopkins, Yeats, and the Unravelling of British Poetry”

  • 2008

    Prof. Margaret Kelleher (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)
    Lecture: “From Anthology to the Database: Compiling and Defining Irish Studies”

    Dr John Walsh (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: “The Irish Language: Community and Status”

    Seán Ó Cearnaigh (Board Director, Gaelscoil na lochanna)
    Presentation on Irish-language education in Ireland

    Prof. Michael Cronin (Dublin City University)
    Lecture: “The Politics of Accent”

    Prof. Nicholas Grene (Trinity College Dublin))
    Lecture: “Beckett and Irish Drama: An Offstage Presence”

  • 2007

    Dr Roisín Ní Ghairbhí (St Patrick's College, Drumcondra)
    Lecture: “Contemporary Irish-Language Poetry”

    David Doyle (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: “Section 1 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935: A Reappraisal (Sexual Transgression in the Irish Free State)”)
    Seminar: “Methods and Sources of Archival Research in Ireland”

    Prof. Brian Singleton (Trinity College Dublin; President of the International Federation for Theatre Research)
    Lecture: “Masculinities and the Irish Theatre”

    Prof. Joep Leerssen (University of Amsterdam)
    Lecture: “Women’s Complaints in Irish Literature (Dónall Óg and the Keen for Art O’Leary): Orality, Canonicity, and the Balkan Connection”

    Keith Hopper (Oxford University)
    Lecture: “Ireland into Film: Adapting Irish Literature”

    Dr Claire Connolly (Cardiff University)
    Lecture: “Irish Literary Criticism from Romanticism to Postcolonialism”

  • 2006

    Prof. Patricia Coughlan (National University of Ireland, Cork)
    Lecture: "Chipped and Tilted Marys: Emergent Irish Poetry"

    Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (National University of Ireland, Galway)
    Lecture: “Riverdance and Metaphor: Cultural Prescience of the Celtic Tiger”

    Pádraic Ó Liatháin (Trinity College, Dublin)
    Visiting speaker in Irish language courses.

    Prof. R.F. Foster (Oxford University)
    Lecture: “‘The Gift of Adaptability’: Anxious Influences in Yeats and Joyce”

    Dr Carol Taaffe (Trinity College Dublin)
    Lecture: “Flann O’Brien’s Work in Progress: At Swim-Two-Birds and the Irish Free State”

    Dr Bruce Stewart (University of Ulster at Coleraine)
    Lecture: “Count Dracula and the Spirit of the Nation: Irish Readings of the Vampire Classic”

  • 2005

    Prof. Elmer Kennedy-Andrews (University of Ulster at Coleraine)
    Lecture: “Brian Friel’s Postcolonial Drama”

    Dr Jerzy Jarniewicz (Lodz/Warsaw)
    Lecture: “Poetry from Northern Ireland: In the Shadow of a Foreign Tongue”

    Nessa Cronin (NUI Galway)
    Lecture: “Cartography and the Politics of Translation”

    Dr Lance Pettitt (Leeds Metropolitan University)
    Lecture: "'We're not fukkin' Ey-talians: Gangsters, genre and Irish Cinema"

    Prof. Werner Huber (Chemnitz University of Technology/University of Vienna)
    Lecture: "'Men of Aran': Liam O'Flaherty, Robert Flaherty and Ethnographic Documentaries from the West of Ireland"

    Prof. Richard Deutsch (Université de Lyon III)
    Lecture: "Success or Failure of the Northern Irish Peace Process?"

  • 2004

    Dr Fran Brearton (Queen’s University, Belfast)
    Lecture: "Trying to Make Ourselves Heard: Michael Longley and Northern Irish Poetry"

    Prof. Luke Gibbons (University of Notre Dame)
    Lectures: "History off the Page: Text, Context and Narrative in Joyce"
    "Space of Time through Times of Space: Joyce, Ireland and Colonial Modernity"

    Prof. Mícheál MacCraith (NUI Galway)
    Lecture: "Charles Henry Wilson: The First Translator of Irish Poetry into English"

    Prof. Declan Kiberd (University College Dublin)
    Lecture: "James Joyce and Irish Modernism"

    Dr Louis de Paor (NUI Galway)
    Lecture: "An Inside-Outside Complex: Writing a Second Language" followed by a reading of his poetry.
    Lecture: "The Unbearable Thingness of Things: Flann O'Brien and Early Irish Literature"

  • 2003

    Prof. Edna Longley (Queen’s University, Belfast)
    Lecture: "Yeats and Irish Poetry"

    Michael Longley
    Poetry Reading at Damúza

    Prof. Dennis Kennedy (Trinity College Dublin)
    Lecture: “The Old Lady Says Yes: The Past Decade at the Abbey Theatre”

    Dr Gerry Smyth (John Moores University Liverpool)
    Lecture: “Ireland Unplugged: Folk and Traditional Music in the 1960s”
    Seminar: “Beautiful Day: 40 Years of Irish Rock”

Work with theatre groups, publishers and the media

As part of their focus on Irish theatre, the Centre’s members have been participating on a regular basis in Irish drama productions in the Czech Republic. So far, the cooperation has included plays by J.M. Synge, Brian Friel, Martin McDonagh, Marina Carr, Enda Walsh and Mark O'Rowe produced by prominent theatres in Prague and other cities, with the Centre’s staff serving as translators and/or dramaturges (Ondřej Pilný) or advisers (Ondřej Pilný, Clare Wallace).

Staff members and postgraduate students have produced a number of Czech translations of Irish fiction and poetry, both from English and Irish (Daniela Theinová, Radvan Markus, Ondřej Pilný, Martin Světlík). Alternately, they have translated the work of Czech poets into English (Justin Quinn). All work on a regular basis as consultants for Irish literature translations into Czech.

The Centre also participates in and offers advisory work for media projects on Ireland and Czech-Irish relations. Recent cooperation has included a TG4 documentary on the Irish Language in Prague, Czech TV documentary on early Irish Christianity, radio programmes on Seamus Heaney, J.M. Synge and Karel Mušek, modern Irish writing, Celticism, "Celtic Music", Irish drama in translation and Irish Studies in the Czech Republic (Czech Radio, RTÉ, BBC), and articles on aspects of Irish culture and history in major dailies, as well as popular magazines.

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The Centre for Irish Studies gratefully acknowledges the long-term support of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland (most recently for the award of an ESP grant to the amount of CZK 510,000 for the period 1 July 2020 - 30 June 2021). Irish language teaching is funded from a grant awarded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Ireland. Our special thanks are due to the Embassy of Ireland to the Czech Republic for their unrelenting encouragement and support.