Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 November 2011 08:25

2011 Statutory Public Lecture

‘Poet and scholar: The education of the fili in early mediaeval Ireland’ by Professor Liam Breatnach

Friday 18 November at 8pm, Thomas Davis Theatre, Arts Building, Trinity College, Dublin

About Statutory Public Lectures

Éamon de Valera was an ardent devotee of the public lecture as a form of intellectual entertainment, and it was his firm desire that the Institute which he was founding should provide a regular programme of public lectures on specialist topics. He proposed initially that all members of staff at professorial level should have to give six such public lectures a year. This would have been a formidable task, and it would have completely frustrated the purposes for which special arrangements for Irish Studies research had been planned. When de Valera was drafting specifications for his Institute, he had a much closer rapport with physicists, and had more regular exchanges with them, than with any senior scholar in Irish Studies. He particularly relied for advice and guidance on Arthur W. Conway, Professor of Mathematical Physics at University College, Dublin. Conway attempted to dissuade de Valera from stipulating the provision of public lectures. He argued plausibly that (1) a public lecture on a topic of advanced research would probably be understood in a small centre like Dublin by perhaps two people, and (2) the provision of more popular lectures is a specialized activity to which, in any case, only some subject areas are amenable. This reasoning had some effect, and the statutory requirement was eventually reduced to a general exhortation that occasional public lectures be organized by each School and, specifically, that arrangements be made for:

... the delivery in alternate years in University College, Dublin, and Trinity College, Dublin, of one or more public lectures on subjects or branches of knowledge in respect of which study or research is being carried on in or under the authority of the School ... (Establishment Order 17.2).

It is these annual lectures, alternating between University College and Trinity College in Dublin, which have come traditionally to be called the `Statutory Public Lectures'. From the beginning, the Statutory Public Lecture requirement has been interpreted as permitting the practice, established by the School of Irish Learning, of providing an opportunity for experts from outside the School and, whenever possible, from overseas, to lecture on aspects of their research.

Previous Statutory Public Lectures

2010

Damian McManus: The Bardic Poetry Database: opportunities and challenges for future scholarship
Part of Tionól 2010.

2009

Fergus Kelly: Women's rights and duties in early Irish law, with special reference to marriage
Part of Tionól 2009

2008

Pádraig A. Breatnach: The Four Masters and their Works: A Team Enterprise
Part of Tionól 2008

2007

Katharine Simms: The Nature and Function of Bardic Poetry: an introduction to the DIAS bardic poetry database
Part of Tionól 2007

2006

Pádraig Ó Riain: The Book of Glendalough: a continuing investigation
Part of Tionól 2006

2005

Liam Breatnach: Mediaeval Irish law and mediaeval Irish literature
Part of Tionól 2005

2004

Tomás Ó Cathasaigh: The body in Táin Bó Cúailnge
Part of Tionól 2004

2003

Seán Ó Coileáin: When oral becomes literary: the case of Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire
Part of Tionól 2003

2002

Liam Breatnach: 'Satire, praise and the early poet'
Part of Tionól 2002

2001

Aoibheann Nic Dhonnchadha: 'Medical writings in Irish: translations of the works of Bernard of Gordon'
Part of Tionól 2001

2000

Fergus Kelly: 'The early Irish wisdom-texts: origins and ethos'
Part of Tionól 2000

1999

Máirtín Ó Murchú: 'The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language II'

1998

Máirtín Ó Murchú: 'The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language I'

1997

Pádraig Ó Macháin: 'Ar thóir téacs agus údair i bhfilíocht na scol'

1996

David Howlett: 'Scoti ludentes, the Irish at play in their earlier letters'

1995

Terence McCaughey: 'Dr. Bedell and Mr. King'

1994

Thomas O'Loughlin: 'The view from Iona: Adomnán's mental maps'

1993

Gwenllian Awbery: 'Does Welsh have a future?'

1992

William Gillies: 'The Book of the Dean of Lismore'

1991

Neil Buttimer: 'Manuscript and book in pre-Famine Gaelic Ireland'

1990

R. Mark Scowcroft: 'Abstract narrative in Ireland'

1989

Máirtín Mac Conmara: 'The Irish affiliations of the Catechesis Celtica'

1988

Fergus Kelly: 'Early Irish Farming: the evidence of 7th-8th century law-texts'

1987

Rolf Baumgarten: 'The Galatians: Celts in Asia Minor'

1986

Proinsias Mac Cana: 'The Early Ulster-Scottish Hero Cycle'

1985

Mícheál Ó Siadhail: 'Irish and English - Aspects of Language Contact'

1984

Heinrich Wagner: 'The Celtic Invasions of Ireland and Britain: Facts and Theories'

1983

Nessa Ní Shéaghdha: 'Translations and Adaptations'

1982

Malachy McKenna: 'The Breton Literary Tradition'

1981

Brian Ó Cuív: 'Ireland's Manuscript Heritage'

1980

Mícheál Ó Siadhail: 'The Standardization of Irish Orthography'

1979

Heinrich Wagner: 'Origins of Pagan Irish Religion'

1978

James P. Carney: 'Aspects of Archaic Old Irish'

1977

Karl Horst Schmidt: 'The Languages of Gaul and Britain in Roman Times'

1976

Fergus Kelly: 'Early Irish Justice'

1975

Breandán Ó Buachalla: 'Settler and Native in Seventeenth-Century Ulster'

1974

David Greene: 'Makers and Fakers'
Brian Ó Cuív: 'Personal Names, Epithets and Nicknames in Irish'

1973

Rolf Baumgarten: 'A Bibliographer's View of Irish Studies'

1971

Myles Dillon: 'The Oldest Irish Stories'

1970

Roparz Hemon: 'Written and Colloquial Breton'

1969

David Greene: 'The Chariot in Early Irish Literature'
Brian Ó Cuív: 'The Linguistic Training of the Mediaeval Irish Poet'

1968

James P. Carney: 'The Lost Book of Glendalough - A Preliminary Investigation'

1966

Daniel A. Binchy: 'Tribe and Clan - The Celtic Evidence'
Daniel A. Binchy: 'A Thousand Years of Irish - Corpus Iuris Hibernici'

1964

Myles Dillon: 'Finding the Celts'
Daniel A. Binchy: 'The Book of Rights and Irish Pseudo-History'

1962

James P. Carney: 'Sedulius Scottus - A Man of Adequate Piety'
Daniel A. Binchy: 'The Ritual Hunger Strike in Ancient Ireland'

1961

Paul Thieme: 'Prehistoric Origins of Indo-European Poetry'

1960

Caerwyn Williams: 'Early Welsh Personal Names'

1959

Daniel A. Binchy: 'The Origins of the so-called High-Kingship'

1958

James P. Carney: 'O'Hussey and Maguire - A Study in the Relationship of Poet and Patron'

1957

Daniel A. Binchy: 'Tara and Cashel'

1956

Myles Dillon: 'The Book of Rights'

1955

James P. Carney: 'The Old Irish Poems on the Blessed Virgin'

1953

Daniel A. Binchy: 'Celtic Kingship'
Myles Dillon: 'Linguistic Borrowing and Historical Evidence'

1952

Heinrich Wagner: 'The Irish Linguistic Atlas - A Preliminary Report'

1951

David Greene: 'The Art of Translation'

1950

Brian Ó Cuív: 'Irish Dialects and Irish-Speaking Districts'

1949

James P. Carney: 'Suibhne Geilt and the Children of Lir'

1947

J. Lloyd Jones: 'The Court Poets of the Welsh Princes'

1946

Cainneach Ó Maonaigh: 'Sgríbhneorí Gaeilge d'Órd San Froinsias'

1944

John Macdonald: 'Scottish Gaelic and its Literature'

1943

Ifor Williams: 'Early Welsh Poetry'

1942

Thomas F. O'Rahilly: 'The Two Patricks'