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
- 2016
- Barry J. Lewis
- View the lecture, and download the notes (PDF).
- Part of Tionól 2016
- 2015
- Ruairí Ó hUiginn: The Emergence of Modern Irish
- View the lecture, and download the notes (PDF).
- Part of Tionól 2015
- 2014
- Liam Breatnach: The Church in the Laws of Early Mediaeval Ireland
- View the lecture
- Part of Tionól 2014
- 2013
- Fergus Kelly: Early Irish Music: An overview of the linguistic and documentary evidence
- View the lecture
What do the early Irish texts tell us about the history of music in this country? The main emphasis in this lecture will be on the period between the coming of Christianity in the 5th century and the Anglo-Norman invasion in the late 12th century. Topics to be discussed include the identification of the stringed instruments crot and timpán, the use of wind-instruments in military contexts, the development of bag-pipes, the functions of percussion instruments, and the various styles of singing mentioned in the texts. There will also be an account of the evidence for dancing in early Christian Ireland.
The lecture will conclude with a summary of the role of music in early Irish society, and a discussion of the Church’s attitude towards different types of music, as well as an account of the frequent association between music and the supernatural in early Irish literature.
Part of Tionól 2013
- 2012
- Máire Herbert: Irish History and World History: Some views from the pre-Norman era
Part of Tionól 2012 - 2011
- Liam Breatnach: Poet and scholar: The education of the fili in early mediaeval Ireland
Part of Tionól 2011. - 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’
