Romanticism & Realism:
Pearse, MacNeill, the Revival & the Rising
Public Talk
with
6pm Thursday 12 May
Sponsored by NUI Galway Alumni
Preceded at 5.30pm and followed by exhibition closing wine reception. All welcome!
This talk observes how a cultural revolution became a real revolution. It also examines personalities and politics that more than any others shaped Irish history. Patrick Pearse and Eoin MacNeill were collaborators in the Gaelic League, writers, thinkers and educators working together on An Claidheamh Soluis; fatally, they disagreed over the preparation and timing for armed rebellion. Pearse’s plays drew upon ancient myth to openly demand revolution; MacNeill’s historical studies produced Phases of Irish History and Celtic Ireland. Was it simply romanticism vs realism? Looking back on the Easter Rising and the foundation of the Free State, W.B. Yeats suggested that ‘the modern literature of Ireland, and indeed all that stir of thought which prepared for the Anglo-Irish war, began when Parnell fell from power in 1891. A disillusioned and embittered Ireland turned from parliamentary politics; an event was conceived; and the race began, as I think, to be troubled by that event’s long gestation’. Looking back from one hundred years on, this talk considers the period’s complex interconnections of culture, literature and history, and asks how that ‘stir of thought’ at once created and limited the gestation and flowering of the decisive events of 1916.
Dr Mary Harris is Senior Lecturer in History at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She was born in Cork and is a graduate of UCC, proceeding to Cambridge for her PhD which led to her monograph The Catholic Church and the Foundation of the Northern Irish State (Cork University Press, 1993).
Mary has worked as a secondary school teacher in Cork and Grenada, West Indies. From 1992-6 she taught Irish Studies at the University of North London. Since 1996 she has been in the discipline of History at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her teaching and research focus is on modern Irish history, and she has published widely in this area. She is currently working on a book on Eoin MacNeill.
Mary is co-ordinator of NUI Galway’s programme commemorating the 1916 Rising and is a member of the Irish government’s expert advisory group on commemoration.
Dr Mary Harris appears in conversation with the curator of Yeats & the West, and Lecturer in English at NUI Galway, Dr Adrian Paterson. The talk is followed by a wine reception for the exhibition closing honouring NUI Galway alumni, who include the illustrious collector Nora Niland.
Donal Tinney Chairperson of The Model, Dr Adrian Paterson NUI Galway and curator of the exhibition and Senator Susan O’Keeffe, at the NUI Galway Launch of Yeats & the West Exhibition at The Model, Sligo.
Photo: James Connolly
24MAR16
Yeats & the West Exhibition Tours & Talks
Curators Tours 1pm. Public Talks 6pm.
Free entry
Tours Thursday at 1pm
Tours of the exhibition from the curators take place every Thursday at 1pm. Find out what makes art and poetry so close, and observe the connection of books, and music, drama, and discover never before seen rare books and fine art from the collections of NUI Galway and The Model. Come and get an inside view of the crafts and cultures that made a western revolution.
Emer McGarry, Acting Director, The Model, Cllr. Thomas Healy, Dr Jim Browne , President of NUI Galway, Martin Enright, President of Yeats Society, Sligo, Dr Adrian Paterson, NUI Galway, and curator of the exhibition, Senator Susan O’Keeffe, Ciaran Hayes, Sligo County Manager, Barry Houlihan, NUIG, Donal Tinney, Chairperson of The Model, and John Cox, NUIG, at the NUI Galway Launch of Yeats & the West Exhibition at The Model, Sligo.
Photo: James Connolly
24MAR16
Talks Thursdays at 6pm
This series of talks on Yeats’s connection to the west and beyond takes us inside the makings of a western cultural revolution. Talks from experts in the field range from exploring the pioneering art and craftwork of the Yeats family to W.B.Yeats’s own life and loves, considering his some of his most controversial and sexy poems; they reveal the extraordinary plays of his brother, the artist Jack B. Yeats, and alongside the Model Gallery’s newly unveiled Broadside collection, showcase his design and print work; and they weigh the wider forces that turned a cultural revolution into a real one.
Speakers include the curators of the exhibition Dr Adrian Paterson and Barry Houlihan (NUI Galway), Professor Adrian Frazier (NUI Galway), Professor Margaret Mills Harper (University of Limerick and outgoing Director of the Yeats International Summer School), Dr Hilary Pyle (former Yeats Curator at National Gallery of Ireland), Dr Ian Walsh (NUI Galway), Dr Mary Harris (NUI Galway).
All talks take place every Thursday at 6pm in the Model Theatre.
7 April – ‘Lake Isles, River Eyots: making Innisfree with the Yeats family’
Adrian Paterson, English, NUI Galway
14 April – ‘A Disturbing Influence: Maud Gonne in the life of W.B. Yeats’
Adrian Frazier, English, NUI Galway
21 April – ‘Jack B. Yeats’s A Broadside: a sheaf of ballads or a battery of guns?’
Hilary Pyle, former Yeats Curator at the National Gallery of Ireland
28 April – ‘W.B. Yeats and the Problem of Crazy Jane’
Margaret Mills Harper, University of Limerick, & outgoing Director of the Yeats International Summer School
5 May – ‘A Vaudeville of Frustration: The Theatre of Jack B. Yeats’.
Ian Walsh, Centre for Drama Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway
12 May – ‘Romanticism and Realism: Pearse, MacNeill, the Revival and the Rising’
Mary Harris, History, NUI Galway
For schools events Thursdays enquire schoolvisits@nuigalway.ie
Tues-Sat: 10am – 5.30pm
Thurs: 10am – 8pm
Sun: 12 – 5pm
Mon: Closed
Yeats & the West 