The Department of Spanish at University College Cork has established a Centre for Galician Studies. What strikes anyone who has ventured off the coast in Galicia is that the only difference between that region and parts of the west or south-west coasts of Ireland is language.
The faces are the same: you could be in Mayo, west Cork or Kerry. The standing stones in the patchwork fields reveal the same Celtic heritage. The welcome is the same, despite the language barrier. And in the remoter parts of Galicia can be seen a Spain that might have been witnessed in the remote rural Ireland of the 1930s and 1940s - animals still kept in houses and villages laid bare by emigration.
The UCC initiative is made possible through the co-operation of the Autonomous Regional Government of Galicia, Xunta. UCC's Spanish Department already offers studies in Catalan and Portuguese, but the new Centre for Galician Studies will make the UCC Spanish department the sole one in the Republic offering courses in all the Romance languages of the Iberian peninsula.
Meanwhile, Prof David Mackenzie, head of the Spanish Department, officiated recently at a ceremony attended by the Mexican ambassador to Ireland, Mr Daniel Dultzin, at which a new Centre for Mexican Studies was established at the college.
Prof Mackenzie had been an advocate of the inclusion of Latin-American literature and culture in UCC's Spanish programme, and to that end he enlisted the services of the former Cambridge and Birmingham academic, Dr Maurice Biriotti, who regularly lectures in Cork.
From now on, UCC will be included in the itinerary of distinguished Mexican academics as they visit Europe. The Mexican embassy will provide books and periodicals, as well as a website to reflect the research and interests of the centre.
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