Loose Leaves: Irish Studies will come under scrutiny in Italy at the Irish Florence Forum 2005, which runs from October 26th to 28th. The round-table think-tank type event will look at how the Irish Studies area should go forward in the 21st century.
Convenor Christina Hunt Mahony, of the Centre for Irish Studies at the Catholic University of America, says the subject needs redefining. "Sometimes special interest studies can be seen by universities as expendable when fashions change. We don't want Irish Studies to lose its individual identity in universities outside Ireland when rationalisation might tend to combine it into, say, European Studies."
The forum will also make recommendations to Culture Ireland, the new arm of the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism aimed at promoting Ireland abroad.
More than 50 delegates from 17 countries will be in Florence. While many are academics, there will also be librarians, archivists and representatives of arts agencies, publishing houses and other bodies. R. F. Foster, Luke Gibbons, Catriona Crowe, Marianne Elliot, Robert Savage, Nicholas Grene, Mary Cloake and J. J. Lee are among those heading to the European University, in Fiesole outside Florence, for the deliberations. The forum's main sponsor, the Cultural Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs, will also be represented and a Department spokesperson said the event would provide an overall sense of what's out there in the discipline at the moment as Irish Studies programmes varied widely in content and scope in different territories; some focusing on language, others more on politics, literature or history.
Given the popularity of Irish culture in many parts of the world one wonders if the time has come to capitalise on this in a major way by forming a network of Irish cultural centres in carefully chosen destinations abroad; a network similar to France's Alliance Française organisation, Britain's British Council and Germany's Goethe institutes. No doubt this and many other innovative concepts will crop up in Fiesole. See www.irishforumflorence2005.com
Northern words
The Galway-based Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoiri Chaitlín Maude - hosts a major commemoration of the contemporary literature of Northern Ireland next weekend, starting on Friday. Open debates, readings and discussions on literary subjects from theatre to Ulster Scots writing will feature.
Friday's free public debate, What are We Dealing With?, will discuss the relevance of Northern Irish contemporary literature. This is followed by a reading by poet Alan Gillis. Saturday features readings by Martin Mooney and Medbh McGuckian, a talk on "Women in Northern Drama" from playwright Jo Egan and Lyric Theatre Belfast's administrator Paula McFettridge, as well as readings in Irish by Gregoir O Dúill and an tAthair Eamonn O Muiraghaidh. Moyra Donaldson will also read, along with novelists Carlo Gébler and Glenn Patterson. On Sunday, Newry-born director of the Irish Writers' Centre, Cathal McCabe, will read with Leontia Flynn, followed by Jim Fenton discussing and reading in Ulster Scots.
Belfast-born writer and critic Fred Johnston, founder of Galway's annual Cúirt literature festival and, more recently, founder/manager of the Western Writers' Centre, hopes the event will dispel myths about creative writing in Northern Ireland. "We need to question our literary smugness here in the South, which can border on a quaint parochialism. I would have a festival like this every year to bring the two literatures closer together."
The festivals main sponsor is the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Lottery Fund. Telephone 091-526915 or e-mail westernwriters@eircom.net
Having a Böll
The location for tonight's edition of RTÉ Radio 1's poetry programme, The Enchanted Way, is the Heinrich Böll Cottage on Achill Island. Poet Pat Boran visits the cottage to talk to Israeli poet Amir Or and Welsh poet Fiona Sampson, who've spent two weeks there collaborating on a text. As well as reading from their work they will talk about the collaborative process. Incidentally, this programme will be archived on the RTÉ website (www.rte.ie/radio1)