After 10 years at the helm of Irish Studies at QUB, with various ups and downs over the last decade, I’m handing over to our new leadership team from Monday. Many thanks to Peter and @siobhraaiken.bsky.social for stepping up to take forward Irish Studies in Belfast! www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

New Irish Studies Leadership

After 10 years as Director of the Institute of Irish Studies, Prof Peter Gray is handing over to a new leadership team from the start of August 2026.

qub.ac.uk

A reminder that the 2028 Fulbright Scholarship in Irish Studies at QUB is open for applications until September 15th. More info at www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

Fulbright Fellowship in Irish Studies at Queen's University Belfast available for 2028

The US-UK Fulbright Commission's Queen's University Belfast Award in Irish Studies covers a six-month appointment to research, lecture and teach in Irish Studies in Northern Ireland.

qub.ac.uk

Given the week that's in it, a good time for a Mayo focus! In this piece by Elizabeth Malcolm, Captain Boycott is taken on by the women of Mayo. historyireland.com/captain-boyc...

CAPTAIN BOYCOTT V. THE WOMEN OF MAYO - History Ireland

By Elizabeth Malcolm The boycott in late 1880 of Captain Charles Boycott, the English-born agent for the earl of Erne’s Lough Mask estate in south-east Mayo, is still remembered today mainly because i...

historyireland.com

The manuscript of the week is RIA MS 23 P 7, the Annals of the Four Masters. Two full sets of the annals were prepared by the Four Masters and are now divided into multi-volume sets. www.isos.dias.ie/RIA/RIA_MS_2...

MS 23 P 7 (The Annals of the Four Masters) (Royal Irish Academy)

isos.dias.ie

Banned Comics at the NLI 📖 Were comics really banned in Ireland? Join comic scholar James Bacon as he explores the history of comic censorship in Ireland using material from the National Library's collections. 📅 Thursday 6 Aug at 6pm (for ages 16+): https://ow.ly/fipx50Znh9q

Banned Comics at the NLI

A history of Censorship of Comics in Ireland

ow.ly

If anyone is considering editing something from our collections, we will happily supply a digital copy at no cost. Please contact Kate (archives at ucd dot ie).

Irish Manuscripts Commission@irishmanuscripts.bsky.social · 2w ago

Closing date: Wed 29 July The IMC student prize of €1,000 is awarded to a postgraduate student for editing a short historical document, which will also be considered for publication in Analecta Hibernica. Learn more at: irishmanuscripts.ie/imc-student-prize-2026/

Eithne O'Neill's translation of her father Séamus Ó Néill’s novel Tonn Tuile (Flood Tide) was launched this month in Dublin. Congratulations to Eithne, who came to QUB to speak about the book in 2025 www.mercierpress.ie/2026/07/15/t...

Tonn Tuile Comes Ashore in English – Flood Tide Launched at Hodges Figgis

Mercier Press published 52 Proverbs Against Depression and Trauma in 2024 — an Irish self-help book using ancestral wisdom, CBT, and mindfulness to overcome depression. Available now.

mercierpress.ie

www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

Hilary Benn sacked as NI Secretary amid Cabinet reshuffle

Mr Benn has pledged to support the new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham from the back benches.

irishnews.com

🚨Just received copies of my new book Performing Paramilitarism, a deep dive into loyalist ideology via its song scene which speaks to some of the events happening in N. Ireland over the last few weeks. 📚It lists at £12.45 on google books, £19.16 on Kindle and £22.99 in paperback.

🎶 In case you missed it, listen back to 'Europe’s Minstrel’, a tribute concert to Dublin’s own #ThomasMoore (1779–1852), an Irish writer, poet and lyricist of European renown, perhaps best remembered for his volumes of Irish Melodies. Now available on RTÉ lyric fm: www.rte.ie/radio/lyricf...

'Europe's Minstrel' - Thomas Moore

A tribute to Thomas Moore for Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union

rte.ie

Almost 200,000 historical records have been released online by the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. The release of the records will cover seven centuries of Irish history and will make over half a million documents free and permanently available to the public

Almost 200,000 Irish historical records released online

Almost 200,000 historical records have been released online by the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland.

rte.ie

In the Irish Times, Malcom Sen's Irish Anthropocene "offers illuminating and frequently poignant readings of writers including Eavan Boland, Mike McCormack, Claire Kilroy, and Doireann Ní Ghríofa."

Irish Anthropocene - Literature, Climate Change, Sovereignty: Meditation on words and nature

Tracing the path of a global issue through accomplished writers

buff.ly

Pleased to share the first media article about my new book Performing Paramilitarism that connects this month’s violence in Belfast to a broader culture war within loyalism: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/feature...

‘The Orange Order were keen for me to stay away from these songs’: Inside the controversial world of the loyalist song scene

Queen’s University academic Dr Stephen R Millar on his new book which explores the scene — and why the Orange Order wasn’t keen on its subject matter

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

We are delighted to announce that we will be hosting, in collaboration with the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame University, and the WB Yeats Chair of Irish Studies at the University of Sao Paulo, the inaugural Seamus Deane Memorial Lecture Series in Irish Studies.

New episode of Talking History now live! 🎙️ By the Eureka Barricade: The Irish Rebel Who Helped Shape Australia Big thanks to @qubhistory.bsky.social PhD Constantin Torve for a fascinating discussion on Eureka rebel John Joseph O'Meara. Also listen on Spotify & Amazon Music. #History #IrishHistory

The Irish Rebel Who Helped Change Australia | The Story of John Joseph O'Meara

YouTube video by Peter Farrelly

youtu.be

EFACIS Centres of Irish Studies can still send in their applications for the 2026-2027 Irish Itinerary! Second deadline for applications is 15 July 2026! Find all information in the full call for applications: www.efacis.eu/sites/defaul...

On the question of influence, ‘Personal Helicon’ is indebted to Robert Frost’s well poem ‘For Once, Then, Something’; ‘The Other Side’ is in conversation with John Hewitt’s ‘The Hill Farm’; Edward Thomas, whom the young Heaney was immersed in, wrote two poems called ‘Digging’. drb.ie/article/when...

When More is Less - Dublin Review of Books

When More is Less - % Dublin Review of Books

drb.ie

Issue 161 (Summer 2026) of the Dublin Review of Books (www.drb.ie) is now available. Essays and reviews by Edna Longley, Kevin Power, Luke Gibbons, Ruth Evans, Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, David O'Connor and Enda O'Doherty among many others. All on free access, as is our archive, all 19 years of it.

Great to see the Dublin Review of Books here on Bluesky—why not give them a follow: @dubreviewofbooks.bsky.social

Dublin Review of Books@dubreviewofbooks.bsky.social · 2mo ago

He hovered for years on the fringes of the community, generating unease. He never married, had no children, lived alone.One acquaintance described him as ‘a very shy, lonely person’. He was also interested in guns. Kevin Power on the perpetrator of the Dunblane massacre. drb.ie/article/mass...

#NewLives The first female professor of politics in Ireland and the UK, Elizabeth Meehan forged an impressive career addressing gender, feminism, women’s rights, identity, citizenship and pluralism. In 2018 the PSAI renamed their annual award as The Elizabeth Meehan prize. www.dib.ie/biography/me...

Professor Dominic Bryan believes those involved in disorder feel ‘empowered’ by their actions

Migrants as well as nationalists now targets for working class loyalists, says academic

Professor Dominic Bryan believes those involved in disorder feel ‘empowered’ by their actions

ereader.irishnews.com

Following on from Trinity College's Legacies of Slavery Project, Rachael Scally investigates the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and its historic links to slavery and empire, in the latest issue of History Ireland. historyireland.com/the-royal-du...

#OpenAccess highlight! 'Military service pensions for the dependants of deceased combatants of the Irish Revolution and Civil War in Northern Ireland' by Cormac Keenan, is now available through the following link: @universitypress.cambridge.org

Hot off the press! Patrick Mahoney's @patrickjmahone1.bsky.social new book Fenian Empire, available now: lnkd.in/eW3FFERw "Teeming with individual Fenians, splits, spies, and swagger, it is a captivating read contending with ideas which are at once both historical and contemporary." Ú Ní Bhroiméil

Coilin Parsons reviews Maggie O’Farrell’s ‘Land’ www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Land review: Breathtaking epic marks Maggie O’Farrell as a daring chronicler of 19th century Ireland

Hamnet author’s 10th novel urgently and passionately maps historical change driven by famine, emigration, language loss, secularisation and much more

irishtimes.com

We are delighted to announce that Irish Studies at QUB will host @acirishstudies.bsky.social in 2028. The dates will be June 12-15; CFP to follow.

Eamon Cleary Postdoctoral Fellow in Irish Studies at the University of Otago otago.taleo.net/careersectio...

I had the privilege to serve as the @acirishstudies.bsky.social History Rep, which meant I also chaired the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book. We had an amazing slate of books – truly inspiring stuff – and it was such a pleasure to read. Irish Studies future is bright!