Conference Schedule & Program

Sunday, June 7

Film Screening of Kerry: Tides of Time (part 1) and Q&A with filmmaker Katrina Costello and contributor Billy Mag Fhloinn (SHU Dingle)

4 - 5:30 p.m. | Dingle Skellig Hotel

Katrina Costello is an Irish-based film camerawoman, director and producer, specializing in immersive cultural and natural history creative documentaries, whose work has been celebrated with International Awards and festival wins. Her two-part series Kerry: Tides of Time (2025), narrated by Brendan Gleeson, tells the multi-dimensional story of the Kerry landscape, from its earliest origins, deep in the geological past, up to the present day. The biologists, historians, ecologists and archaeologists who spend their lives profoundly connected to this landscape provide personal, revelatory, and often emotional insight that drives the narrative.

Dr. Billy Mag Fhloinn is a lecturer in Irish Folklore and Religious Studies at SHU Dingle. His spheres of research include prehistoric religion and ritual, and folk religion and belief. He published a monograph with the Folklore Fellows Communications under the title Blood Rite: The Feast of St. Martin in Ireland. Other areas of interest include prehistoric metallurgy, and early Irish organology. In recent years he has been working in digital spatial humanities, and is lead researcher on Deep Maps Kerry, an interdisciplinary cartography project aimed at creating interactive digital maps of the Dingle Peninsula.

Welcome Reception

5:30 p.m. | Dingle Skellig Hotel

Monday, June 8

Session 1 | 9-10:30 a.m.

Panel 1a: Rethinking Rural Futures: from Nature to Politics

Ashley Morin, Sacred Heart University | Room 8A

• Gordon Ogutu, Dublin City University, “What Design Justice Offers Nature-Based Solutions: Rethinking Rural Futures in Ireland”
• Helena S. Antunes, University of Galway, Centre for Transdisciplinary Development Studies, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, and the University of Salamanca, “No Feminisms, No Futures: Women’s Land Rights in Private and Common Property Systems”
• John Rapaglia, Christian Albrechts University, “Lessons from a Decade of Environmental Monitoring in Corca Dhuibhne” (remote)

Panel 1b: Deconsecrating the Cauldron Bog: Writing out of Ireland’s Hard-faced Soft Places

Liz Quirke, University College Cork | Room 9

• Liz Quirke, University College Cork, “Another Connemara Trilogy”
• Ellen Dillon, Practitioner, “Peeling off the Green: Post Pastoral Manoeuvres in Contemporary Rural Poetry”
• Maitiú Mac Cárthaigh, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe, “Good Queers? The Sexual Politics of Irish Rural Futures—A Research-Led Creative Practice

Panel 1c: Burials in Rural Ireland

Ciara Henderson, Trinity College Dublin | Room 14

• Peter Hession, New York University, “Revisiting the Famine Road: Context, Legacy, Agency”
• Damien Brennan, Trinity College Dublin and Ciara Henderson, Trinity College Dublin, “Digging for our Own: Voluntary Gravedigging, Power and Agency in Rural Ireland”
• Ciara Henderson, Trinity College Dublin, “Catharín na Leanbh (Village of Children): the Use of Cillíní for the Burial of the Unbaptised in Rural Ireland in the 19th and 20th Centuries”

Session 2 | 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Panel 2a: Rural Storytelling

Christopher Grundy, Sacred Heart University | Room 8A

• Kevin J. Power, SHU Dingle and Mary McGillicuddy, Author, “Native Wisdom: John Moriarty and Insights from Rural Ireland”
• Davis Dunavin, Sacred Heart University, “From Seanchaithe to Influencers: Irish Storytelling in New Global Media”
• Caitlin Ross and Margaret Pierce, Sacred Heart University, “The Seanchaí’s Dilemma: Is the Influence of Béarlachas Breaking Storytelling’s Power to Preserve Irish?”

Panel 2b: Rural Fiction

Abby Bender, Sacred Heart University | Room 14

• Heather Laird, University College Cork, “‘Homeboys’ and Successor Sons in John McGahern's Farm Fiction”
• Claire Bracken, Union College, “Anne Enright's The Green Road and the mappings of Co. Clare”
• Mary McGlynn, CUNY Grad Center, “Power Hungry: Energy and Agency in Recent Irish Fiction”

Panel 2c: Politics, Agriculture, and Community

Peter Hession, New York University | Room 9

• Tomás Finn, University of Galway, “Politics, Power and the Art of Persuasion in Post-WWII Ireland: Muintir na Tíre’s Relationship with Church and State”
• Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh, University of Galway, Archives of Rural History, Bern, “The Green Revolution and the Green Dollar: A Fateful Step for Rural Ireland after World War Two?”
• Justin Dolan Stover, Idaho State University, “Restoring Rural Ireland: Compensation and Reconstruction after the Irish Revolution”
• Declan O’Brien, Irish Farmers Journal, “Abandoning the Tangler: The Growth of Ireland’s Livestock Marts—and the Implications of this Development”

Session 3 | Monday 2:30–4 p.m.

Panel 3a: Conserving the Past for the Future—Rural Memory

Micheal Ó Cinnéide, Co-founder, Blasket Island Foundation and Corrib Beo Partnership | Room 8A

• Miriam Uí Dhonnabháin, Independent Scholar, “Léan Ort a Chorcaigh - The Lament for Séa.m.us Óg Mac Coitir in the Ja.m.es Goodman Song Manuscript of 1857”
• Christopher Grundy, Sacred Heart University, “‘Port na bPúcaí’ and the Paradox of Preservation: Music and Memory in the Blasket Islands”
• Greg Ruffing, Northwestern University, “The Image, the Vault, the Bog’s ‘Dark Juices’: Rural Modernization and Future-Past Orientations in the Irish Landscape”
• Lorcán Ó Cinnéide, OPW Blasket Centre, Dún Chaoin, “The Past is not the Past"

Panel 3b: Arts in the Community

Maitiú Mac Cárthaigh, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe | Room 9

• Esther Griffin-van Orsouw, Technological University of the Shannon, Limerick School of Art & Design, “Exploring Experiences: Biographical Interviews with Visual Artists in County Tipperary”
• Eibhlín Campbell, Practitioner, “Creating Creative Spaces - A Public Space Reimagined”
• Clare Byrne, Sacred Heart University, “Crossroad Dances: Stepping into the Future of the Land”

Keynote Lecture | 5–6 p.m.

Nessa Cronin, University of Galway, “Samhlú: Reimagining Irish Rural Futures”

Room 8A

Dr. Nessa Cronin is head of Irish studies at the Centre for Irish Studies, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies, University of Galway, Ireland. As an interdisciplinary scholar with a background in continental philosophy and literature, her recent work in environmental humanities has critically examined the role of humanities research and arts practice in addressing the existential challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Group Dinner | 6:30 p.m.

Adam’s Bar, Main Street, Dingle

Tuesday, June 9

Session 4 | 9-10:30 a.m.

Panel 4a: Vernacular Religion

Billy Mag Fhloinn, SHU Dingle | Room 8A

• Pádraig Ó Héalaí, University of Galway, “Prayer in Irish Folk Tradition”
• Síle de Cléir, University of Limerick, “Local Heroes: Portrayal of Irish Saints in Twentieth-Century Popular Narratives”
• Ríonach Uí Ógáin, University College Dublin “Aspects of Song Embedded in Vernacular Religious Tradition”
• Fionnán Mac Gabhann, University College Dublin, “Limbo in the Gaeltacht: Vernacular Catholicism in Cárna Connemara”

Panel 4b: Readings from Creative Practice

Marie Hulme, Sacred Heart University | Room 14

• Aideen Henry, Practitioner, “A Reading of Short Story and Bilingual Poetry”
• Marie Hulme, Sacred Heart University, “The Transformative Power of the Rural Sensibility in the Novel Brigid’s Peace”

Panel 4c: Rural Health

Sharon McCloskey, Sacred Heart University | Room 9

• Fiona Barton, SHU Dingle, “Meitheal, Active Citizenship, and Community First Responders: Nursing, Place, and Rural Health on the Dingle Peninsula”
• Sharon McCloskey, Sacred Heart University, “Demonstrating Occupational Justice in School Participation: Special Education, Occupational Therapy, Service-Learning, and Access to Supports for Children in Rural Ireland”

Session 5: 11a.m. – 12:30p.m.

Panel 5a: The Rural Landscape, from Past to Future

Laurence Hynes, University of Galway | Room 14

• Will Hayes, Royal Holloway, University of London, “Shifting Uplands: Land Management Change and Rural Futures in Ireland”
• Jane Halloran, Mary Immaculate College, “The Clachán: Meaningless Disorder or Throughother Order”

Panel 5b: Transnational Rural Literature

Miled Faiza, Brown University | Room 8A

• Przemysław Michalski, University of National Education Commission, Krakow, “Images of Rural Life in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney and Ronald Stuart Thomas”
• Natalia Matuszewska, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, “The Rural as Ethical Space: Narrative, Memory and Social Justice in Wiesław Myśliwski"
• Max Huibregste, New York University, “Sea Shanties, Irish Traditional Music, and Identity Formation on 19th Century Sailing Vessels”

Panel 5c: Culture and Community in Connemara: Continuity, Transformation, and Future Prospects

Irene Whelan, Professor Emeritus, Manhattanville College | Room 9

• Micheál Ó Cinneide, Co-founder, Blasket Island Foundation and Corrib Beo Partnership, “Corrib Beo: Building a Network of Corrib Communities”
• Kevin Heanue, Vice Chair of the Board of the Social Finance Foundation and Chairperson, Connemara West, “Connemara West PLC: Past, Present, Future”
• Verena Roe, Lecturer and Historical Researcher, “From Castle to Classroom: Kylemore Abbey's Economic, Educational and Social Impact in the Connemara Galway Region”

Session 6 | 2:30–4 p.m.

Panel 6a: Social and Ecological Renewal Through Community Engagement (Roundtable)

Kevin J. Power, SHU Dingle | Room 9

• Kevin J. Power, SHU Dingle
• Jeanne Spillane, Maharees Conservation Association
• Brian Harding, Kerry County Council
• Kieran Cotter, Knocknagoshel Tidy Towns
• Laura Brodie, Dingle COP

Panel 6b: Contemporary Irish Poetry

Claire Bracken, Union College | Room 8A

• Eoin Flannery, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, “Extinction and Absence in Contemporary Irish Poetry”
• Lucy McDiarmid, Montclair State University, “Wells in Recent Irish Poetry”
• Sarah McKibben, University of Notre Dame, “From Whale to Bee: Contemporary Irish Poets Write the Anthropocene"
• Miled Faiza, Brown University, “Translating Irish Poets on Gaza”

Panel 6c: New Perspectives on the Dingle Mission (Roundtable)

John Roney, Sacred Heart University | Room 14

• Brenda Ni Shuilleabhain, former Principal Scoil Chrónáin, Rathcoole, Dublin; filmmaker and scriptwriter
• Irene Whelan, Professor Emeritus, Manhattanville College
• Bryan MacMahon, Independent researcher

Plenary Event | 5–6 p.m.

The Future of Rural Irish Literature: Authors Mike McCormack and Belinda McKeon in Conversation

Room 8A

Mike McCormack comes from the west of Ireland and is the author of two collections of short stories, Getting it in the Head and Forensic Songs. He also wrote four novels, Crowe’s Requiem, Notes from a Coma, Solar Bones and This Plague of Souls. In 1996, he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature, and Getting it in the Head was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In 2006, Notes from a Coma was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award. In 2016, Solar Bones was awarded the Goldsmiths Prize and the Bord Gais Energy Irish Novel of the Year and Book of the Year; it was also long-listed for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. In 2018, it was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award. He is a member of Aosdána, and teaches and directs the MA in writing at the University of Galway.

Belinda McKeon is a novelist and playwright. She is the author of Solace (2011), which won the Geoffrey Faber Prize and was named Irish Book of the Year, Tender (2015), a finalist for the Encore Award, and editor of A Kind of Compass: Stories on Distance (Tramp Press, 2015). She has had fiction and nonfiction published in The Paris Review, Granta, A Public Space, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She is associate professor of creative writing at Maynooth University, where she directs the MA in creative writing. In 2022 she returned to Ireland after many years in the United States.

Wednesday, June 10

Session 7 | 9-10:30 a.m.

Panel 7a: Cultural Heritage from Stones to Sea

Ryan Lash, University College Dublin | Room 9

• Hilary Bishop, Liverpool John Moores University, “Saving Stones, Saving Communities”
• Ryan Lash, University College Dublin, “The White Cow, The Crooked Mouth, and the Corncrake: Sensing the Other-than-Human in Inishbofin Island”

Panel 7b: Protecting and Preserving Rural Futures: Fishing, Food, Farming, and Tourism

Caroline Boland, Dingle Peninsula Tourism Alliance, Boland Marketing, Community Tourism Development & Destination Marketing Consultant/University of Limerick | Room 8A

• Eddie Moore, National Inshore Fishing Association, Local Dingle Fisherman
• Eileen Ashe, Bia Dingle Executive, Corca Dhuibhne Food Network, and Thomas Ashe, Annascaul Black Pudding
• John Joe Fitzgerald, Irish Natura & Hill Farmers Association (INHFA)
• Helen Heaton, Castlewood House, Dingle, and Brian Heaton, Co-Chair of Turasóireacht Chorca Dhuibhne/Dingle Peninsula Tourism

Session 8 | 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Plenary Session on Deep Mapping: Pasts and Futures

Nessa Cronin, University of Galway | Room 8A

• Pat Palmer, Maynooth University, “Tourism, Cultural Heritage Sites, and Deep Mapping”
• John Roney, Sacred Heart University, “Rural Futures Rooted in the Past: Deeping Mapping and Local Knowledge”
• Laurence Hynes, University of Galway, “A Cultural Future: Deep Maps, Art Maps, and Tim Robinson’s Cartography of the Aran Islands”
• Billy Mag Fhloinn, SHU Dingle, “Deep Maps Kerry – Tumadh Chorca Dhuibhne”