Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Tomás Finn

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · 16d

Call for participants! Spread the word and get in touch with our PhD researcher, Elliot, if you are interested in being interviewed for his exciting PhD project!

Elliot @altirishhistorian.bsky.social · 16d

Hi everyone! I'm currently looking for participants for interviews for my PhD research. I'm working on the history of the LGBT+ community in rural Ireland, the way being in rural Ireland impacted the community and how the community impacted rural Ireland, 1970-2000.

2 2

Reposted by Tomás Finn

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · Sep 9

Reminder that our Research Seminar Series is kicking off tomorrow 🎉

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · Sep 3

Delighted to share our Research Seminar Series for this semester! We're starting off next Wed 10 Sept @ 4pm by welcoming our new colleague, Dr Ciarán McCabe, who will be speaking on 'Privacy, Respectability, and Working-Class Domestic Spaces in Dublin's Tenements, c.1910-c.1960'!

Poster for Dr Ciaran McCabe's seminar paper entitled 'Privacy, respectability and working class domestic spaces in Dublin's tenements, c.1910-60'. Wednesday 10 September at 4pm in Room G010, Hardiman Research Building

2 3

Reposted by Tomás Finn

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · 22d

Aoibhín's essay was entitled 'Ireland's Missed Opportunity; The 1951 Mother and Child Scheme in Comparative Context' and Caden's essay was entitled 'The Transformation of Education in Ireland in the 1950s'. Well done on all your hard work 👏🥳

2 4

Reposted by Tomás Finn

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · Sep 3

Delighted to share our Research Seminar Series for this semester! We're starting off next Wed 10 Sept @ 4pm by welcoming our new colleague, Dr Ciarán McCabe, who will be speaking on 'Privacy, Respectability, and Working-Class Domestic Spaces in Dublin's Tenements, c.1910-c.1960'!

17 25

Reposted by Tomás Finn

Irish Committee of Historical Sciences - ICHS @irishhistorians.bsky.social · Aug 25

Forthcoming publication based on papers from the 33rd Irish Conference of Historians editors @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social @kieran-hoare.bsky.social @uniofgalway.bsky.social @historyatgalway.bsky.social @uniofgalwaylib.bsky.social

Borders and Boundaries: Historical Perspectives

This book examines the making and remaking of borders and boundaries primarily relating to Ireland. Borders and Boundaries features selected papers from the 33rd Irish Conference of Historians held by...

www.routledge.com

4 9

Reposted by Tomás Finn

UCD Press @ucdpress.bsky.social · Jul 23

The Charlie Byrne's team know how to do bookshops....

#supporttheindies #visit Galway 👌📚🇮🇪

@charliebyrne.bsky.social

2 10

Reposted by Tomás Finn

Kevin O'Sullivan @kevinkosullivan.bsky.social · Jun 20

The @difp-ria.bsky.social is hiring! See the link below for details of an assistant editor position on the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy team - to cover a career break until July 2028.

Please spread the word. DIFP is a very exciting project to work on. 🗃️

www.ria.ie/about/career...

Vacancy: Assistant Editor, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy - Royal Irish Academy

Applications are invited for the position of Assistant Editor, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) at the Royal Irish Academy.

www.ria.ie

5 5

Reposted by Tomás Finn

UCD Press @ucdpress.bsky.social · Jun 9

⭐️ UCD Press recently published titles ⭐️

We may be a bit biased, but we think our recent books look pretty good together. Cover and spine designs by the wonderful and talented Fiachra McCarthy

Browse all of our books at www.ucdpress.ie or find them in stores nationwide

4 13

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Jun 5

Thanks so much to the Irish Ambassador and Embassy in Prague for hosting my talk. So many fascinating insights from so many people into how modern Ireland has emerged and evolved @historyatgalway.bsky.social @uniofgalwayasc.bsky.social @uniofgalwaylib.bsky.social @uniofgalwaycasscs.bsky.social

2 13

Reposted by Tomás Finn

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · Jun 3

If you're in Prague this Thursday, catch Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social speaking at the Irish Embassy on his brilliant recent research on the transformation of post-WWII Ireland!

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Jun 2

Thanks to the Irish Ambassador and the Irish embassy in Prague for the opportunity this Thursday 5 June to speak on the transformation of Ireland from WWII to today @historyatgalway.bsky.social @uniofgalwayasc.bsky.social @uniofgalwaycasscs.bsky.social
www.eventbrite.com/e/lecture-on...

Lecture on Modern Irish Political and Social Transformation by Dr. Finn

Tomás Finn is a Lecturer in History at the University of Galway.

www.eventbrite.com

1 3

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Jun 2

Thanks to the Irish Ambassador and the Irish embassy in Prague for the opportunity this Thursday 5 June to speak on the transformation of Ireland from WWII to today @historyatgalway.bsky.social @uniofgalwayasc.bsky.social @uniofgalwaycasscs.bsky.social
www.eventbrite.com/e/lecture-on...

Lecture on Modern Irish Political and Social Transformation by Dr. Finn

Tomás Finn is a Lecturer in History at the University of Galway.

www.eventbrite.com

3

Reposted by Tomás Finn

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · May 19

Powerful account by our colleague @sarahannebuckley.bsky.social and Elaine Feeney of the importance of the decision by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment to publish modules addressing the history, legacy and literature of Ireland’s institutions www.thejournal.ie/readme/mothe...

Opinion: To learn the lessons of Ireland's institutional past, we must teach it in schools

Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley and Elaine Feeney welcome plans to teach the history, legacy and literature of Ireland’s dark past at Junior Cert level.

www.thejournal.ie

12 17

Reposted by Tomás Finn

Elaine Feeney @elainefeeney.bsky.social · May 1

Book Launch Details for
Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way

21.5 Foyles Charing Cross Road
23.5 London Irish Centre, Hammersmith

27.5 Kenny’s Bookshop
29.5 Books Upstairs

Tickets online via each venue! Love to see you! 🍷

9 11

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Apr 2

Returning to Tipperary and this Friday Clonmel to revisit Pawel Paul Strzelecki, the Polish humanitarian and explorer, and how his idea saved more than 200,000 children during the Great Famine in Ireland strzelecki.ie/51194-2/

2 5

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Mar 22

Looking forward to working with Carrick-on-Suir Library and once again with the Polish embassy in highlighting in talks at the library the role of Paul Strzelecki as a humanitarian, explorer and migrant and how ours has been a Global world for a very long time

Tipperary County Council Library Service @tipperarylibraries.bsky.social · Mar 19

Carrick-on-Suir Library is delighted to host 'A Forgotten Polish Hero of the Great Irish Famine: Paul Strzelecki's Struggle to Save Thousands', an exhibition presented by the Polish Embassy in Dublin.

@finnuniofgalway.bsky.social

🧵

A poster showing the details of the exhibition.

1 3 9

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Mar 18

Thanks Fiona. And thanks to all your and all @uniofgalwayasc.bsky.social work on the Muintir na Tíre archive. Without the archive none of this would have happened

1 1

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Mar 18

Delighted to have presented my books on Tuairim and with Tony Varley that on Rural Ireland to the @president.ie and Mrs Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719095436/ www.ucdpress.ie/page/detail/...
@ucdpress.bsky.social @universityofgalway.bsky.social

2 4 15

Reposted by Tomás Finn

Irish Committee of Historical Sciences - ICHS @irishhistorians.bsky.social · Mar 13

Call for papers is open #irishhistory

Irish Committee of Historical Sciences - ICHS @irishhistorians.bsky.social · Feb 27

CFP. 35th Irish Conference of Historians, 'Inner lives and outer realities', 12-13 September, Maynooth University www.historians.ie/cfp-35th-iri...

CFP. 35th Irish Conference of Historians, 12-13 September, Maynooth University

Irish Conference of Historians CFPDownload

www.historians.ie

2 1

Reposted by Tomás Finn

University of Galway - History @historyatgalway.bsky.social · Feb 22

Next week Shauna Mulligan will compare “The Plantation and the Concentration Camp: Slave labour and racism during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the Second World War (1941-1945)” in GO10 HRB, 4pm, Wednesday 26 February, and via Zoom webinar at universityofgalway-ie.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

4 4

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Feb 22

Really enjoyed talking about Rural Ireland book with Patrick Geoghan on newstalk's talking history @ucdpress.bsky.social @historyatgalway.bsky.social
www.goloudplayer.com/episodes/bes...

Best of January Books

In this episode: the unhappy early life and dangerous ambition of Eamon De Valera, with Colum Kenny; power and change in Rural Ireland, with editor Tomás Finn; and The Language Puzzle: How We Talked O...

www.goloudplayer.com

1 5

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Feb 22

@biblioraphic.bsky.social Hi. My name is Tomás Finn. I am an historian at the university of Galway. Can you please add me to your starter pack?

2

Reposted by Tomás Finn

TheBookshop.ie @thebookshopie.bsky.social · Feb 21

Newly restocked & forthcoming history titles from @ucdpress.bsky.social - Inside Rural Ireland @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social , A Tract for our Times, The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn @drmarymcauliffe.bsky.social & the forthcoming Mary MacSwiney from Leanne Lane.
Quality!
thebookshop.ie/brands/ucd-p...

n the early decades of native rule rural Ireland – and in particular the new farmer-owners who had emerged as the major winners in the recent agrarian revolution – exerted a considerable influence over the new Free State and over Irish Catholicism. Patriarchal power on the land had been strengthened by the transfer of land ownership from landlord to tenantfarmer and was given further strength by patriarchal Catholicism and patriarchal nationalism. After 1932 the strides protected import-substituting industrialisation was making never went nearly far enough to threaten agriculture’s economic primacy or the countryside’s central position in Irish society. Inspired by the traumatic experience of severe crisis conditions in the 1950s, a transformation that set southern Ireland on the path of urban industrialism commenced in earnest in the 1960s.

What emerges is that the power of the state to promote rural change has at once contracted and expanded in the years since Ireland joined the EEC in 1973. Views are divided as to how urban industrialism has impacted on different rural interests. Throughout much of the period since the 1950s the power of organised farmers to represent Irish farming interests remained high as those working the land continued to dwindle in number. In recent decades the always limited power of clerical activists and intellectuals to restructure rural civil society along Catholic (or even Christian) lines has undergone further decline. Most recently the prospects for farm women increasing their relative power have arguably improved the most in certain respects, even if land ownership still remains stubbornly and overwhelmingly in male hands.

Inside Rural Ireland delves deeply into the evolution of Ireland’s rural history to explore rural Ireland before and after these momentous transitions by examining the power of ruling politicians and state bodies, farmers, clerical and non-clerical civic activists, intellectuals (social commentators as well as …

The diaries of Dr Kathleen Lynn, 1916-1955, cover her involvement in the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the formative three and a half decades of the Irish Free State. They demonstrate the revolutionary, socialist and feminist fervour of a radical revolutionary woman, what motivated her and the work she did for women, workers, and Ireland. The diaries, held in the archives of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), reveal the often-difficult road that radical political women forged in the new Irish Free State, which viewed women through the constraining lens of marriage, motherhood, and domesticity. The diaries are also revealing of the supportive networks of political women, who worked together for social and political change. Central to the diaries is Lynn's vital work in St Ultan's Hospital for Sick Infants which she co-founded in 1919. Her diaries demonstrate vividly the number of women who led advances in medical care in the first decades of the State alongside Lynn. The diaries also record her family and personal relationships, especially her lifelong relationship with fellow suffragist, revolutionary and social campaigner, Madeline ffrench-Mullen.

In 1989 renowned historian J. J. Lee published his magnus opus, Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge University Press). Not only had Lee written a classic, but he also managed to transcend the reach of the academy when the book became a highly popular bestseller which went into over a dozen reprints, sold in the multiple thousands and won an array of awards. Such was the reach of the book that Lee, along with Professors Terence Brown and Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, appeared on a segment of over half an hour on The Late Late Show early in 1990.

Three decades on, the purpose of this collection is to honour Lee’s contribution to historical scholarship by gauging the impact of Ireland 1912–1985 as a historical analysis and social commentary through the contributions of a dozen of the leading historians of modern Ireland. Simultaneously, these essays measure the applicability of Ireland 1912–1985’s historiographical and methodological approach to more recent history. Almost all of the contributors trained as historians with this book as a touchstone text and so it is fitting for each author revisit drawing on the tools of their own field of expertise.

Until now, in-depth analysis of key female figures in Irish republicanism in the early twentieth century has been limited. Mary MacSwiney was one of the most single-minded anti-Treaty women, leading Eamon de Valera to describe her as ‘incorrigible’. Rather than just dismiss MacSwiney as one-dimensional in her opposition to the Treaty and in her continued political intractability, this biography seeks to place her political life within the centre of the turn of the twentieth-century republican narrative and understand why she was increasingly viewed as a virago.

To say contemporary gender roles played a part in reducing MacSwiney to a cipher for extreme republicanism limits a fuller understanding of her political life. Her uncompromising stance against the evils of compromise during the Treaty negotiations was indelibly formed by the experience of watching her brother Terence MacSwiney die on hunger strike in Brixton Jail in 1920, and the trauma she experienced. She witnessed an intimate act of selfsacrifice which bound her to a belief that her task was to continue her brother’s fidelity to a separatist republic. Betrayal of the republic, for her, would meant betrayal of a brother she loved and admired.

Mary MacSwiney situates this standout figure in the context of her tightly knit family, tracing her political evolution from suffrage and cultural revival activism to advanced nationalism. While the focus of MacSwiney’s political action was Cork, from 1920 onwards she began to assume a progressively more important role in Irish politics at a national and international level, including American tours, a central role during the Civil War and within Sinn Féin and a close political relationship with de Valera.

12 34

Reposted by Tomás Finn

UCD Press @ucdpress.bsky.social · Feb 19

Authors @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social & Tony Varley @historyatgalway.bsky.social discuss Rural Ireland & housing in @irishtimes.com

Future population and climate projections are such that housing needs demand a proactive response which addresses environmental as well as social and economic needs

1 3 8

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Feb 18

Thanks to @jenoconnell.bsky.social and @irishtimes.com for the opportunity for Tony Varley and me to write about Rural housing and to highlight our book on Rural Ireland www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025... @ucdpress.bsky.social

The debate: Should the State continue to support one-off rural housing?

The Government says it will continue to back this type of housing in rural areas, but what about the social and environmental costs?

www.irishtimes.com

1 3 7

Tomás Finn @finnuniofgalway.bsky.social · Feb 16

@erinannmcc.bsky.social Please add me to starter pack. Hope you're well thanks

4