The Summer Talks at lunchtime will take place every Tuesday and Thursday 1-2pm, here are the first two speakers for July
Sinead McCoole
Tuesday July 26th
Mná - 25 years of searching - lessons & leads
As part of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme Sinead McCoole has Curated a travelling exhibition on the role of women Mna 1916:2016. This exhibition covers the island of Ireland and looks at the role of women in the Rising and other political movements in 1916. In an illustrated lecture Curator Sinead McCoole will discuss the search for women - giving some lessons on researching revolutionary ancestors, and will give guidance on sources and archives.
Venue: National Library of Ireland
Time: 1.00PM
Sinéad McCoole is a member of the Government's Expert Advisory Group on the Decade of Centenaries, since 2012. She is currently Historical & Curatorial Advisor to the 2016 National Commemoration Programme. She has curated exhibitions on Irish history & art in both Ireland and the U.S. A Broadcaster and script writer her work includes Guns and Chiffon and her latest work A Father's Letter is part of the After '16 Irish Film Board shorts commissioned for the centenary.
She is the author of many books including the highly acclaimed Hazel, A Life of Lady Lavery and No Ordinary Women and Easter Widows, the untold story of the wives of the executed leaders. A book which has been described as combining 'the skill of the scrupulously conscientious researcher and historian with the craft of the storyteller and the art of the novelist.' It has been hailed as a work that has changed the historiography of the 1916 Rising.
Dermot Bolger
Thursday July 28th
A reading from his new novel - The Lonely Sea and Sky, followed by a talk.
In December 1943 the most extraordinary rescue in Irish naval history occurred. A tiny Wexford ship, the MV Kerlogue, rescued 168 German sailors: members of the same navy which sent so many fellow Irish sailors to their deaths.
Dermot Bolger’s father sailed on this same treacherous wartime Lisbon route and, from his stories, Bolger has recreated the Kerlogue’s voyage in a novel, The Lonely Sea and Sky, already hailed by the Sunday Independent as a “modern classic.”
The novelist talks about his father’s generation of Irish sailors who risked their lives to sail, unarmed and alone, to bring back vital national supplies to Ireland.
Venue: National Library of Ireland
Time: 1.00PM
Dermot Bolger is one of Ireland's more notable writers. A novelist, playwright and poet, he makes himself available for a limited number of readings and talks each year.