It  was just one example of Ireland’s political globalisation in the early days of independence. As the originator of the idea of the Congress of the Irish Race, Thomas Hughes Kelly of New York, declared: ‘Ireland’s future is not limited to its geographic boundaries. She gave away to the world her strongest and most trustworthy sons. Now we compensate her with our support, which is the first offspring of that prolific seed’.

But I digress – below is the call for papers. I’ll post up more info when I find out more.

INTERNATIONAL IRISH DIASPORA CONGRESS

Buenos Aires (Argentina) — From 15th to 19th of June 2011.

Official Notification: Presentation of Papers- 1st Call

In June of 2011, the 1st International Irish Diaspora Congress will take
in the City of Buenos Aires, exactly 90 years after a meeting of a
similar nature took place in 1921. The principal objective of next
year’s Congress is to stimulate cultural exchange and share experiences
between Irish Associations and people.

Each participating Institution is asked to give a brief account of
current activities and its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats. Learning how the Irish Community has integrated into each
specific Country-Destination will be of general interest, too.
Participating individuals or Associations are invited to present
speeches and/or lectures on the topic of cultural diversity of emigrants
and their descendents.

The Department of Irish Culture from the Universidad Nacional de La
Plata (UNL) & the Universidad de Ciencias Empresariales y Sociales
(UCES) will provide the academic framework for these expositions. The
papers submitted for consideration must relate to any one of the
following topics:

- The Irish Diaspora
- Literature and the Irish Emigrant (essays, short stories, novels, poetry)
- History of Irish Emigration in each country
- Fundraising for Irish Associations (experiences, tips)
- Irish Education abroad
- Irish Dance & Music (experiences)
- Business and Work opportunities for Irish Descendents Abroad

Those who are interested in participating must submit an abstract before
February 1, 2011, written in English, of no more than 300 words, on any
of the aforementioned topics.

The proposals that are deemed adequate (given general interests and the
length of the Congress) have until May 15, 2011 to send the paper in
full to the Department’s inbox.

The Academic Committee will be comprised of people with great knowledge
on the subjects to be discussed, including professors from the UNL and
the UCES.

For more info: http://www.asociacionirlandesa.com.ar/?lang=en or
asoargirl@yahoo.com.ar

IRELAND AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Success and Failure in Modern Ireland

Canadian Association for Irish Studies/ l’Association canadienne d’études irlandaises Annual Conference, 2010
Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
19-22 May 2010

“Anyone who is failing at one thing,” psychoanalyst Adam Phillips has  suggested, “is always succeeding at another.” We invite proposals for papers interrogating the relationship between success and failure in modern and contemporary Ireland, as reflected in its politics, its economic policies, its literature, and its popular culture. The Celtic Tiger is one obvious recent example of a ‘success’ narrative that was intimately linked to a series of failures on the part of Irish society to safeguard its more vulnerable communities. With the recent publication of the “Ryan Report,” to cite another example, it is clear that the success of the Catholic Church in exerting its power over Ireland’s educational and reformatory institutions came at the price of a failure to guarantee the safety and welfare of Ireland’s youth. By the same token, it might be argued that Fianna Fáil’s longtime political success depended on the failure to engage with the ‘National Question,’ i.e., Partition and Northern Ireland. Success and failure, as manifested in language revival policies, in gender-related issues, in the lives of prominent public figures, and the reality and perceptions of the Irish diaspora, including the Irish in Canada, are also topics worthy of consideration.

We welcome papers that address other topics and proposals for special panels.

Please send proposals including contact information (250 words) by
e-mail to:
Pádraig Ó Siadhail, D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3
(padraig.osiadhail@smu.ca) by 15 January 2010.

Call for Papers
Deadline: 24 November, 2009

The 2010 national meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies will
be held on 5 – 8 May 2010 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel in
State College, PA.

There will be an opening reception on Wednesday evening, May 5th, and
concurrent panels will begin on Thursday morning, May 6th. The announced
theme is intended to encourage a broad range of paper topics.

Papers are welcome on any Irish Studies topic, including traditional
concerns of the discipline and evolving areas of interest in the visual,
literary, and interdisciplinary areas. We welcome proposals for individual
papers, which, if accepted, will be placed within a relevant panel.

Proposals for panels are especially welcome, and panels have been proposed
on Reassessing Diasporic Studies within Irish Studies and Reassessing Irish
Historiography. Additional papers are welcome on such topics as evolving
literary and visual arts movements, the culture and literature of Northern
Ireland, and other related topics!

Plenary speakers confirmed to date are Dean John Harrington (Fordham
University) and Dr. James Smith (Boston College). Moya Cannon will be
reading from her poetry at a special session. U.S carriers offer frequent
flights to State College, PA. Further details will be posted as they become
available. A conference website is also under development.

Due Date for Conference Paper Proposals: Tuesday, 24 November 2009. Please send your 250 word (or less) abstract to Dr. Tramble T. Turner at
ttt3@psu.edu. If you have questions or would like additional information,
please contact me at 215 868.5848 (mobile), 215 881.7532 (office), or via
e-mail at ttt3@psu.edu. Dr. Tramble T. Turner Associate Professor of English
Penn State Abington 1600 Woodland Rd. Abington, PA 19001

ACIS website

Ireland’s Drama in British Cities,
Manchester Metropolitan University, April 15-16, 2010.

The 2010 Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference will consider the history and context of performing Irish plays and characters on British stages, as well as the more general performance of Irish diasporic identity in an urban British context. Some of the areas that the conference will address are:

• the role of festivals in performing Irish identity,
• the role of British theatres in performing Irish plays,
• the significance of geographical variations,
• and the impact of globalisation on the position of Irish theatre in Britain

Keynote speakers:

• Mary Hickman, Professor of Irish Studies and Sociology, London Metropolitan University
• Patrick Mason, Director, Adjunct Professor, University College Dublin, and Visiting Professor, Liverpool Hope University

Confirmed speakers:

• Claire Connolly
• Mike Cronin
• Karen Fricker
• Nicholas Grene
• Patrick Lonergan
• Holly Maples
• Victor Merriman
• Aoife Monks
• Jim Moran
• Catherine Rees
• Shaun Richards

This conference will examine performances of Irish identity in the urban
centres of Britain since the beginning of the 19th century. The idea of
performance is intended to include events staged in the theatres and on the streets, for example parades, musical performances and political
demonstrations.

By discussing such performances and their reception by various audiences, speakers and delegates will examine the ways that ‘Irishness’ has changed in meaning and association in Britain, pressurised by contexts such as colonialism and nationalism, modernisation and economic change in Ireland, the Troubles and the Peace Process, and many others.

In particular, the conference is concerned to examine the changing status of Irish, and Irish-descended, people in Britain.  Since 1995, the diaspora has arguably become more recognised in Ireland, after President Mary Robinson urged the Irish nation to the ‘moral act’ of remembering and commemorating their sacrifices.  In Britain, the Irish arguably became more visible after recognition of their ‘ethnic minority’ status in the 2001 UK census; and, more recently, interest in Britain’s oldest and largest ethnic minority has been renewed amidst a more general concern with immigration and the ways in which the case of the Irish in Britain might be seen to foreshadow and intersect with the experience of many other immigrant groups.

Delegates will be able to reflect on questions including:

• What different versions of Irishness have been suggested by theatrical and other performances in Britain, and how have these been received and understood by their audiences?
• In what ways have Irish cultural festivals affected perceptions?
• How have notions of second-generation Irishness changed?
• What significance do performances of Irishness abroad have for the Irish nation ‘at home’?
• Have visible assertions and performances of Irish identity impacted on ideas of Britishness?
• How have the Irish enacted and interacted with ideas of nation and identity in a British context, and how has this been affected by changes in Ireland and key events in Irish-British relations?
• To what extent are the Irish in Britain an ‘acceptable’ ethnic minority?
• To what extent are the Irish in Britain ‘post-nationalist’ now?

More information:

Irish Theatrical Diaspora website

A barcamp is an open, participatory workshop event where the content is provided by the participants; the first barcamp was held in 2005, and in early years were focused on technology. The content is provided by the attendees, who can choose to speak on their own interests.

BarCamp Diaspora ’09 will be focused on “Investing our talent where it counts”. Organisers say, “BarCamp Diaspora ’09 is a FREE event for anyone who is interested in using their skills, talent, and resources to benefit Africa. It will provide a great opportunity for the African Diaspora to network and collaborate on projects.”

They list several possible breakout session ideas:

• Sustaining African NGO’s in the Diaspora
• Opportunities in open source
• Mobile payments; why is Africa leading the world
• African outsourcing; opportunities and risks
• African communications infrastructure; growth, trend, opportunities
• African women and technology
• African ingenuity; building, making and selling African products
• ICT Solutions for affordable health care in Ghana
• Renewable resources, green technology, biofuels and solar energy
• Social media: Where are the Ghanaian or West African bloggers?

BarCamp Diaspora grows out of last year’s BarCamp Ghana ’08, which was held in Accra to exchange ideas on entrepreneurship, innovation and development for the developing nation.

The idea has interesting potential for Ireland – while there have been several diaspora conferences in recent years, their formal organisational structure has limited audience participation. An Irish diaspora barcamp could be an energising way of channeling the power of the grassroots in the world-wide Irish community.

BarCampDiaspora ’09

The Irish Studies Associaton of Australian and New Zealand will host its conference from the 9th to 12th of July at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.

Organisers say:

Australia and New Zealand were essentially secondary destinations for the post-1800 waves of Irish leaving to make new lives overseas, accounting for no more than 10 per cent in most decades. Yet the two countries have regularly been identified by scholars as appropriate ‘laboratories’ for studying the nature and impacts of Irish migration over time. This conference seeks to review research undertaken both at the points of origin and destination and to pose new questions. Were the Irish communities that took root in the Antipodes essentially transplanted fragments of the homeland? How did they evolve, and to what extent was their evolution influenced by developments at home? Were there noticeable differences between the Australian and New Zealand Irish experiences, and if so how may these best be explained? What is the relationship today between Ireland and its most far-flung diasporic communities?

With seven keynote speakers providing contextual signposts, the topics to be addressed over three days will be diverse. Historical themes range from aspects of early convict transportation to Australia, through Irish-Maori relations in New Zealand, to late twentieth century economic interactions. Cultural life will also be a focus, Irish literature, theatre and music – both traditional and contemporary – being scheduled for discussion. A particular consideration will be how the Antipodean Irish are being depicted in historical reconstructions and displays. Necessarily, many of the contributions will reflect collective experiences, but provision has also been made for papers on those of individuals and families. The utility of oral history for recording the experiences of more recent arrivals will also be assessed.

See the conference website.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin said,

“The primary purpose of the Forum will be to examine how the Irish, at home and abroad, can work together to generate ideas which will contribute to our overall efforts at economic recovery. It will also play a critical role in shaping the future direction of the relationship between Ireland and its Diaspora, particularly in the economic area”.

Minister Martin noted that the conference is part of its strategy to engage more deeply with the diaspora:

“Successive Irish Governments have built a multi-layered relationship with the global Irish community, one that has marked us out as a role model for many other countries.

“The Forum will provide us with the opportunity to take Ireland’s relationship with the global Irish community in a new direction, to examine innovative ways of working together and to generate ideas for Ireland’s economic recovery. Now is the time to shape a more strategic relationship which will bring benefits both to Ireland and to our global community and which has a more developed economic focus.”

“Our global Irish community constitutes one of the most powerful and far-reaching resources at our disposal and, using our worldwide network of Embassies and Consulates, we have identified some of the most successful individuals from that global community. They will bring with them an invaluable global perspective. To help facilitate discussion, a relatively small and tightly focused group of individuals is being invited.”

The effort is complementing the Ireland-United States Strategic Review launched last month and the strategy for economic renewal outlined in “Building Ireland’s Smart Economy” in December.

Related web pages:

• DFA press release: Minister for Foreign Affairs Announces Global Irish Economic Forum to be held at Farmleigh in September
• Department of the Taoiseach: Building Ireland’s Smart Economy
• Department of Foreign Affairs: Strategic Review of Ireland-US Relations

North by North West:  An International Conference
3rd -6th Sept 2009

Description: We invite proposals for papers exploring themes that will examine the Maritime history of Ulster from 1599-2009 focusing in particular the Port of Derry/Londonderry as a ‘Gateway to the Atlantic’. The conference will be hosted by the Institute of Ulster Scots Studies.

The themes of the conference are Environmental & Archaeological history, Military & Port Fortifications of Loughs Foyle & Swilly, Merchants & Traders in 18th & 19th century Ulster & Scotland, Ulster & the Atlantic World, Shipbuilders & Shipping Lines, From Here to  Wherever, emigration from NorthWest Ulster.

Paper proposals should indicate under which theme they wish to
be considered. Conference proceedings will be published.

Conference organisers: Sally Halliday M.Phil & Dr Billy Kelly

Venue: University of Ulster, Magee Campus

Contact: Sally Halliday at  sp.halliday@ulster.ac.uk

Tel: 02871375098

Sally Halliday M.Phil
Institute of Ulster Scots Studies
Room MI021
Aberfoyle House
Northland Road
L’Derry
BT48 9JL

Submission date for papers: 18th May 2009

Organisers say:

Literature (both fiction and non-fiction), personal journals and correspondence, and art enable us to explore the impact that journeys and homecomings have had on Irish and Scottish imaginations. Irish and Scottish migrants, as well as those who sought to understand, interpret and exploit the experience of migration, participated in the production and circulation of these accounts and images both at home and abroad. As such, they form an important dimension to any understanding of the Irish and Scottish diasporas. With this in mind, we seek to investigate the idea of migration as a series of narratives and rhetorical tropes that develop over time.

Selected proceedings will be published in the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies.

Related links:

• Conference call for papers at the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies website
  
• Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies
• Aberdeen Word Festival

Organisers are aiming to provide an integrated and interdisciplinary forum for discussion of recent research and policy developments from a wide range of perspectives, with a common focus on children’s own experiences of and perspectives on migration, diaspora and transnationalism.

More than 80 papers will be presented by researchers from over 20 countries across a variety of disciplines. Papers, lectures, panel discussions and posters will include topics such as transnational childhoods, children and the asylum system, second generation youth, diversity and education, multilingualism, and children’s rights. The event is funded by a Marie Curie Excellence Grant.

Keynote speakers will be Katy Gardner of the University of Sussex on “Diasporic childhood: transglobal children in east London”, and Jill Rutter of the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research on “Changing patterns of child international migration in Europe: challenges for research, public policy and practice”.

See the conference website.