Tag Archives: Merriman Summer School

FORMER Supreme Court Judge Catherine McGuinness will launch this year’s Merriman Summer School. Booking is now open for the school, which will be launched in Glór on Wednesday, August 12 and will run until Saturday, August 15. The school offers a mix of lectures and seminars, concerts and poetry readings in a convivial atmosphere open to all. This year’s theme is Love and Marriage Revisited and a range of topics will be addressed by a panel of speakers chosen by this year’s director, Dr Linda Connolly, director of the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century in UCC. Her publications include work on Irish feminism, social movements and family life. Academics and writers, sociologists and historians will all bring their own perspectives on this timely theme. Twenty years ago this year, the 1995 Divorce Referendum, which passed by a narrow majority, took place and in his opening lecture, Professor Tony Fahey of UCD will take a look at what …

Emotional Life in Ireland is the theme of the 2014 Merriman Summer School, which  will take place in Ennis,  from August 13 to 17. It is, according to the organisers,  a timely topic for a country which has yet again been dealing with the aftermath of trauma, as we listen to stories of hidden pregnancies, secret births and unacknowleged deaths. Many of the events will be held in Glór. “How do we deal with our emotions and their consequences? Are we better at it now than we have been? What legacies have been left by our difficulty in understanding and reluctance to deal with our emotions? These are some of the areas for discussion at this year’s Merriman Summer School,” a spokesperson said. The director of this year’s school is Dr Patrica Coughlan, Professor Emerita in the School of English at UCC. She has selected a rich panel of speakers. Social historians, writers, ethno-musicologists, psychologists, a psychiatrist, journalists and critics …