Keynote speakers
Professor Rónán McDonald
(University of New South Wales)
Rónán McDonald took up the inaugural Australia Ireland Fund Chair in Modern Irish Studies at the University of New South Wales in April 2010, where he is also the Director of the John Hume Institute of Global Irish Studies. He was educated at University College Dublin and the University of Oxford and has published widely in the field of Irish Studies, especially modern Irish literature. Rónán is also interested in modern criticism and theory and the intersections of literature with ideas of ‘value’.
Professor Cormac Ó Gráda
(University College Dublin)
Cormac Ó Gráda is Professor of Economics at University College Dublin. His research interests span the comparative history of famines, Irish historical demography, the economic history of migration, and the economic and demographic history of Irish Jewry. He has authored, co-authored, and edited several books and over a hundred journal articles and book chapters, with his most recent book being Famine: A Short History (Princeton, 2009). In 2010 Cormac was awarded the Royal Irish Academy’s Gold Medal in the Humanities.
Professor Louise Ryan
(Middlesex University)
Louise Ryan is Professor in Migration and Gender at Middlesex University where she is also co-director of the Social Policy Research Centre and programme leader for the MSc in research methods. A sociologist, she has research interests in gender, migration, ethnicity, and religion and identity, and has published widely on the Irish, Muslim, Polish communities. Her most recent book is an edited collection with Wendy Webster titled Gendering Migration: Masculinity, Femininity and Ethnicity in Post-War Migration to Britain (Ashgate, 2008).
Professor Graham Walker
(Queen's University Belfast)
Professor Walker is Professor of Political History at Queen's University Belfast. His research interests include the political history and contemporary politics of Scotland and Northern Ireland, particularly the politics of Unionism; the history and contemporary role of the Labour movement in the UK; political biography; and the politics of sport.