Category: Community News

The National Library of Ireland, in association with the Irish Committee of Historical Sciences, are currently inviting applications for the Research Studentship.

An excellent opportunity for a graduate who is willing to undertake intensive study of a selected manuscript collection or collections which he/she might use as a major source in a post-graduate or post-doctoral research programme. The student will work in the Manuscripts Department (Special Collections) of the National Library.

More information about the role and how to apply are available here.

Applications must be made on the official National Library of Ireland application form which can be found here.

Completed application forms should be submitted by e-mail to the NLI’s Human Resources Unit at careers@nli.ie.

Please note that the deadline for receipt of applications is 3:00pm, 14 July 2023.

Programme

The 11^th Robert Boyle Summer School will take place from 22 – 25 June at Waterford City and Lismore and addresses the theme Science Writing | Writing Science

Thursday 22 June City Hall Waterford

Evening:

Opening Event and Reception

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Friday 23 June City Hall, Waterford

Morning Session: Robert Boyle and his Sisters

Prof Michael Hunter: The Writing of Robert Boyle

Dr Ann-Maria Walsh: The Correspondence of the Boyle Sisters

Afternoon Session: Reading Robert Boyle

Nuala Clarke An Artist’s Perspective

Prof Jim Malone: A Scientist’s Perspective

Evening Session 8 pm City Hall

“Boyle in Points”

A novel game show where the excitement will reach boiling point. Chaired by Cathal Murray, RTE’s Late Date presenter and featuring two teams battling it out to tell the difference between Science Fact and Science Faked.

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Saturday 24 June Lismore (free coach transfer from Waterford)

Morning Session: Writing Science for the Public

Prof Peter J Bowler: Popular Science Writing in the 20th Century

Brian Trench: The Uses and Pleasures of Science Writing: Agnes Mary Clerke and Mary Mulvihill

Afternoon Session: Science in Fiction

WLR’s Dymphna Nugent in conversation with:

Marianne Lee author of A Quiet Tide, acclaimed biography of 18C botanist Ellen Hutchins

Andrew Hughes author of The Coroners Daughter the One Dublin One Book 2023

Late Afternoon:

Eoin Gill: Sherlock Holmes, the Archetype Scientist and the Lismore Connection

Evening Garden Party at Lismore Castle

Tapas with locally produced foods

Boyle Gin Cocktails ( Non-Alcoholic refreshments also)

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Sunday 25 June Waterford City

Late Morning:

Waterford City Heritage: Visit to the Museum of the Irish Wake. (places limited)

For more details and booking, please visit https://www.robertboyle.ie/11th-robert-boyle-summer-school-2023/

History of Science, Technology and Medicine (HSTM) Network Ireland’s next online seminar will take place on 3 May, 3-4 pm.

Abstract

‘When the Covid-19 pandemic began to emerge in early 2020, people began seeking answers to its possible trajectory and societal impact, as well as trying to define its biological identity and find treatments and vaccinations. A global network of humanities scholars who had specialised in researching the 1918-19 influenza pandemic and other historic epidemics found themselves being called on to engage with media and governmental or specialist organisations, drawing on their research to inform the current crisis. This paper tells some of their stories, including Ida’s own.’

For registration: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/history-of-science-technology-and-medicine-seminar-3-may-2023-tickets-513135180137

All are welcome

Locating Nineteenth-Century Studies

Keynote Speaker: Prof. Nick Daly, UCD

Title: Gentleman Burglars and Sorceresses: Late Victorian Crime Fiction and the Rise of the Criminal Mastermind.

This interdisciplinary event, held at Queen’s University Belfast (16th June), seeks to bring together nineteenth-century scholars from across the island of Ireland. This will be an inclusive and welcoming day with the goal of allowing networking and the sharing of resources, methodologies and critical ideas among our growing community of nineteenth-century scholars. We welcome scholars at all levels, including postgraduate and early-career researchers. The event will include an early career workshop, a reading group and a keynote by Professor Nick Daly. The day will conclude with a wine reception and dinner.

This year’s theme can be interpreted broadly. We are calling for 7-10 minute work-in-progress papers on any aspect of nineteenth-century studies from researchers across a broad range of specialisms, including literature and modern languages, history (including the history of art and science), politics, geography, theatre studies, and those who work at the interface of different disciplines. We look forward to a broad-ranging discussion in which we might situate our research in temporal, local, national, global, disciplinary/ interdisciplinary terms, in the context of genre, and in relation to the politics of class, ethnicity and gender. You are also welcome to register without delivering a paper.

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Please send a paper title with your university affiliation and 150-word abstract to Dr Justin Livingstone (j.livingstone@qub.ac.uk) by 12th of May 2023, with INNS in the email heading. This event is supported by the School of Arts, English and Languages. We look forward to welcoming you to Queen’s in June.

Author James Poskett, Associate Professor in the History of Science and Technology at the University of Warwick, will discuss his new book of ‘Horizons: A Global History of Science’ (Penguin, 2022).

In conversation with Diarmid Finnegan, Reader in Human Geography at Queen’s University Belfast.

For further details and to register go to https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/horizons-a-global-history-of-science/

Nowlan Digitisation Scheme. This scheme, which was set up thanks to a bequest from the late Prof. Kevin Nowlan aims to expand the range of digitised historical sources available through open and free access to researchers, for private study or education purposes and is open until 12^th April.

For full details, see https://www.ria.ie/nowlan-digitisation-grants

The Decade of Centenaries Bursary scheme. This scheme aims to encourage new local research and local history studies (local, national and regional) as a means of recognising the significant contribution of local historians in furthering fields of study relating to the struggle for independence and the civil war period within their communities and is open until 5^th April.

For details, go to https://www.ria.ie/decade-centenaries-bursary

The Irish Committee of Historical Sciences will host a symposium at the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland at Helen Roe Theatre, Society House, 63 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 at 2pm on Saturday 25^th February 2023. The symposium will look at Historians and National Archives. Our speakers at the symposium will be Dr. Ciarán Wallace of Trinity College Dublin, Zoë Reid, Keeper of Collection Care and Public Services, National Archives of Ireland, and Stephen Scarth, Head of Public Services at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.  The meeting will be chaired by Professor Steven Ellis of NUI Galway and Chair of the ICHS.

This year marks the centenary of the foundation of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, as well as the 45^th anniversary of the opening of the doors of the National Archives of Ireland, following the amalgamation of the Public Records Office of Ireland and the State Papers Office under the National Archives Act of 1986. Both repositories inherited their National Archives function from the PROI founded in 1867. From the beginning, what was available for consultation, who had access to public records and their interpretation in the contested arena of Irish history proved controversial. Historians have played a role in forming policy and public opinion, being critics of government policy towards archives, as well as advocating for access and resources for repositories.

With the recent Decade of Centenaries the issue of digital inclusion has come to the fore, with a number of projects such as the large scale digitization of records at the Military Archives of Ireland, or the Beyond 2022 project. This symposium will examine how historians, conservators and archivists can come together to advocate for access, resources and digital inclusion into the future.

All are welcome to attend.

For more information contact our secretary, Kieran Hoare, at kieran.hoare@nuigalway.ie

Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Edward Worth Library ‘Science in Trinity College Dublin in the seventeenth century’

Online, 1 March, 15.00-16.00hrs

All welcome

Abstract: This paper examines the teaching of science at Trinity College, Dublin in the seventeenth century. It focuses on three periods: from the foundation of the University of Dublin in 1592 to the 1641 rebellion; Cromwellian innovations of the 1650s; and the impact of the new science in the later seventeenth century. By reconstructing the college’s early library collections, in conjunction with staff and student notebooks, it explores the factors affecting the teaching of the scientific curriculum up to 1641, focusing in particular on the dominance of Ramism. The impact members of the reformist circle of Samuel Hartlib (1600- 82), such as Miles Symner (d. 1686), in attempting, in the 1650s, to implement a Baconian-inspired agenda devoted to experimental and applied learning, is likewise investigated. Finally, by using the Loan Books for the college library in the 1680s and 1690s, and the papers of the Dublin Philosophical Society from the 1680s onwards, the paper illustrates the availability and access to works of the new science, and outlines the dominant themes and favoured authors of books borrowed by members of Trinity College Dublin’s. The paper ends with an analysis of official attitudes to the relationship between science and religion in the last decade of the seventeenth century. 

For further details and to register, please follow this link: https://hstmnetworkireland.org/2023/02/14/hstm-seminar-series-1st-march-2023/

Details of upcoming webinars (and registration links) are available here: https://hstmnetworkireland.org/public-events/