TRANSITIONS WITHIN IRISH WORLDS: REFLECTIONS AND REVISIONS IN IRISH STUDIES

LIUNA Station, Hamilton, Ontario, May 30 – June 1 2022

As Ireland and Canada emerge from the global Covid-19 pandemic, it is appropriate to reflect on the transitions that have occurred in Ireland, in its diasporic communities, and within the multidisciplinary field of Irish Studies. The sense of transition suggests a variety of historical timelines. One hundred years ago, the island of Ireland was beset by dramas associated with partition, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and then civil war. At the same time, conceptions of Irishness have shifted over the succeeding decades, not least in the past twenty to thirty years as the Republic of Ireland experienced the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy and Northern Ireland transitioned to more peaceful times under the Good Friday/Belfast agreements.

The island’s demographics have also transitioned in terms of sustained population growth and with cities and small towns becoming home to immigrants from other parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The lives, aspirations, and achievements of these newcomers’ children present one of several points from which to re-envision Ireland and Irishness in the twenty-first century in several arenas, from the economy to music, sport, and popular culture and media. Encounters with peoples differing in ethnicity and race have, however, been a feature of everyday life for the Irish abroad for at least three centuries, which have in turn shaped conceptions of Irishness in multiple diasporic locations.

The Canadian Association of Irish Studies (CAIS) welcomes members and guests in person once again for its traditional mix of the scholarly and the social. The conference venue is the former CN Railway James Street Station in Hamilton, Ontario, now under the ownership of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA). This building, now rechristened LIUNA Station and originally completed more than ninety years ago, is both architecturally impressive and symbolically significant in Irish migration history, given the prominent Irish role in the construction of transportation routes (roads, canals, railways) in this cross-border region. Irish immigrants have also been a driving force in the history of trade unionization in twentieth-century Canada, including in LIUNA.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS & INVITED GUESTS

Gavin Foster (Department of History, Concordia University) – 'The Irish Civil War: Centenary Perspectives on the Conflict and its Legacies'

Carolina Amador-Moreno (Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen) – ‘Historical transitions: Irish emigration and the transportation of Irish English’

Ambassador Eamonn McKee (Embassy of Ireland, Ottawa) – ‘Choosing our Future, Reflections on Irish Independence 1922 – 2122’

Laura McKenna, the author of Words to Shape My Name (longlisted for the 2019 Bath Novel Award and a winner at the 2020 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair) will do a reading and discuss her work.

Joe Mancinelli, LiUNA International Vice President and Regional Manager of Central and Eastern Canada, will describe how his dream of restoring glory to the former CN railway station that is our conference venue came to fruition.

COVID-19 Advisory

CAIS/ACEI 2022 is designed to be an in-person event. The organizers are monitoring national, and international, regulations on travel constantly, and direct you to https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health.html for the latest updates.

Please also consult your airline, car rental, or other carrier for additional information. Information on COVID in the province of Ontario can be accessed at https://covid-19.ontario.ca/

All attendees of the conference are encouraged strongly to be vaccinated against COVID, and to wear masks indoors where appropriate.