Book Launch: Reclaiming the Secret of Love: Feminism, Imagination and Sexual Difference

Educational Disadvantage Centre Book Launch, Reclaiming the Secret of Love: Feminism, Imagination and Sexual Difference (by the late Ann Louise Gilligan)

The Educational Disadvantage Centre, DCU Institute of Education, invites you to the Book Launch of "Reclaiming the Secret of Love: Feminism, Imagination and Sexual Difference", authored by the late Dr. Ann Louise Gilligan.



Keynote Speaker: Dr. Mary McAleese

Professor of Children, Religion and Law at the University of Glasgow

8th President of Ireland.

Biography Ann Louise Gilligan

Dr Ann Louise Gilligan was appointed to the staff of St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, Ireland in 1976, and worked in the area of teacher education for over thirty years.  Her Ph.D from Boston College (1986) examined female difference and a feminist imagination. She was appointed Head of the Department of Religious Studies, St. Patrick's College (1983-1989). 

In the Education Department at St. Patrick’s College, she established and directed its Educational Disadvantage Centre (2000-2003), and lectured on philosophy of the imagination, difference and educational equality. She also co-edited the book, Beyond Educational Disadvantage with Dr Paul Downes (2007). In 2001, she was appointed by the Irish Minister for Education to establish and chair the National Education Welfare Board.

Dr Gilligan co-founded An Cosán, a community based lifelong learning centre in Jobstown,

Tallaght, Dublin with Dr Katherine Zappone. She co-authored their memoirs, Our Lives Out Loud (2008). Their public advocacy and legal case to the Irish Supreme Court to have their Vancouver marriage recognised by Irish law directly led to the Marriage Equality campaign and the referendum that was passed in Ireland on this issue in 2015.

After Ann Louise Gilligan’s death in June 2017, Dublin City University named a lecture theatre in its Institute of Education, St. Patrick’s Campus in her honour in 2018.