Writing Irish History, Today - Inaugural Cregan Lecture by Professor James Kelly

4 May 2010

Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, President of DCU, Cregan Professor James Kelly, and Dr Pauric Travers, President of St Patrick's College.

Professor James Kelly delivered his Inaugural Lecture as Cregan Professor on Tuesday 4th May in Dublin City University. His lecture was entitled "Writing Irish History, Today".

Summary of Lecture:

At first glance, the discipline of history in History in Ireland appears to be in robust good health. The number of historians, professional and university-trained amateur is greater than ever it has been, and the volume of historical publication at records levels. In additional the discipline’s infrastructure is strong. Yet historians working in Ireland today face major challenges. The economic downturn poses forbidding challenges, while issues over recruitment, post-graduate funding and supervision, maintaining a healthy publishing sector, archival access threaten the continuing vigour of the discipline. In addition, the present-centred nature of public discourse, and the legacy of the ‘revisionist debate’ raises questions of the role and purpose of History and the historian that this lecture endeavoured to tease out