• Three UCC researchers receive €3 million funding in prestigious IRC Advanced Laureate Awards.
• Dr Kevin Murray, Professor Maggie O’Neill and Dr Lynette Keeney will conduct ground-breaking research across humanities, social sciences and life sciences.

Software development to explore Acallam na Senórach ‘The Dialogue of the Ancients’; a new approach to advancing research in the making and re-making of three European borders; and a new material understanding to overcome the constraints of data storage options are the three University College Cork (UCC) projects to receive €3 million funding under the Irish Research Council (IRC) 2023 Advanced Laureate Awards Programme.

The Advanced Laureate Awards are for established, leading principal investigators who want funding to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk research across the fields of the humanities, physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, and social sciences.

Software development to retain scholarly confidence in medieval literacy

Dr Kevin Murray, Department of Early and Medieval Irish, School of Irish Learning has received €998,788 for his project entitled ‘The Disappearing Text’: Memory, Place, and Gaelic Identities. The Case of Acallam na Senórach ‘The Dialogue of the Ancients.’

Dr Kevin Murray

A shared Gaelic-language linguistic and cultural heritage binds together citizens in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Within this heritage, the medieval literary cycle known as the Fenian or Finn Cycle (in Gaelic fianaigheacht) occupies a central position in the articulation of Gaelic identities. The main fianaigheacht text (of over 8,000 lines) — Acallam na Senórach ("The Dialogue of the Ancients") — stands at the forefront of this cycle. Recent research has shown that this narrative complex may not be as amenable to critical editing as was once thought and that the Acallam may in fact be a ‘disappearing text,’ an ephemeron which when subjected to closer editorial scrutiny may dissolve into several related, though individual, narratives.

The Acallam is central to studies of place, memory and identities in a Gaelic context; however, such studies require agreed texts to properly contextualise, interpret and analyse source materials. Current editing software cannot deal properly with the Acallam because of the intricate nature of the editing process involved. In collaboration with colleagues from Computer Science and Information Technology at UCC, this project will design bespoke software to deal with these complexities. This software will be used in the central part of ‘The Disappearing Text’ project, the attempt to establish a critical text. By varying the parameters used, it is hoped that the software will facilitate exploration of several different editorial approaches simultaneously to create a usable critical edition of Acallam na Senórach which retains scholarly confidence.

Methodological and conceptual understanding of three European borders

Professor Maggie O’Neill, Department of Sociology and Criminology, and Director of UCC Futures – Collective Social Futures, and ISS21, has received €999,159 for her research project EuroBorderWalks - Walking Borders, Risk and Belonging: advances in ethno-mimetic research in the making and re-making of three European borders.

Professor Maggie O'Neill

The ground-breaking nature and ambition of the EuroBorderWalks project is methodological and conceptual in that it will develop better knowledge and understanding from the ‘bottom up’, and deliver on policy oriented impact through innovative interdisciplinary ethno-mimetic research, that uses walking as a biographical research method and autobiographical narrative methods, in collaboration with three artist commissions, to produce a deep biographical mapping and comparative analysis of three borders, at the edges of Europe. This project will involve telling the biography of three borders ‘from below’ as well as impact on policy, through a policy report, policy briefing, exhibition and a curriculum contribution.

The project team involving researchers from University College Cork, University of Lodz and University of Zagreb will contribute to Critical Border Studies and the mobilities field by examining important issues and questions surrounding key border challenges based on biographical research with those who live, work at, or cross the three borders.

Professor Chris Williams, Head of the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences said:

One of the key principles of the modern discipline of border studies is that the meaning of the border is often defined by those who live on or close to such frontiers. Led by Professor Maggie O’Neill, EuroBorderWalks takes that principle and infuses it with the experience of walking the borders – appreciating the particular and idiosyncratic ways in which topography and statehood intersect to generate diverse narratives and unique artistic perspectives.

Dr Kevin Murray’s ‘The Disappearing Text’ project aims to bring together expertise in medieval Irish and computing to create a critical edition of a core text that is relevant to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, showing how modern software and editorial approaches have the capacity to shed new light on a foundational document of our shared heritage,

added Professor Williams.

New material understanding to produce energy efficient data storage and devices

Dr Lynette Keeney, Tyndall National Institute, has received €993,636 for her project entitled ‘Designing confined multiferroic topologies to explore relationships between magnetic and polar textures.’

Increased demands for remote learning, working and entertainment has led to a phenomenal increase in worldwide data creation. Polar vortices are rotating topologies of electrical polarisation that are related to the spin whirlpools of magnetism we know as skyrmions. The recent breakthrough discoveries of such emergent topological structures have been heralded as unlocking a new era in ferroelectrics, with the potential for revolutionary nano-electronics that can overcome the constraints of classical data storage. The internal characteristic length scales of polar topological structures are much smaller (~4 to 10 nm) than ferromagnets (~10 to 100 nm), making them ideally suited to ultra-high density, energy efficient data storage devices.

Multiferroics are unique materials capable of intertwining ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties, providing novel ways to manipulate data and store information. This project aims to elucidate the origins of newly discovered topological structures within a rare multiferroic matrix. Novel and design concepts to predict and create conditions to engineer tantalising multiferroic topological states will be unveiled. The proposed combination of new material understanding and new growth optimisation, to produce ultra-compact data storage and new low power device concepts, can facilitate a paradigm shift in data storage technologies, including implementation in energy-efficient neuromorphic (brain inspired) and quantum computing.

Congratulating Dr Lynette Keeney on her award, Professor William Scanlan, CEO, Tyndall, said:

I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to Dr Lynette Keeney, on receipt of the prestigious Irish Research Council Advanced Laureate Award. These awards recognise researchers who are pursuing groundbreaking research, and we are immensely proud of Dr Keeney’s important work in the area of multiferroic topologies, exploring relationships between magnetic and polar textures.

Professor John F. Cryan, UCC Vice President for Research and Innovation said:

Congratulations to our three researchers on receiving a prestigious IRC Advanced Programme Awards. These awards will enable the researchers to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk research, in key areas which will address critical scientific and social challenges and create a better future for all.