News Archive
Home thoughts from abroad: History, the Press and Diaspora
Diaspora and the Press was the focus of the Seventh Annual NPHFI Conference, which took place in UCC on Friday 21 and Saturday 22 November.
The keynote speech was delivered by Professor Donal McCracken, Dean of Research, College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Professor McCracken is a historian who specialises in environmental history, media history and the Irish diaspora in Africa. He spoke on Irish edited newspapers in South Africa during the 19th century.
Speakers from universities in Ireland, UK, USA and Australia delivered papers on the historic links forged between Ireland and the Irish diaspora around the world through newspapers and periodicals during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The conference was organised by Oliver O'Hanlon, who is secretary of NPHFI. Oliver is a PhD student and is being supervised by Prof Grace Neville, Department of French and Dr Donal Ó Drisceoil, School of History. Newspapers are very much at the heart of Oliver's research, which looks at the relationship between France and Ireland in the twentieth century.
There's a short piece in the Evening Echo about the conference http://www.eveningecho.ie/2014/11/25/holly-boughs-worldwide-reach/
Background:
The Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland (NPHFI) http://newspapersperiodicals.org/ was founded in 2008 to facilitate contact between researchers and writers in the field of newspaper, periodical, journalism and printing history, and to strengthen institutional links between third level teaching and research institutions, libraries and other organisations concerned with media history. It organizes an annual conference and provides a valuable forum for academics, researchers and journalists to meet in an informal environment to discuss and debate relevant issues. It serves as a valuable network for those interested in developing collaborative works and also provides a platform for emerging academics to present their work to the country’s leading media historians in a formal, but supportive environment.