2015 Press Releases
Love and Marriage revisited
Dr Linda Connolly, Director of the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century is Director of the Merriman Summer School 2015, the theme of which is Love and Marriage revisited.
Taking place in glór, in Ennis, Co. Clare from August 12-15, this year’s school will take the timely topic of Love and Marriage for its theme and will include contributors from the University.
2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the 1995 Divorce Referendum, which passed by a narrow majority and led to the introduction of divorce for the first time in Irish law; the passing of the Children and Family Relationships Act (2015); and a referendum to introduce same sex marriage was passed by a large majority on May 22nd 2015. With a resoundingly clear result in the referendum behind us, the Merriman Summer School will allow us to stand back and take a look at what love and marriage have meant in Irish society at various times in its history, and consider what it will mean from now on, as well.
Catherine McGuinness, former Supreme Court judge, will open the proceedings on Wednesday August 12th at 7pm in glór, reflecting on some of the ways in which Irish society has redefined love and marriage in recent decades. The following 3 days will be packed with lectures, seminars, concerts, poetry readings, writer interviews and informal gatherings. Among those addressing the school will be Roy Foster, Lucy McDiarmid, Tom Inglis, Patricia Coughlan, Conor O’Mahony, Carol Coulter, the author Donal Ryan, and poets Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, Rita Ann Higgins and Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Talks, readings, performances and debates by leading scholars, writers and artists will deal with topics as diverse as twenty years of divorce in Ireland, love and marriage in the 1916 Rising, sexual citizenship, same sex marriage, women’s lives, marriage traditions and love and intimacy in Irish writing. The Summer School will close with a History Ireland ‘Hedge School’ on ‘Love and Marriage since the Famine.’
Tickets may be bought for the full school or for individual events, with booking available through glór. Booking: www.glor.ie 065 684 3103