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Sincere congratulations to Dr Sarah Nolan who was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques at a moving ceremony in the residence of the French Ambassador on Friday night. Her Excellency Madame Céline Place praised Sarah for her admirable work as President of AFIS, as well as for organising conferences and editing book collections in the area of Franco-Irish studies. In addition, she referred to how Sarah was a member of the team who organised the first doctoral seminar in what was then known as IT Tallaght, where she was the recipient of a PhD Fellowship at the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies – her thesis was supervised jointly by Professor Eugene O’Brien and Dr Eamon Maher.
Sarah’s two children, Andrew and Iris, along with her father Martin, who was Head of Accounting in IT Tallaght, and mother Monica, a former French teacher who imbued a love of the language and literature in Sarah from a young age, were there to share this lovely occasion, along with colleagues and AFIS members from IADT, TU Dublin, and the Doyenne of Franco-Irish Studies, Professor Emerita Grace Neville, whose positive influence was mentioned by the two recipients on the night, Sarah and Dr Paul Ryan from SETU.
The next Dublin Gastronomy Symposium will be held 26/27 May 2026 at our Grangegorman campus. The theme of the conference will be Food and Crisis/Hope.
Registrations for attending the conference are now open! Please register your attendance here: https://tudublin.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173675179
To give you a flavour of what’s in store here you can find a visual taste of the 2016 Dublin Gastronomy Symposium.
For further information about the conference, please consult the pages of our previous events (see below) or contact us at dgs@tudublin.ie.
Browse the contents of previous Dublin Gastronomy Symposium:
2024: Food and Memory - Traces, Trauma and Tradition
2020: Food and Disruption: What shall we eat tomorrow?
Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire had a lovely piece in the Irish Times to mark the Irish writer Brendan Behan’s anniversary which falls within Seachtain ne Gaeilge.
For access to the piece, click here
The launch of Dr Mary O’Donnell’s latest novel, Sweep the Cobwebs off the Sky, took place this month in a jam-packed Hodges Figgis. Belinda McKeon spoke glowingly about the book, which she described as being ‘truly remarkable’. Mary herself did some readings that whetted the appetite for the full course (significantly, she mentioned how descriptions of food are very prevalent in the novel). The French name of the English publisher, époque press, is particularly apposite for the AFIS group! We would advise you to secure a copy as soon as you can, as it would appear that this is a must-read. It was wonderful to have Mary’s work celebrated in the manner it was last night.
Launch of A Prophetic Voice: Jean Sulivan’s Ongoing Relevance for France and Ireland
It is definitely the time of year for launches, so you will not be surprised that there is another on the horizon, this time on Monday 27 April at 6.30 pm in Aungier Street. It is Eamon Maher's monograph on Jean Sulivan (1913-1980) which attempts to bring out the extent to which his prophetic voice continues to resonate in today’s world and to show how his lived experience of Catholicism in Brittany in the early decades of the last century has a lot in common with that experienced by generations of Irish people, including a group of (exclusively) male writers (Eamon will justify this strange decision on the night!) such as
30 Years of ‘Translating Ireland’ - A two-day symposium to celebrate the 30th anniversary of ‘Translating Ireland’ by Professor Michael Cronin
A two-day symposium will be hosted by the Royal Irish Academy and the University of Notre Dame to mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of the influential book Translating Ireland by the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation’s Senior Researcher and former director, Professor Michael Cronin. The conference will look at the position and role of translation and translators in contemporary Ireland and the sessions are open to the public.
https://www.tcd.ie/ahss/news-and-events/events/30-years-of-translating-ireland-symposium/
Dates: 16 - 17 April 2026
Location: Royal Irish Academy and Notre Dame Dublin.
Further details and to reserve tickets please visit these links here to the Royal Irish Academy and Notre Dame Dublin websites.
The 2026 edition of “Ma thèse en 180 secondes” (MT180) has launched its call for applications.
Organised by the Irish Universities Association (IUA), in partnership with Association of Franco-Irish Studies (AFIS) and the French Embassy in Ireland, this competition enables doctoral students to present their PhD thesis in French under 3 minutes, for a general and non-specialist public. This year, the MT180 competition will take place at University of Cork on 13 May 2026, for the European Doctoral Day. The event will take place in the middle of the day, with the possibility of a return trip. Participants can be reimbursed for their journey to Cork.
Note that participants do not have to be fluent in French to participate.
The first prize winner of the competition will also have the opportunity to participate in MT180 international final.
The deadline to apply is 24 April 2026.
For more information on the call for applications : https://ie.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/call-applications-ma-these-en-180-secondes-2026