In this first episode of Shelfmarks Zoë Comyns looks at an expedition to Rockall off the north-east coast of Donegal funded by the Royal Irish Academy in 1896.   

The island is extremely remote and poor weather conditions meant it was impossible to land on Rockall. The crew of geologists, naturalists and biologists did collect dredge samples and bird specimens. This programme evokes his journey and the sense of discovery. 

One of those on board was RIA member R.M. Barrington, whose interest in birds led to him to publish The Migration of Birds as Observed at Irish Lighthouses and Lightships (1900). Barrington asked lighthouse keepers all around the country to record information on all birds that died by striking the light stations. He asked that they:  “cut off and label the wing and leg of every common bird which is killed at their station…All species can then be identified with certainty.’ He also requested that ‘Rare birds should be sent entire”. 

He gathered more than 2000 specimens, legs and wings and whole birds arrive by post every week, from all over Ireland to his home in Wicklow allowing him to identify patterns and compile his book. 

Zoe’s guest on Shelfmarks is Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places. Kerri brings Zoë to Baltray beach in Co. Louth where they discuss Kerri’s relationship with the natural world and she reads new pieces specially commissioned for the Shelfmarks. 

Kerri chats about how being prompted by the notion of discovery and expedition she observes her baby son taking in the world for the first time. 

She also writes about a dream that she often returns to in which she is observing a bird in a forest and has to choose between experiencing this moment and rushing home to document it. 

Kerri has been writing for a number of years and she explores in her final piece one of her very first pieces of writing about a bird strike. Barrington’s studies resonant with her as she has come across numerous dead birds during her walks. 

Kerri ní Dochartaigh is the author of Thin Places which was highly commended by the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021. She has written for the Guardian, the Irish Times, the BBC, Winter Papers, and others. She lives in an old railway cottage in the heart of Ireland with her family.

Shelfmarks: Ep 1 | Kerri ní Dochartaigh

In this month’s ARINS podcast, host Rory Montgomery discusses the recent Irish Studies in International Affairs article, A Review of Employment Law in Ireland, North and South, with its authors Esther McGuinness (Ulster University), Desmond Ryan (Trinity College Dublin) and Rory O'Connell(Ulster University).  

The article explores the evolution and current state of employment law across the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, a century after the 1920 Government of Ireland Act. It  examines how partition and constitutional changes have affected shared legal origins and  analyses collective and individual labour law, including health and safety, through the lens of historical and contemporary influences, such as Brexit and the Windsor Framework.  

 

The article is available open access, as are all ARINS publications, and can be read here:  

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/423/article/962917

ARINS Podcast 46: A Review of Employment Law in Ireland, North and South

Listen back to our 2025 Heritage Week lecture by Emma Murphy, curator at the National Museum of Ireland – Natural History. Learn about R. J. Ussher MRIA, 1841-1913, and his connections to the National Museum, including a large collection of archived correspondence from Ussher to the curators and the hundreds of specimen donations that Ussher gave personally, or were given by his associates due to his encouragement.

Richard John Ussher MRIA, 1841-1913, was a speleologist, ornithologist, and renowned Irish naturalist. He published lists of Irish birds, showing the species contained in the National Collection. These, alongside “The Birds of Ireland” (1900), co-authored with Warren, were important works in the history of Irish ornithology. He donated his archive collection to the Royal Irish Academy, and many specimens to the National Museum of Ireland - Natural History.

Emma Murphy, Curator of Terrestrial Zoology at NMI – Natural History gave this lecture, exploring some of the stories, both funny and tragic, that can be found within Ussher’s collections, and highlighting his enduring scientific legacy.

This lecture was part of an programme of events relating to the Ussher Birds Notes collection, held in RIA Library. In 2024, the Library received funding from the Heritage Council as part of the Heritage Stewardship Fund for a project entitled, ‘The Birds of Ireland: Curating the Richard J. Ussher Collection at the Royal Irish Academy’. This project aimed to secure the long-term preservation, access, and discovery of material from the Ussher Bird Notes Collection through a programme of archival cataloguing, digitisation and outreach. The Ussher Bird Notes Digital Archive was launched in May 2025, and included digital images, with accompanying metadata, of 900 selected items from the collection. Detailed cataloguing of over 9000 items from the collection was also completed and researchers can contact library@ria.ie for more information about this listing. 

Thanks to a second tranche of funding from the Heritage Stewardship Fund, granted in 2025, the remainder of the Ussher Bird Notes Collection will be catalogued and more material will be added to the digital archive in due course.

A Naturalist’s Record: Stories from the Collections of R. J. Ussher

In this episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with Leo Varadkar.

Leo Varadkar was Taoiseach of Ireland from 2017 to 2020 and from 2022 to 2024. During the thirteen years he spent in cabinet, he held many positions across the Ministries of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Social Protection, and Health.

After stepping down from political life in late 2024, he was appointed as a Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, a Board Member of Brussels based Care4Everybody and writes a column for the Sunday Times Ireland.
In this episode he discusses, among other things, national identity, religion, family and his book: Speaking My Mind.

About the Series

My Identity is hosted by Professor Colin Graham, Maynooth. In this series, Colin is in conversation with a range of people whose ideas, work and life experiences shed light on the topic of identity on the Island of Ireland. My Identity is part of the ARINS project. 

Colin Graham is Professor English and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Maynooth University. His books include Northern Ireland: Thirty Years of Photography, Deconstructing Ireland and Ideologies of Epic. He was editor of The Irish Review from 2004 to 2020. During the Brexit negotiations he created the Twitter account @borderirish and wrote the book I am the Border, so I am, published by HarperCollins.

ARINS: Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South brings together experts to provide evidence-based research and analysis on the most significant questions of policy and public debate facing the island of Ireland, north and south. The project publishes, facilitates and disseminates research on the challenges and opportunities presented to the island in a post-Brexit context, with the intention of contributing to an informed public discourse. More information can be found at www.arinsproject.com

ARINS is a joint project of The Royal Irish Academy, an all-island body, and the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs.
My Identity is hosted by Professor Colin Graham. Podcast management and production by Dr Susie Deedigan.

ARINS My Identity: Episode 6 with Leo Varadkar

The Book of Lecan Conference

During this two-day event in October 2025, speakers explored the production of the Book of Lecan or Leabhar Mór Lecain, its scribes and patrons, and the texts contained within the manuscript.

The manuscript known as the Book of Lecan (Leabhar Mór Lecain) was created in Co. Sligo in the early fifteenth century. It contains a large amount of genealogical material, especially relating to the families with which the scribes were associated, as well as historical, biblical and hagiographical material. Included are a Dindshenchas, Bansenchas, and versions of Lebor Gabála, Uraicept an nÉces, Cóir Anmann, and Book of Rights. The conference papers shared new insights into how the manuscript was produced, its history of ownership and the significance of the various texts found within the compilation.

The event was a collaboration between the Royal Irish Academy, Maynooth University, and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Recordings have some of the lectures have been made available, subject to the presenters’ consent. It is hoped that the proceedings of this conference will be published as part of the Codices Hibernenses Eximii series in due course.

Thursday 2 October 2025
2.00 pm Making the Book of Lecan - Pádraig Ó Macháin
2.45 pm The Later History of the Book of Lecan - Bernadette Cunningham
3.30 pm Coffee break
4.00 pm Poets and Poetry in the Book of Lecan - Elizabeth Boyle
4.45 pm Lebor Bretnach and the International Perspective of the Book of Lecan - Patrick Wadden

Friday 3 October 2025
9.30am A History of the Men of Britain: Text and Context - Alex Woolf
10.15 am Lebor na Cert: a “Grossly Overrated” Text? - Seán Ó Hoireabhárd
11.00 am Coffee break
11.30 am Gilla Íosa Mór: Pseudohistorian - John Carey
12.15 pm Shaping Dindshenchas Érenn: What the Book of Lecan Version Reveals - Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and David McCay
1.00 pm Lunch
2.30pm A Return to Cóir Anmann: its Etymologies, its Date and the Book of Lecan Text - Sharon Arbuthnot
3.15pm The Book of Lecan’s Secular Genealogies (especially those of Connacht) - Nollaig Ó Muraíle
4.00 pm “A Splendid Family Heirloom”:  Manuscript Illumination and the School of Lecan - Karen Ralph



Gilla Íosa Mór: Pseudohistorian - John Carey

@radio-relativa

In this first episode of Lack of Sleep, I share the sound of my sleepless nights. Unreleased tracks, downtempo moods, edits and years of searching distilled into one moment. No boundaries, no rush just sound and time.

Lack of Sleep #001

The Royal Irish Academy/Acadamh Ríoga na hEireann is an all-Ireland, independent, academic body that promotes study and excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is the principal learned society in Ireland and has over 420 members who are elected in recognition of their academic achievements.

The Royal Irish Academy, the academy for the sciences and humanities for the whole of Ireland will vigorously promote excellence in scholarship, recognise achievements in learning, direct research programmes and undertake its own research projects, particularly in areas relating to Ireland and its heritage.

Shelfmarks: Ep 1 | Kerri ní Dochartaigh

The Royal Irish Academy

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