Marking 20 years of the Collection at Trinity College Library
The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: A Symposium

A fascinating day dedicated to exploring the Pollard Collection of Children’s Books. This collaboration between the School of English and Trinity College Library brought together a range of experts to discuss the history, significance, and impact of the Collection.

The Collection is one of the most important children's book collections in the world and contains over 12,000 books ranging from the 16thC to the early 20thC amassed over a twenty-year period by Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard, the former Keeper of Early Printed books at Trinity College Library.

The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: A Symposium

Thursday, 25 February 2021, 6:30 – 7:30pm

This month the Art+Science Reading group returns in its new form, the Art+Science Salon. This season on the Art+Science Salon, in addition to our monthly online discussion series, we’re adding a curated collection of online resources that are open access and available to everyone online. Here we will share articles, essays, videos, and more.

To kick off this season we will be speaking with the artist collective Multiplay, Science Gallery Dublin’s first artist in residence/remoteness, in partnership with the Human Insights Lab at Accenture The Dock. Comprised of three transdisciplinary artists: Victoria De La Torre, Pedro Arnanz Coll, and Elisa Cuesta, their piece A.I.R will debut at Science Gallery Dublin only. Inspired by systems thinking, the installation invites the public to question the balance between agency and living as part of an ecosystem in virtual spaces.

Register here 
 

The return and reform of the Art+Science Reading Group, now the Art+Science Salon

The Art+Science Salon, renamed for the informal gatherings of radical thinkers and reformers of the 19th century,  is excited to come together once more to discuss projects and ideas beyond discipline. This reform is due in part to reflection on the purpose and nature of academic research. What good is a PhD or any advanced degree for that matter if it only serves the interests and the needs of the few? It is the aim of this group to hold space for open learning, debate, and discussion. Our world is changing more rapidly than ever, evolving new rules of social behaviour and new ethical dilemmas that reach far beyond the borders of any discipline. We want to offer an opportunity for everyone to come together, find connections and inspiration at the crossroads of art and science. all representing work which defies categorisation and seeks to address the most pressing societal issues and questions of our time.

The Art + Science Salon is a virtual group where researchers, artists, thinkers, and revolutionaries come to share ideas. Organised by PhD candidates Autumn Brown (School of Education and Science Gallery Dublin) and Amelia McConville (School of English and Institute of Neuroscience) and supported by Science Gallery Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub, the series explores the ways art and science shape one another and society.

About the organisers

Autumn Brown is the PhD researcher in residence at Science Gallery Dublin. Her research explores art-science practices across Europe and whether this transdisciplinary approach may allow for a more equitable prototyping of ideas. She is interested in the sociotechnical imagination and how opportunities for public engagement impact who and where knowledge is made. She has previously worked as an immunologist and science communicator. Read more about her project here, and check out her latest paper here.

Amelia McConville is a PhD student conducting interdisciplinary research on visual poetry and poetics with Neurohumanities at the School of English and in association with the Institute of Neuroscience. Always fascinated by the overlap of art and science, she graduated with a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin in 2017, working in fundraising for the College before commencing doctoral research in 2018.

Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

The Art+Science Salon | Artist collective Multiplay

Recorded 22nd September 2025.

Why are we so drawn to true crime? And what are the ethical stakes behind the stories? Join popular literature experts Clare Clarke, Bernice Murphy, writer Una Mannion (English), and Ailise Bulfin (UCD), whose research focuses on cultural representations of major social issues, for a discussion on the moral complexities of creating and consuming true crime narratives.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

‘The Evidence of Things Not Seen’: Ethics and the True Crime Industry

Recorded September 24th, 2025.

Stephen O'Neill (English) looks at writing and partition in this festival edition of the Modern and Contemporary Irish History Seminar Series, hosted by Carole Holohan (History).

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Partition and P.E.N. International

Recorded Monday 22nd September 2025.

Gina Moxley and the creative team behind I Fall Down: A Restoration Comedy give us a behind-the-scenes look at this punk-feminist production taking place in Trinity as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. Hosted by the School of Creative Arts Research Forum.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

'I Fall Down': a behind-the-scenes look at this punk-feminist production

Recorded Tuesday, 23rd September 2025.

Join James Joyce expert Sam Slote (English) for a sharp look at censorship, copyright, and Ulysses in this festival edition of the School of English Staff and Postgrad Seminar Series.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Tales of Brave Ulysses: From Swerve of Censorship to Bend of Copyright

Recorded Monday 22nd September 2025. 

The Hub's Behind the Headlines series begins its second decade with a public discussion on the Irish Presidency. The panel is chaired by David Kenny (Law) and features Etain Tannam (Peace Studies), Declan Leddin (History), John Walsh (Education) and Gail McElroy (Political Science).

Behind the Headlines is supported by the John Pollard Foundation.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Behind the Headlines: The Irish Presidency

Recorded 22nd September 2025.

This international history seminar focuses on the US, with Dan Geary (History) discussing 'Forgotten American Liberals: Why American Politics isn't all about Trump'.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Spotlight on US History

Recorded September 25th, 2025.

Should Northern Ireland, or Ireland, have a new flag? David Michell and Etain Tannam (Peace Studies) explore this long-debated idea. A timely conversation on identity, representation, and national symbols.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

The Flag That Doesn't Exist Yet?: Re-Imagining Symbols in Northern Ireland and Ireland

Recorded September 26th, 2025.

Government Science Advisor, Aoife McLysaght, joins a lively conversation with Hub Director Patrick Geoghegan on bridging research and public policy. Drawing on her career as a geneticist and public communicator and adviser, Dr McLysaght reflects on how Science and the Humanities can work together to shape understanding and create impact.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

In Conversation with Aoife McLysaght, the Government Science Advisor

Recorded October 15th 2025.

The Trinity Long Room Hub is delighted to welcome author and historian William Dalrymple to present the 2025 Edmund Burke Lecture, entitled 'The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire', which is supported by a generous endowment in honour of Padraic Fallon by his family.

About William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple is one of Britain’s great historians and the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapuściński award-winning Return of a King. His book, The Anarchy, was long-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019, and shortlisted for the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History, the Tata Book of the Year (Non-fiction) and the Historical Writers Association Book Award 2020. It was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Bronze Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a revolutionary new history of the diffusion of Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific.

A frequent broadcaster, he has written and presented three television series, one of which won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA. He is the co-host of the Empire podcast, which explores the intricate stories of revolutions, imperial wars, and the people who built and lost empires. He has also won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, The Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Foreign Correspondent of the Year at the FPA Media Awards, and been awarded five honorary doctorates. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has held visiting fellowships at Princeton, Brown and Oxford. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the Guardian. In 2018, he was presented with the prestigious President’s Medal by the British Academy for his outstanding literary achievement and for co-founding the Jaipur Literature Festival. He was named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers for 2020 by Prospect.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

TLRH | 2025 Annual Edmund Burke Lecture | William Dalrymple

Recorded November 3rd, 2025.

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement on 15 November 1985, Behind the Headlines returns to debate whether this was a crucial stepping stone on the path to peace, or a controversial stumbling block.   

Bringing together experts from across the island, the panel re-examines the Agreement before the Good Friday Agreement, discusses what was so controversial at the time, and debates its impact and legacy. In particular, it explores the response of Unionist and Loyalist communities in Northern Ireland, the political fallout, and the mass protest campaign that followed.  

The event was chaired by Professor Lindsey Earner-Byrne, Chair of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College Dublin. 
  
Panel 
Dáithí Ó Ceallaigh, former Irish ambassador, who played a crucial role in the negotiation of the Agreement.   
Dr Shelley Deane, expert in Security and International Relations at the School of Law and Government in DCU and member of the ARINS project team.   
Sam McBride, Northern Ireland Editor, Belfast Telegraph 
Prof Michael Kerr, Professor of Conflict Studies, Kings College London

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Behind the Headlines: Debating the Anglo-Irish Agreement, 40 years on

Recorded November 3rd, 2025.

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Behind the Headlines revisits one of the most significant – and contested – moments in modern Irish history.

In this special curated episode, Professor Lindsey Earner-Byrne, Chair of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College Dublin, speaks with an expert panel ahead of the Behind the Headlines event The Anglo-Irish Agreement: Its Making, Impact, and the People Behind It.

Joining her are:

Dáithí Ó Ceallaigh, former Irish ambassador, who played a crucial role in the negotiation of the Agreement.

Dr Shelley Deane, expert in Security and International Relations at Dublin City University and member of the ARINS project team.

Sam McBride, Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph.

Professor Michael Kerr, Professor of Conflict Studies at King’s College London.

Together, they explore the making of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, the controversy it provoked, and its lasting legacy on politics across these islands.

🎧 Was the Anglo-Irish Agreement a crucial stepping stone on the path to peace — or a political stumbling block? Tune in to find out.
The Behind the Headlines series is proudly supported by the John Pollard Foundation

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub



The Anglo-Irish Agreement: Its Making, Impact, and the People Behind It

Recorded October 7th, 2025.

A seminar by Prof Jarlath Killeen (School of English, TCD) as part of the English Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series.

"Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses." 
The Picture of Dorian Gray opens in the studio of Basil Hallward in which the smells of an English garden at the start of summer mingle with the smoke of Lord Henry Wotton's opium-tinged cigarettes. This scent puts Dorian into a trance in which it is difficult, if not impossible for him, to resist the temptations offered: one located in Basil entrancing portrait, the other in Lord Henry’s mind-numbing peons to ever-blossoming youth and beauty. In this noxious atmosphere a new plant will grow, one even more dangerous than those that Hallward already has in the garden: the plant that is Dorian Gray. This talk will look at the ways in which Wilde has carefully used a Victorian language of the flowers throughout his novel as a way to dramatise the struggle between the forces of good and evil over Dorian's soul. 

English Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series is a fortnightly meeting which has been integral to the School of English research community since the 1990s. The aim of the seminar series is to provide a relaxed and convivial atmosphere for staff and students to present their research to their peers. The series also welcomes distinguished guest lecturers from the academic community outside Trinity College to present on their work. It is a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and engage with the diverse research taking place within the School. 

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub


The Blooming of Dorian Gray

Recorded October 1st, 2025.

A seminar by Dr Peter Rogers (Macquarie University, Australia) as part of the Medical and Health Humanities Seminar Series.

This talk will discuss how to translate a travelling concept with different meanings for different audiences into practical and deliverable projects. Peter will highlight examples of projects that seek to build resilience, from physical infrastructure interventions to ways of working differently to identifying, analysing, preparing for, preventing, responding to and recovering from emergent challenges - such as mental health resilience in the age of climate change. The talk will highlight how no single approach can work everywhere, whilst awareness of the many faces of resilience can improve the coordination of common goals (and deliverable outcomes) for the diverse stakeholders seeking to build resilience, in one form or another.

About the speaker:
Peter is a social scientist with primary expertise in resilience, in all its forms. He is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Macquarie University, Australia, and was Co-Director of 'Climate Futures' research centre from 2011-15. He has been an active researcher and consultant on resilience policy for many years. His published works include Resilience and the City (Ashgate. 2012) and The Everyday Resilience of the City (with Coaffee & Murakami-Wood. Palgrave, 2008). His forthcoming book on Resilience: Origins and Evolutions (Edward Elgar - 2026) brings together the disparate threads of his nearly 20 years of research on this topic into one volume.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Resilience and its Many Faces

Recorded October 2nd, 2025.

Thinking Aloud, Thinking Together is a new series of live and recorded conversations amplifying voices that have been silenced in Irish cultural life. It gives space to artists, writers and thinkers who offer radical new perspectives on existing narratives.

Our first conversation takes the form of a podcast series. Entitled 'In the Half Light: Voices from Black Ireland', this podcast is delivered in partnership with the Museum of Literature Ireland and curated by Dr Phil Mullen (Assistant Professor of Black Studies at Trinity College Dublin and a leading researcher on the historical experiences of 'mixed-race' people growing up in Ireland). Using the audio format, Phil has created an anonymised, open space for 'mixed-race' people who grew up in Irish care institutions to explore the impact of their erasure from institutional abuse history and discourse in Ireland. Through this conversation, she aims to undo that erasure, one voice at a time.

Phil will be in conversation with journalist and researcher Caelainn Hogan. The conversation will be chaired by writer Eoin McNamee.

This event is organised in partnership with the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Trinity Research in Social Sciences.

Speakers
Dr Phil Mullen is Assistant Professor of Black Studies and located in the Department of Sociology. She teaches on the Trinity elective which introduces students to the epistemology of Black Studies as an intellectual pursuit. This is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field of knowledge that interrogates historical events that have impacted on those who are racialised as Black, while centring the perspectives of Black people in constructing and deconstructing these events. Sheleads a research project to recover the lived experiences and sociological impact of African students who came to Trinity in the early 20th century, which amplifies our understanding of Blackness in pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

Caelainn Hogan is a writer and journalist from Dublin. Her first book Republic of Shame investigates the ongoing legacy of Ireland's religious-run, state-funded institutions and the shame-industrial complex that incarcerated women and children. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, National Geographic, The Guardian, VICE, Harper's, The Washington Post, The Dublin Review and more.

Eoin McNamee is a novelist and screenwriter. His nineteen novels include Resurrection Man and the Blue Trilogy. He has written six Young Adult novels including the New York Times bestselling The Navigator, and three thrillers under the John Creed pseudonym. He wrote the screenplay for the film Resurrection Man directed by Marc Evans and I Want You directed by Michael Winterbottom. His television credits include Hinterland (BBC Wales/Netflix) and An Brontanas (TG4). He has written seven radio plays for BBC R4. He is the Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre and Co-Director of the M.Phil in Creative Writing Course at Trinity College Dublin.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

In the Half Light: Voices from Black Ireland

Recorded November 18th, 2025.

Rough Magic Theatre Company, in association with the Trinity Long Room Hub, presents Embracing Uncertainty: An Evening with Margaret Heffernan, Roy Foster and Tommy Tiernan.

In a world where change is constant, the future rarely unfolds as expected. How do we learn not just to endure uncertainty, but to harness it? Drawing upon her recent book Embracing Uncertainty: How Writers, Musicians & Artists Thrive in an Unpredictable World (2025), Margaret Heffernan makes the case that creative practice isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. She argues that business structures, government policy, leadership models must give space to ambiguity, flexibility and emotional stamina - the very qualities artists exercise daily.
In this unique event, acclaimed author, speaker, and entrepreneur Dr Margaret Heffernan joins eminent historian Roy Foster and broadcaster-actor-comedian Tommy Tiernan to explore how artistic practice offers vital lessons for corporate leaders, policy makers, and culture creators alike. By galvanizing our creativity, Heffernan puts artistic practice firmly at the centre of strategic thinking.

For artists, the evening will affirm practice: that creativity, failure and improvisation aren’t just expressive, they are survival tools. For business leaders and corporate or government sectors, this is a call to reframe unpredictability not as a threat, but as entering territory where innovation lives. When organisations embrace uncertainty, they open possibilities. They build resilience.

Learn more at www.tcd.ietrinitylongroomhub

Embracing Uncertainty

Recorded November  10th, 2025.

Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Research Fellow Dr Anna Deeny Morales (Georgetown University, USA) in conversation with Dr Evangelia Rigaki (Department of Music).

Bio:
Anna Deeny Morales is a US-based Latina writer who grew up between Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. Her works in opera and poetry consider everyday family love and children; modes of empathy; patterns of political, religious, and legal violence; and strategies of disappearance. Her operas have been supported by the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Recent works include Las Místicas de México, which debuted in 2024 with the IN Series and the Children’s Chorus of Washington. ZAVALA-ZAVALA: an opera in v cuts, with music by Brian Arreola, debuted at the Kennedy Center in 2022 and was performed at Gala Hispanic Theater in 2024. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for her translation of Tala (1938) by Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral, she has translated poetry by Raúl Zurita, Nicanor Parra, and Amanda Berenguer, among others. Deeny Morales received a PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley; an MA in Comparative Literature, with an emphasis on Puerto Rican theater, from Dartmouth College; and a BA in English Literature with a minor in Piano Performance from Shepherd University. After college she studied theater and directing at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica, Silvio d'Amico, in Rome, Italy. A Fellow in the Humanities in the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, her monograph, Other Solitudes: Essays on Consciousness and Poetry, is forthcoming in 2026.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Fellow in Focus: Dr Anna Deeny Morales in conversation with Dr Evangelia Rigaki

Recorded November 25th, 2025.

On 1 July 2026, Ireland will take on the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the first time since Brexit. This event, in partnership with the global CEO advisory firm Teneo, will reflect on the last time Ireland held the presidency (in 2013) and debate the challenges and opportunities ahead.

The event will reflect on challenges and achievements of the 2013 presidency (including the Multiannual Financial Framework, Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020), and debate the challenges and opportunities of the forthcoming presidency.

The inaugural Trinity European Laureate Award will be presented to Enda Kenny, who served as Taoiseach during the presidency, and he will speak on what was achieved during that time. This will be followed by a panel discussion with Dr Brigid Laffan (Chancellor of the University of Limerick), Danny McCoy (CEO of IBEC), and Professor Sineád Ryan (Dean of Research, Trinity College Dublin).

This event will also mark the launch of the Trinity Long Room Hub’s programme of events around the EU Presidency.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Ireland and the EU Presidency: The Achievements of 2013 and the Opportunities Ahead

Recorded  November 14th, 2025.

Emer O’Sullivan graduated from University College Dublin and pursued further studies and academic work at Berlin and Frankfurt universities before being appointed Chair of English Literature at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Writing in both German and English, she specialises in comparative and children’s literature, with particular interests in translation and image studies. Her work has been translated into many languages. A pioneer in comparative children’s literature, she has received international recognition, most recently the IRSCL Honorary Fellowship and the 20th International Brothers Grimm Award in 2025.

Recorded as part of The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: A Symposium

This collaboration between the School of English and Trinity College Library brought together a range of experts to discuss the history, significance, and impact of the Collection.

The Collection is one of the most important children's book collections in the world and contains over 12,000 books ranging from the 16thC to the early 20thC amassed over a twenty-year period by Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard, the former Keeper of Early Printed books at Trinity College Library.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub


Pollard's Germans: exploring the Collection’s transnational dimensions

Recorded  November 14th, 2025.

Dr Pádraic Whyte
The History of Harry Spencer: Paul Pollard and the beginnings of Irish Children’s Literature

Dr Maggie Masterson
Paul Pollard's anti-canon of unknown and uninteresting books

Prof. Aileen Douglas
The ‘new literature of animals’ and the Pollard Collection

Recorded as part of The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: A Symposium

This collaboration between the School of English and Trinity College Library brought together a range of experts to discuss the history, significance, and impact of the Collection.

The Collection is one of the most important children's book collections in the world and contains over 12,000 books ranging from the 16thC to the early 20thC amassed over a twenty-year period by Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard, the former Keeper of Early Printed books at Trinity College Library.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: Panel One

Recorded  November 14th, 2025.

Dr Jane Carroll
Convivial Patchworks: Collections within the Pollard Collection of Children's Books

Tony Flynn
Stories in Blank Spaces: Revealing biographies of childhood through inscriptions and marginalia found in the Pollard Collection of Children’s Books and Pollard Schoolbook Collection

Dr Sinéad Moriarty
"Weep on then, lost island": imagining Irish landscapes in the Irish history texts of the Pollard School-book collection 1860-1920.

Recorded as part of The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: A Symposium

This collaboration between the School of English and Trinity College Library brought together a range of experts to discuss the history, significance, and impact of the Collection.

The Collection is one of the most important children's book collections in the world and contains over 12,000 books ranging from the 16thC to the early 20thC amassed over a twenty-year period by Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard, the former Keeper of Early Printed books at Trinity College Library.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: Panel Two

Recorded  November 14th, 2025.

Presentations from Students on the M.Phil. programme in Children’s Literature:

Jovyn Anderson, Shumane Cleary, Judit Climent Torras, Alice Andrea Dall’Alba, Cleo Daly, Eryne Decluy-Mason, Isabelle Duffy, Bianca Embrén, Annelise Hoffman, Eva Hughes-Sutton, Susan Stewart, Paulina Tittertington, Jiaying Wu.

Recorded as part of The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: A Symposium

This collaboration between the School of English and Trinity College Library brought together a range of experts to discuss the history, significance, and impact of the Collection.

The Collection is one of the most important children's book collections in the world and contains over 12,000 books ranging from the 16thC to the early 20thC amassed over a twenty-year period by Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard, the former Keeper of Early Printed books at Trinity College Library.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Adventures in the Pollard Collection

Recorded  November 14th, 2025.

The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: Past, Present, and Future
Prof. Kenneth Kidd, Dr Lydia Ferguson, Laura Shanahan, Dr Jane Carroll, Dr Pádraic Whyte

Recorded as part of The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: A Symposium

This collaboration between the School of English and Trinity College Library brought together a range of experts to discuss the history, significance, and impact of the Collection.

The Collection is one of the most important children's book collections in the world and contains over 12,000 books ranging from the 16thC to the early 20thC amassed over a twenty-year period by Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard, the former Keeper of Early Printed books at Trinity College Library.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

The Pollard Collection of Children’s Books: Roundtable Discussion

Recorded November 19th, 2025.

The Trinity Long Room Hub was delighted to launch a new seminar series - Bridging the Gap between Policy and Research - exploring how scholarship in the Arts and Humanities can shape and inform public policy for the common good.

The opening seminar, Do the Humanities Actually Matter? Public Policy and the Humanities hears from Peter MacDonagh, a former senior advisor in the Taoiseach’s Office whose career has bridged government and academia, and includes considerable experience in public policy and research in different countries. 

Speaker:
A former senior advisor in the Taoiseach’s Office, Peter MacDonagh has had an unusually broad involvement in public policy development, research funding and participation in pan-EU research programmes. Following studies in history in UCD and Cambridge, he worked for the now Taoiseach Micheál Martin when they developed the foundations for funding research in the Humanities. In government, he was substantially involved in deepening the engagement between academic research and public policy. Subsequently he served on the Board of Science Foundation Ireland, now Research Ireland, and as chairperson of its Grants Awards Committee. He has been involved with a range of large-scale Horizon projects and works on public policy and political research in different European countries.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Do the Humanities Actually Matter? Public Policy and the Humanities

Recorded 1st December 2025.

A discussion with Ambassador Lars Thuesen, Denmark’s Ambassador to Ireland, about Denmark’s European Presidency (ending on the 31st of December), their priorities and vision for Europe, as well as the challenges Europe faces at this pivotal moment. We will also hear from the Minister for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne TD about the objectives and ambitions of the forthcoming Irish Presidency, and Dr Deirdre Foley, Principal Investigator for the TÚS Research Ireland Pathway Project in the School of Histories and Humanities.

The bond between Denmark and Ireland stretches back to the age of the Vikings, and today the relationship between Denmark and Ireland is a strong and rewarding one, both politically and economically. Our comparable sizes, shared interests, and historic links make for a solid foundation on which cooperation between our two countries can take place, and there is much that Ireland can learn from looking at how Denmark has approached its Presidency.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Gallant Allies in Europe: Denmark’s EU Presidency and the Lessons for Ireland in 2026

Recorded December 2nd, 2025.

A lecture by Prof Jan Zielonka (University of Oxford, University of Venice) organised by the Centre for Resistance Studies.

Prof Jan Zielonka's public lecture will address the challenges posed by the "sovereignist turn" in European politics to the stability of the European Union. This lecture is the annual Łukasiewicz Lecture that is organised in memory of Polish logician Professor Jan Łukasiewicz. The event is organised jointly by the Polish Embassy in Dublin and the Trinity Centre for European Studies.
Jan Zielonka is Professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford and Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Venice, Cá Foscari. His previous appointments included posts at the University of Warsaw, Leiden and the European University Institute in Florence. His work oscillates between the field of international relations, comparative politics and political theory. Zielonka has produced eighteen books including Counter-revolution. Liberal Europe in Retreat (Oxford University Press, 2018, awarded the 2019 UACES prize for the best book on Europe and translated into Italian, German Polish, Estonian and Korean), Politics and the Media in New Democracies. Europe in a Comparative Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2015), Is the EU doomed? (Polity Press, 2014), and Europe as Empire. The Nature of the Enlarged European Union (Oxford University Press, 2006). Zielonka regularly contributes articles to Die Zeit, NewStatesman, Social Europe, Open Democracy, Il Fatto Quotidiano, L’Espresso, NRC Handelsblad, Diário de Notícias and Rzeczpospolita.

Learn more at ww.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

"Will Europe survive the sovereignist turn?" Public lecture by Jan Zielonka

Recorded December 10th, 2025.

Each year, December 10th is recognised globally as Human Rights Day. This year's theme, "Human Rights, Our Everyday Essentials", offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the everyday rights that matter most to people with dementia and their care partners, as well as the legal frameworks that seek to safeguard those rights.
Please join us for a special Human Rights Day event—“Unpacking the Essentials: A Conversation about Human Rights and Dementia”—organised by Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Kimberley Benjamin.
The event, co-hosted by the Global Brain Health Institute and the Long Room Hub at Trinity College Dublin, will feature an interdisciplinary group of thought-provoking and action-inspiring speakers. It will be an open conversation among persons with lived experience of dementia and human rights lawyers. Our aim is to raise awareness about the connection between human rights and dementia so that the essentials of this community take centre stage.


Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

A Conversation about Human Rights and Dementia: Unpacking the Essentials

Recorded November 18th, 2025.

A seminar by Yannis Athanassiou & Chiara Mastronardo (TCD) as part of the English Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series.

English Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series is a fortnightly meeting which has been integral to the School of English research community since the 1990s. The aim of the seminar series is to provide a relaxed and convivial atmosphere for staff and students to present their research to their peers. The series also welcomes distinguished guest lecturers from the academic community outside Trinity College to present on their work. It is a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and engage with the diverse research taking place within the School. 

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Kafka and Beckett: Totalitarianism Laid Bare & A tidalectic reading of the Zapata Swamp

Recorded December 2nd 2025.

A seminar by Dr Clare Clarke (School of English) as part of the English Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series.

English Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series is a fortnightly meeting which has been integral to the School of English research community since the 1990s. The aim of the seminar series is to provide a relaxed and convivial atmosphere for staff and students to present their research to their peers. The series also welcomes distinguished guest lecturers from the academic community outside Trinity College to present on their work. It is a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and engage with the diverse research taking place within the School. 

learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Where to go when in Trouble: The Adventures of Antonia Moser, Lady Detective

Undermining Democracy: Challenges to Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe 

Democratic values and institutions are being increasingly undermined and eroded in established and transitioning democracies across central and Eastern Europe. Providing perspectives on these serious developments in Poland, Hungary and Germany, this Forum will explore the implications for Ireland and Europe more widely and consider what measures could be taken to safeguard the rule of law and democratic principles so fundamental to the idea of Europe. This event is part of the Trinity Long Room Hub’s ‘Behind the Headlines’ discussion series which offers background analyses to current issues by experts drawing on the long-term perspectives of Arts & Humanities research.

Event Details:
Date: Tuesday, 14 June 2016 |
Time: 18:15 
Venue: Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub 

Learn more at: www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/

Behind the Headlines | Undermining Democracy

Opened in 2010, the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute is dedicated to advancing Trinity College Dublin’s rich tradition of research excellence in the Arts and Humanities, on an individual, collaborative and inter-disciplinary basis.

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