Dates: 26 June - 13 July

The IRISH SEMINAR 2007, presented by the Irish Studies program at Notre Dame, under the directorship of Seamus Deane, Luke Gibbons, and Kevin Whelan, will be held at the Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre, situated in O'Connell House, the house in which Daniel O’Connell, lived most of his life. Called ‘The Liberator’, he was a leader in the battle for Catholic Emancipation.

O’Connell House is a late eighteenth-century building on Merrion Square, the most elegant Georgian square in central Dublin. It is a five storey red brick building with fine, light-filled rooms. Purchased by Notre Dame in 2002, it houses reception rooms, offices, classrooms, a computer room and a library.

For the IRISH SEMINAR 2007, the directors are assembling major figures in the field, this year's faculty list will be announced shortly

Participants will have unprecedented access to the finest scholars in Irish Studies during daily closed sessions with program faculty. Participants will also enjoy access to major libraries in Dublin, including the National Library of Ireland, the Royal Irish Academy, and Trinity College.

The aims of the IRISH SEMINAR include the creation of a cosmopolitan community of young scholars: the eighteenth-century Republic of Letter reconfigured for the 21st century. It provides an intellectual infrastructure for scholarly collaboration, balancing the theoretically rich with the empirically rigorous. It adopts a flexible pluralisation of approaches, less constrained by the firmness of institutional boundaries and disciplinary consolidation. It is self-reflexive about professional and intellectual formation, while seeking to generate a supportive environment which nurtures the intellectual poise and confidence of young scholars.