As part of the Keough-Naughton Institute's fall 2024 speaker series, Professor Peter Shirlow will deliver a lecture titled “The Failings of Irish Republicans and the National Question in Ireland.” Lecture Abstract This lecture will explore how, despite post-Brexit Referendum predictions of a united Ireland by as early as 2021, there has been, at best, limited growth in recorded support for ending partition between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Growth of Northern Ireland’s Catholic population has been less dramatic than predicted and the region now has the fastest growing economy in the UK. Peter Shirlow asserts that in this context, pro-united Ireland campaigns and republican activism, especially via civic fora and social media, have failed to significantly close the gap between Irish unity and pro-union proponents. In this lecture, Shirlow will consider how Irish Republican arguments for unity contain internal contractions: underscoring the economic successes of the South while also indicating its structural deficiencies, or pointing to socio-economic deficiencies of Northern Ireland even while Republicans are co-authors of its new found economic growth. Ultimately, Shirlow argues, the shortcomings of Irish republicanism lie in its inability to read and understand the new sociology of Northern Ireland– particularly temporal and social shifts that potentially render the inevitability thesis of Irish unification inconsistent, if not ineffective, in the short to medium term. Speaker Biography Professor Peter Shirlow (FaCSS) is the director at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies. He was formerly the deputy director of the Institute for Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, QUB. He is the independent chair of the Executive Office's Employers' Guidance on Recruiting People with Conflict-Related Convictions Working Group and a board member of the mental health charity Threshold. He is a visiting research professor at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. He sits on the editorial boards of Irish Political Studies and International Planning Studies. Professor Shirlow has undertaken conflict transformation work in Northern Ireland and has used that knowledge in exchanges with governments, former combatants and NGOs in the former Yugoslavia, Moldova, Bahrain and Iraq. He has also presented talks to members of the US Senate and House of Representatives and is a regular media contributor. Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice Award, France’s Grand Prix de l’Héroïne, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into 36 languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida. Co-sponsors: Creative Writing Program, Gender Studies Program, Program of Liberal Studies — Join the Center for Social Concerns on Friday afternoons of home football weekends for MVP Fridays: lectures by national leaders, journalists, and writers on questions of meaning, values, and purpose.Learn more

The NDSO is joined by local musical treasure Jennet Ingle for Ruth Gipps’ “Oboe Concerto,” composed in 1941 and recently edited for performance in its full orchestral version. Felix Mendelssohn’s revered “Italian” Symphony completes the program. For tickets, call 574-631-2800 or visit performingarts.nd.edu. Originally published at music.nd.edu.

Notre Dame Children's Choir presentsits first concert of the season at the South Bend Farmer's Market, 1105 Northside Blvd.South Bend. All six choirs perform sacred songs of love and joy!Originally published at sma.nd.edu.

The Center for Social Concerns presents the 2024 Annual Rev. Bernie Clark, C.S.C., Lecture: An evening with Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. Welcome from University President Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C. Part of Notre Dame Forum 2024-25 Free, no ticket required. Doors open at 5:00 p.m. Interested in taking a free shuttle from the Notre Dame campus? Shuttle Interest Form Co-sponsors: Department of American Studies, Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights, Initiative on Race and Resilience, The Law School, Office of the President --- Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of the bestselling book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, which has been adapted into a feature film. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. Stevenson has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge inequality in America. He led the creation of EJI’s highly acclaimed Legacy Sites, including the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias.

As part of an album release tour, Cornelia Sommer, along with Dror Baitel, present a magical evening of original arrangements of classic fairy tale music, as well as newly commissioned works. This concert is free and not ticketed.  Originally published at music.nd.edu.