Ireland's Edge are delighted to present Áit / Place.

So many notions of place exist in the public and  personal sphere, while some can be unconsciously held in the  private sphere of the imagination. Within countries and communities there are shared collective ideas of place which are closely connected to those of identity and home. Social, political and environmental change can disturb and even dismantle these embedded narratives of place and identity. For the Irish Diaspora it’s been the case that different perspectives on place and identity develop in relation to the distance in generations removed from the home country. Sometimes the identification with Ireland can disappear only to reappear in another generation as an affinity with Irish culture, traditional music or literature.

In very recent times Brexit, climate change, mass migration and immigration, digital technology amongst other factors have been major disruptors of long held often unexamined ideas about place . Ireland’s Edge 2018  takes some of these themes and interrogates them in the company of an engaged curious attendance and panels of thinkers, policy makers, innovators, commentators and artists.  

Line Up

Ciarán Devane

CEO of British Council

Chairperson of HSE

Non-Exec Director NHS

Prof. John Naughton

Senior Research Fellow, CRASSH, University of Cambridge

Director, Wolfson Press Fellowship Programme

Carole Cadwalladr

Reporter and feature writer for the Observer

2018 Orwell Prize recipient

Dr Nora Ní Loideain

Director and Lecturer at the Information Law and Policy Centre at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (IALS).

Affiliated Lecturer at the Cambridge Faculty of Law.

Prof. Genevieve Bell

Anthropologist, technologist and futurist.

Professor and Director of the 3A Institute at the Australian National University.

Senior Fellow at Intel.

Billy Mag Fhloinn  

Irish Folklorist, Performance Artist, Costume Maker, and Musician

Prof. Luke O’Neill

Chair of Biochemistry, School of Biochemistry and Immunology

Trinity College Dublin

Tony Connelly

RTE Europe Editor,

Author of Brexit & Ireland

H.E. Mrs Deike Potzel

German Ambassador to Ireland.

Matthew O’Toole

Former Brexit spokesperson in Number 10 Downing Street

Writer on British and Irish politics

Public Relation Executive at Powerscourt Group

Aziliz Gouez

Former speechwriter for President Michael D Higgins

Deirdre Connolly

Executive Producer of Bravo’s Emmy-Nominated Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen!

Former producer at MTV’s Total Request Live in NYC

Julian Coman

Joint Comment Editor, The Guardian

Previously Home News Editor at The Independent

Patrick McCormick

Student at Yale Law School

Previously served as a visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame where his research focused on external assistance to nonviolent resistance movements.

Dr. Chris Kissane

Historian, journalist and writer on migration.  

Former lecturer in Economic History at London School of Economics & Political Science. BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker

Prof. Diarmaid Ferriter

Irish Historian, Author and Professor of Modern Irish History at UCD.

Dr. Michael John O’Mahony

Director at Environmental Education Unit

An Taisce

Aoife Ní Bhríain

Contemporary, Classical and Traditional Violinist

Member of contemporary string quintet Wooden Elephant

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