Irish Studies at the Hesburgh Library

The Breac Team brought out the second issue of their online journal last month.  This issue, edited by Lindsay J. Haney and Shaun Richards, is devoted to Irish drama.  The editors “hope that these essays will stimulate debate and lively conversations around the role of the theater in staging issues such as economic crisis, urban renewal, gender relations, sexual abus, and other matters that are vital to contemporary considerations in Irish Studies” (Preface, Breac, July 10, 2014)

The very first item presents a typical Breac problem for librarians.  What is “Am I Rambling”?  Is it a film?  Is it street theatre?  Is it a guided tour? I can tell that it is an experimental event, organized and presented by Veronica Dyas and Sorcha Kenny, in which a group of people walk around Dublin and encounter street art.  At least that’s what I think it is.  Beyond that, I am waiting to see commentary on the Breac site to help me interpret the video.

Brian Ó Conchubhair describes Fíbín, an Irish language theatre group, once again using the medium of the online journal to provide a video.  Other articles are more traditional scholarly articles, but they take advantage of the digital platform by providing hyperlinked references that take the reader straight to the article under discussion, if available online.

Here are the contents of the current issue:

Theatre-as-Memory and as Witness: Active Spectatorship in The Walworth Farce, The Blue Boy, and Laundry
Emilie Pine