Guest speakers

Kathleen Lynch (University College Dublin)

Professor Kathleen Lynch has devoted her life’s work to promoting equality, human rights, and social justice through education and research. She played the lead role in establishing the Equality Studies Centre in UCD in 1990 and the School of Social Justice in 2004/5.  She also led the development of the M.Sc. and Diploma in Equality Studies in UCD in 1990, developed several Outreach Equality Studies programmes in collaboration with Community Groups over a thirty-year period, and pioneered the development of the BCL (Law and Social Justice) with the UCD Law Faculty in 2013/14.

She served on the Constitution Review Group chaired by Dr Whitaker in 1995-6, and on several advisory boards since then. She was an expert advisor to European Commission Directorate General for Education and Culture from 2007- 2010 and the principal author of the major DGEAC Report on Gender and Education (and Employment) (2009).

She has authored/co-authored several academic books, and a few hundred articles on equality issues, many of which are translated into other languages. Her new book entitled Care and Capitalism was published by Polity Press, Cambridge in 2022.

Kathleen has received a number of awards for her work including several research awards from the European Commission and the Irish Research Council. She was awarded the UCD Medal for Pioneering Change for promoting access for non-traditional entrants to higher education (2018) and the Irish Research Council President Higgins’ Award for promoting Equality and Participation (2019).

She was appointed as a member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission in 2020 for a five-year period.

Cathal McCall (Queen's University, Belfast)

Cathal McCall is Professor of European Politics in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen's University, Belfast.

His key research interest is European Union cross-border cooperation and conflict transformation, with a particular focus on the Irish border.

His recently published book Border Ireland - From Partition to Brexit, published by Routledge in 2021, discusses the ramifications of Brexit for communities in Northern Ireland.

 Agnès Maillot (University College Dublin)

Agnès Maillot is Associate Professor and Head of the School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University.

Her main area of research is the conflict in Northern Ireland, and more particularly Sinn Féin and the IRA, on which she has published many books and articles. She has also worked on post-conflict politics, covering areas such as victims and reconciliation, and the legacy of violence,

She also researches contemporary Irish society, as well as multiculturalism in France and Ireland, and is currently working on issues related to the reception of asylum seekers in the French and Irish contexts.

She is a member of the Irish Refugee Integration Network (IRIN), a collective of Dublin City University academics, students and members of civil society. DCU was the first University of Sanctuary in Ireland, having received the designation in 2016. As such, it is committed to welcoming forcibly displaced persons and supporting them in accessing third level education through the awarding of scholarships. It also organises a range of initiatives to foster integration, including Refugee Week, the Mellie storytelling project, and research in the field of forced migration.

Sinéad McCoole

Sinéad McCoole's publications include: Hazel, A Life of Lady Lavery (1996), No Ordinary Women (1997) and Easter Widows, the untold story of the wives of the executed leaders (2014), as well as Women 1916-Mná 2016 (2017) and a play Leaving the Ladies (2019).

She is a member of the Government’s Expert Advisory Group on the Decade of Centenaries (2012 to date). She was historical advisor to the 2016 National Commemoration Programme, curator of Mná 1916 and ex-officio member of Vótáil100. She has curated exhibitions on Irish history and art in both Ireland and the USA.

Broadcaster and script-writer, her work includes Guns and Chiffon (2003), and her short film A Father’s Letter, part of the After ’16 Irish Film Board shorts commissioned for the centenary, was based on her interviews with Fr. Joe Mallin (1913-2018). Sinéad is an expert in the period 1916-1923.

Her current focus is on commemoration, and has been curator of Mná100.ie and Women in Politics and Public Life 1918-2018 (now in The Main Guard, Clonmel, County Tipperary). She has expertise in material culture, museums, and has also written about women’s role in the revolutionary period, the imprisonment of women 1916-1923, child prisoners, and Sir John and Lady Lavery.