Ireland's turbulent political history has long interested historians, political scientist, and lawmakers around the world. This connection is particularly strong in France, one of our closest neighbours.  Irish intellectuals and political figures continue to have a strong interest in French current affairs, while French reporters and historians have long been drawn to Ireland’s political history, often as a means to tease out questions relevant to France’s political identity at key moments in the country’s history.

On 13 September 2024, researchers from across 10 institutions came together at the University of Lille for the first in-person meeting of the collaborative IMAGIN_IRL project.  This project is jointly funded through the Maison Européenne des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société (The European Centre for the Humanities and Social Sciences), a research centre situated in Lille, and the QUB Agility+ fund, a fund that facilitates global research partnerships and enables researchers at Queen’s to increase the impact of their work.  The project focuses on cultivating better understanding of responses to the events of Ireland’s revolutionary period (1912-1923) in the French-speaking world.  The project at Queen’s is led by Dr Síobhra Aiken, a senior lecturer in Irish & Celtic Studies, who is currently a Sabbatical Fellow at the Mitchell Institute. Also on the project at Queen’s in the role of research assistant is Dr Mark O’Rawe, who recently completed his PhD in French Studies at QUB.

Leading the project in Lille is Dr Claire Dubois, senior lecturer in Irish Studies at the University of Lille.  Her 2024 monograph, L’Art comme arme en politique: Les combats de Constance Markievicz (Lille, Presses Universitaires de Septentrion), explores the political and artistic legacies of Irish revolutionary and suffragist Constance Markievicz, highlighting in particular her use of visual journalism to inspire others into action.  Dr Dubois is one of a number of experts in Irish history working on the project.  The fourteen-person team is comprised of a multidisciplinary network of academic and non-academic researchers from across 10 institutions including universities in Ireland, France and Belgium, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Institut pour la photographie in Lille.  Over the coming months, the project team will work collaboratively to compile a database of contemporary photography and reporting in the French press on key events of the Irish revolutionary period from the 1912 Home Rule crisis to the end of the civil war in 1923.

This project is perhaps unique in both its multilingualism and interdisciplinarity.  In bringing together researchers working out of various disciplines and institutions across Ireland and the French-speaking world to develop an understanding of global perspectives on the legacy of Ireland’s revolutionary era, the project team hopes to combine skill sets and offer a model for collaborative multilingual projects that can be emulated in other contexts.

The next stage in this year-long project will be a second in-person meeting due to take place at Queen’s in semester 2 (date TBC).  This event will draw together scholars with expertise in photography to examine French photographical representations of the Irish revolutionary period. 

Dr Síobhra Aiken is a Senior Lecturer in Irish & Celtic Studies in the School of Arts, English and Languages and Mitchell Institute Sabbatical Fellow 2024-25.