Congratulations to Aoife McGrath, Gail McConnell, Piotr Blumczynski, and Garrett Carr for their success.

Youth Dance Matters (Dr Aoife McGrath and Dr Victoria Durrer (UCD).

Youth Dance Matters is a pioneering survey and analysis of the conditions and value of youth dance across the island of Ireland that mixes dance and social science research methods. Taking a youth-centred approach, the project brings together 80 youth dancers and their facilitators from diverse groups (4 in Republic of Ireland, 4 in Northern Ireland) across three dance styles (ballet, contemporary, and street dance) in a process of choreographic exchange to explore why, where, and under what circumstances young people participate in dance, and how capacity for greater cooperation on the island might be developed.

Findings will address the Shared Island Initiative and youth and arts policy areas of: youth voice in policy research; dance for creative, personal, social and cultural development; island dance ecologies/networks; and youth arts practice as a cultural industry incubator. Outputs will engage multiple audiences in exploring how youth dance operates as a shared endeavour and its potential as a site for collaborative cultural expression and education in post-conflict, post-Brexit, and global pandemic contexts: a project documentary film will be screened at public engagement events; a sector-facing report will offer policy recommendations; academic publications will analyse methods and findings for wider use; and a website will provide an archive of the project during and after its lifetime.

Multilingual Island: Sites of Translation and Encounter (MISTE)

Bringing together scholars from QUB (Dr Piotr Blumczynski) and NUI Galway (Dr Anne O’Connor, Dr Lorna Shaughnessy and Dr Andrea Ciribuco), Multilingual Island: Sites of Translation and Encounter (MISTE) will explore intercultural encounters in Ireland, North and South, through the lens of language and translation. The project will work with civil society stakeholders in Galway and Belfast, investigating three types of sites (religious sites, sports sites, community/arts centres) where individuals from different backgrounds, who speak multiple languages, come together on an everyday basis. Through qualitative, ethnographic methods, the project will study multilingual practices in these sites; investigate the role of translation in bringing together migrants/refugees and local communities; and harness the creative potential of translation to raise awareness of cultural diversity in Ireland.

“Our roots travel widely”: Irish Poetry Beyond Regionalism and Nationalism 

(BRAN) Dr Karl O’Hanlon (Maynooth University) and Dr Gail McConnell

This project creates a new paradigm for understanding Irish poetry north and south between Partition and the Troubles, one which displaces the monolithic focus on the constitutional question and its outworn dichotomies: regionalism versus nationalism, Catholic versus Protestant, neutrality versus war, Dublin versus London. By examining poetic collaborations north and south, feminist poetics, international literary exchanges, ideological commitments beyond unionism or nationalism, and the role played by migrants and visitors, the project reconceptualises twentieth-century Irish/Northern Irish poetry, and initiates a vibrant cultural dialogue which transcends old polarities. The project explores the extent and richness of Irish poetry’s ‘web of affiliations’, in Edna Longley’s fertile phrase, highlighting forgotten and dissentient voices from 1920 to 1965. A postdoctoral researcher, based at Maynooth, will play a central role in bringing this material to light. The project will galvanise a growing cross-border network of writing and scholarship on Irish poetry through scholarly articles, public symposia, a digital exhibition, an anthology/essay collection and a public audio archive. The production and dissemination of new research will be enabled by key institutional partnerships with MOLI, the Linen Hall Library and Quotidian (Poetry Jukebox). 

 ‘Ireland’s Border Culture: Literature, Arts, and Policy’ Dr Garrett Carr and Professor Eve Patten, TCD.

The project will bring literary and visual resources from Irish border culture and identity to life in order to illuminate Ireland’s ‘cultural borderscape.’

It will archive and research these resources for what will become a sustainable and innovative open access digital archive, and include material ranging across creative literature, literary journalism, cinema, travel writing, photography and theatre production.

In tandem, the project will also examine the history and impact of cultural policy, understood as the cultural incentives and funding initiatives generated by government, civic, institutional, and philanthropic bodies over the period of the border’s existence.