Magazine article - In Flanders Fields Museum (Friends Magazine)

A magazine arrived in the post today. It came from Ieper in Belgium and was sent by the In Flanders Fields Museum. It's the magazine of the Friends of the In Flanders Fields Museum and contains articles about the work of the museum and the history of the First World War. 

One of the articles was written by me! After completing a three week research visit to the museum in September 2023, I was asked to write about the research I carried out with another student from Ireland. The visit was organised in conjunction with the Irish embassy in Brussels and involved researching information on Irish men who fought in the First World War.

Magazine of the Friends of the In Flanders Fields museum.

 

Article in the Friends magazine.

My article (originally written in English) was translated into Dutch and published with photographs taken during our research visit to the museum, Commonwealth War Graves Commission graveyards and the Irish embassy in Brussels. I have such good memories from the visit to Ieper. Thanks again to Annick Vandenbilcke and all the team in the museum for all they did during the visit.

RTÉ Brainstorm article - French linguist Marie-Louise Sjoestedt in Ireland

The French linguist and Celtic scholar Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (1900-1940) visited Ireland many times during the 1920s and 1930s. She studied the Irish language at universities in France and Ireland and lived with native speakers in Ireland to better understand it. She lectured about Irish in France and Ireland and also wrote books and academic articles about it.

 

Photograph of Marie-Louise Sjoestedt. Image source.

 

One of the first times I came across her was at an AFIS (Association of Franco-Irish Studies) conference in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick when a lectured from the Irish department there gave a paper about her links to the Irish language. 

 

I thought that her story was an interesting one and decided to look into it a little further. I did some research and have just written a short article on the RTÉ Brainstorm website about Sjoestedt's connection to Ireland, the Irish language and Celtic mythology. Read it here. 

Monk Gibbon - an Irish Diary

William Monk Gibbon (1896-1987) was a poet and writer who used experiences from his life in his writing. Aside from his autobiographical writing, he wrote everything from travel books and literary criticism to books on ballet. I have just written an Irish Diary about his life and times in the Irish Times newspaper. Read it here.

If you would like to hear what he spoke like, there is an interview with Gibbon from 1971 on the RTÉ Archives website. You can watch it here.

 

Photograph of Monk Gibbon. Image source.