Lecture by Dr Darragh Gannon, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA

Join us for a lecture (in-person) by Academic-in-Residence, Dr Darragh Gannon, visiting from Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA.

 

Dr Gannon has been awarded the autumn 2024 bursary from The Ireland Funds Monaco and will spend three weeks working at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco in October.

 

Dr. Gannon will speak partly about the book collection from Count O'Kelly's estate, which was acquired in the 1970s by Princess Grace. Born in 1890, in North Tipperary, Count O'Kelly was an Irish diplomat, serving as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to France for the Irish Free State government. He was the sole Irish diplomat to remain in Paris throughout World War II, securing the safety of Irish trapped in France in the years of occupation, as well as giving Irish passports to needy British applicants. Thanks to Count O'Kelly's mother, who had Wild Geese ancestry, he spoke fluent French. 

 

The title of Dr Gannon's talk is 'The Republic of Letters, 1919-1923: Count Gerald O'Kelly and the Irish Revolutionary World'.

 

Proclaimed by Irish nationalists in January 1919, and the British government in August 1919, the metaphysical Irish Republic became the cause of both the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War. It has been subject to extensive study, to date, in terms of political conflict.

 

This talk reconceptualises the Irish Republic as an ‘imagined community’ of individuals, ideas, and identities, created-in-writing, between Irish nationalists and the world. Writing from the post-war Paris Peace Conference, Seán T. O’Kelly developed a network of correspondents with Breton, Egyptian, and Italian nationalists, while public intellectuals in the Francophone world, such as Pierre Benoît, published novels on the Irish Republic: La Chausée des Géants. Exploring the rich literary collections of Count Gerald O’Kelly de Gallagh at the Princess Grace Irish Library, this talk will re-interpret the international significance of the Irish Revolution as a ‘Republic of Letters’.