President Higgins launches two-volume collection of Centenary reflections
Date: Fri 1st Dec, 2023 | 14:06
Uachtarán na hÉireann, President Michael D. Higgins has launched a two-volume book collection, that brings together each of the six Machnamh 100 seminars held in Áras an Uachtaráin between December 2020 and November 2022.
The six seminars brought together leading scholars from a range of different backgrounds to consider the formative events of a century ago. The seminars, which were chaired by Dr John Bowman, were focused on the War of Independence, the Treaty negotiations, the Civil War, and the establishment of two new administrations on the island.
Running through the seminars, a particular emphasis was placed on those voices which may have been neglected, been marginalised or simply ignored in the past, including the role of women, social class and land, as well as how certain exclusions became institutionalised.
The two-volume book collection (Volume 1 of which was previously released in November 2021 but is now brought together with the newly published Volume 2 in the collection) is now available to members of the public in public libraries and universities and third-level institutions across the country.
It is also available to view or download free of charge as an ebook at president.ie/machnamh as well as via the library app Borrowbox and to all post-primary schools including via the Scoilnet platform.
In addition to the book collection, the six seminars can also be watched in full on the RTÉ Player under the title ‘Machnamh 100’ with videos and audio recordings of each individual speaker across the series also available at president.ie/machnamh.
The themes and speakers for the series were based on consultations between the President and Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, who was the President’s Principal Advisor on the Machnamh 100 series. The President and Professor Ó Tuathaigh took part in a discussion that reviewed the series at a launch event at Áras an Uachtaráin chaired by Dr John Bowman yesterday evening. Renowned traditional Irish musician Martin Hayes performed at the event after their discussion.