Irish Studies Seminar Series – Semester 2, 2018-19

Down with the Paris Farmer!’

Frank MacDermot and Class Politics in 1930s Roscommon

Dr Tony Varley, (Political Science & Sociology, NUI Galway)

Centre for Irish Studies – 4pm, 31 January 2019

A chairde,

You are invited to attend our first seminar of the Irish Studies Seminar Series for Semester 2, 2018-19.

Dr Tony Varley (Political Science & Sociology, NUI Galway) will deliver his seminar, ‘Down with the Paris Farmer!’ Frank MacDermot and Class Politics in 1930s Roscommon’, based on his ongoing research investigating the history of Frank MacDermot (1886-1975) with a particular focus on Ireland in the 1930s. For further details, please see below.

The seminar will take place at 4pm, Thursday 31 January, at the Seminar Room, Centre for Irish Studies, Distillery Road.

Beidh fáilte roimh chách!

Le gach dea-ghuí,

Nessa

Dr Nessa Cronin, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway.

“Frank MacDermot (1886-1975) tends to be remembered today as a maverick in Irish politics: a founder of Fine Gael who quit the party in late 1935; an independent-minded parliamentarian who stood alone in criticising de Valera’s 1937 constitution for its potential to antagonise northern unionists and embed partition further; and someone whose political career ended abruptly in 1942 upon resigning from Seanad Éireann where he had sat since 1938 as one of the Taoiseach’s eleven nominees. The focus of my talk will be on the circumstances in which MacDermot was first elected in Roscommon in 1932, and the manner he held his seat a year later in the snap election of 1933. Another topic to be discussed is the appraisal of MacDermot’s record by some of those leading some new movements of Irish and Roscommon farmers later on in the 1930s.”

Dr Tony Varley, (Political Science & Sociology, NUI Galway)