14-15 Jan. Rome conference marks the centenary of Ireland's Easter Rising.

Easter or rather the events to commemorate and study the Easter 1916 Rising will come early to Rome. The centenary of the armed insurrection that took place during Easter Week 1916 (late April) and which led to the eventual establishment of the Irish Free State and subsequently the Irish Republic will be celebrated throughout the world during 2016 with Rome the first international port of call.

The principal Rome event, which is open to the public, is a conference entitled Writing the Rising and is organised by CRISIS – (Centro Ricerca Studi Irlandesi e Scozzesi) – at the Università Roma Tre in association with the Irish embassy to Italy and the College of St Isidore.

This interdisciplinary conference hears contributions from leading historians and literary critics and will examine the central importance of the written word both before, during and after the 1916 Rising, firstly as a source of inspiration, then as the container of the main political message of the Rising itself (the Proclamation of the Irish Republic) and finally as the principal means of reportage, witness, and critique.

Among a rich line-up of plenary speakers will be Professor Roy Foster (Oxford University), the most lauded Irish historian of recent decades as well as the author of the acclaimed official biography of W.B. Yeats. His most recent work, Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890-1922, is a brilliant depiction of the men and women who drove Ireland politically and culturally in the crucial years leading up to 1916.

Other speakers include Dr Ben Levitas (Goldsmiths, University of London), author of The Theatre of Nation: Irish Drama and Cultural Nationalism, 1890-1916 (winner of the Michael J. Durkan Prize), Roisin Higgins (Teeside University) author of the highly praised Transforming 1916: Meaning, Memory and the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Easter Rising.

The final plenary session features Irish academic and and writer, Colin Teevan (Birkbeck, University of London), author of Rebellion, a drama series on 1916 produced by the Irish national television station, RTÉ, which tells the story of 1916 from the point of view not of the well-known protagonists but of the ordinary people of Dublin.

For full programme see website while for more information contact john.mccourt@uniroma3.it.