Wednesday, 13 March 2024

Two University of Galway researchers receive SFI Public Service Fellowship funding

Two University of Galway researchers have received funding through Science Foundation Ireland’s Public Service Fellowship programme Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris T.D. announced funding for a total 14 research awards representing a total grant funding in excess of €1.25 million. The novel programme offers academic researchers the unique opportunity to be temporarily seconded to Government departments and agencies and work on specific collaborative research projects. The fellowships help to foster innovation and provide an evidence base for policy, through close collaboration and engagement within the public sector and academic research community. Dr Kristin Anderson, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, will be on secondment with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland on the project ‘The application of behavioural science to influence food safety compliance’, which aims to utilise behavioural science to provide insight in focus areas such as the food hygiene rating scheme, food safety culture, and regulatory enforcement. Heike Vornhagen, Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, received a Fellowship award for her project ‘Dashboard Design for HSE Quality Improvement Reports.’ The Fellowship will enable her to work with the Health Service Executive for two years and focuses on developing visualisations and data dashboards to support decision-making. Making the announcement, Minister Harris, said: “I am delighted that this funding through the SFI Public Service Fellowship Programme spans 11 Government departments and agencies. Research plays a significant role in helping Government and Public Sector address national and global challenges, including climate change, health and well-being, food security, transport and digital transformation. “This targeted immersion and integration of research expertise in our public service represents a win-win partnership for participating researchers and government entities alike, and fully aligns with departmental efforts to strengthen connectivity between the sectors.” Professor Jim Livesey, Vice-President for Research and Innovation at University of Galway, said: “Congratulations to Kristin and Heike on being awarded SFI Public Service Fellowship funding. The Fellowship programme allows the awardees and industry to benefit from each other’s invaluable knowledge and expertise, and enhance collaboration of the research community with public bodies.” Ends


News Archive

Friday, 8 March 2024

US-based historian Kerby A. Miller’s donated collection made available to the public    University of Galway has launched Imirce, a digital repository of thousands of Irish emigrant letters and memoirs dating from the late 1600s through to the mid-20th century.    Featuring correspondence and other documents sent from North America, the collection offers an unparalleled insight into the personal reflections and lives of people as they wrote home to family and friends in Ireland.     The Imirce project has enabled the creation of an online, publicly accessible archive of the Kerby A. Miller Collection - a unique record of personal correspondence from the Irish diaspora in the US.   The archive includes approximately 7,000 letters, running to more than 150,000 documents, along with other important historical papers. It was collected over five decades of research by Kerby A. Miller, Emeritus Professor of History at University of Missouri and Honorary Professor of History at University of Galway, who donated the material to the University of Galway Library.    The letters and documents provide valuable insights into universal themes and individual perspectives influenced by class, religion, gender and political circumstances. The collection is especially rich in the post-famine period from 1850-1950.     Following the creation of the digital repository, University of Galway Library is actively seeking contributions of other emigrant letters, in particular those written in Irish in North America, and letters and memoirs produced in any language by emigrants from the Gaeltacht.     Details about how to contribute to the collection are available at Imirce.universityofgalway.ie    Samples and messages from letters, in the words as they written in the original author’s hand, are being shared as part of the launch:   “We have too many loved ones in the Cemetery here to leave them … We have been here a long time - and it is home to us now.” - Jane Crowe, writing to her brother in Roscommon in 1959.    “... old people are very little thought of in this country, not even There own families have any regard for them when they become played out from age and my own is no Exception as I could not get 1 penny from any of mine but what I can earn myself...” - ditch-digger Patrick McKeown, writing home in 1904.    “Ah Nora, It makes my very heart break when I think right of home … oh Nora I hate to think of it because I do be that homesick and lonely.” - Galway women writing home in 1921.    “I do not care any thing at all about gone home.” “I was born in old Ireland but I am quite happy sometimes I never think I was in old Ireland at all. I never (even) think of it ... for I do not entend ever to see it.” - Thomas McCann, writing in October 1894.     The Imirce digital repository was developed by an interdisciplinary team, led by Professor Daniel Carey (School of English, Media and Creative Arts), Cillian Joy (University of Galway Library) and Professor Breandán Mac Suibhne (Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge), with the archival work managed by Digital Archivist Marie-Louise Rouget.    Professor Breandán Mac Suibhne, Director of the Acadamh and historian at University of Galway, said: “Letter-writing was long the primary means of communication between Irish emigrants to North America and family and friends at home. The Imirce database allows researchers - amateur and professional - to access an extraordinary collection of emigrant letters and memoirs assembled over half a century by historian Kerby A. Miller and it provides a repository in which people can share copies of letters in their possession. Imirce is at once an important resource for scholars and a potent connection, across time, between the descendants of emigrants to North America and the people and places around Ireland that their forebears left behind."    Daniel Carey, Professor of English at University of Galway, said: “As an Irish American whose relations left Ireland for America during the Famine, I find this collection a profound record of the experience of emigrants, recorded in their own voices. The challenges of settling in a new country come to life in these letters, through reflections on ordinary events and major upheavals. We see how they kept their relationships going across great distances and reported home on how they were faring in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and so many cities and towns across the continent.”    Cillian Joy, Head of Open and Digital Research, University of Galway Library, said: “This is an exciting moment for the University of Galway Library as we launch this important digital resource to the public. In the spirit of open access, we invite scholars of Irish and North American history and members of the public alike to explore the material and the stories they tell.”    The University has released an initial tranche of material from the Imirce project, with more letters and memoirs to be published over the rest of the year.    The Imirce digital repository project was supported with funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and the University of Galway Strategic Fund.    The Kerby A. Miller Collection  Professor Miller donated his vast research collection related to Irish emigration to North America and Irish diaspora identities to the University of Galway Library in 2021.     From the early 1970s, when researching his landmark Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (Oxford, 1985), Miller transcribed writings by emigrants from Ireland to North America held in libraries and archives. Furthermore, looking beyond those repositories, he placed notices in Irish national and local newspapers asking people to send him treasured correspondence, which he and research assistants then copied, transcribed and returned.     Following the publication of Emigrants and Exiles, Miller continued to collect such material. The result is a vast collection of transcripts of the writings of craftsmen, especially weavers and spinners, miners, domestic servants, farmers, and canal, railroad, mill and construction workers.     The collection also includes transcripts of correspondence collected by historian Arnold Schrier when working on his Ireland and the American Migration, 1850–1900 (Minneapolis, 1958).     Ends 

Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Students who achieved a distinction in their higher level Irish Junior Cycle examination have been presented with a Special Irish Recognition Award from University of Galway.  Some 140 students from 40 schools in Donegal, Clare, Mayo, Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon and Galway attended a special event at the University to recognise and celebrate their achievements. The students are among the 3.1% of students across the country who achieved a distinction in the higher level T2 Irish paper, or the 4% of students who achieved a distinction in the higher level T1 paper in the 2023 Junior Cycle examinations by scoring between 90% and 100%. University of Galway Deputy President and Registrar, Professor Pól Ó Dochartaigh, welcomed the students and their families to campus and congratulated the teachers and principals while recognising the hard work being done in the schools. “As part of our commitment to fostering and nurturing a bilingual campus environment and advancing our leadership role in higher education and research in the Irish language we are thrilled to present these awards. These accolades honour students who have excelled and achieved distinction in their Junior Cycle examinations. For the second consecutive year, we celebrate their outstanding accomplishments, underscoring the significance of the Irish language not only within University of Galway but also in the broader educational landscape and among communities dedicated to promoting Irish as a vibrant, living language.”   The importance of thriving Irish-speaking communities in the Gaeltacht and beyond is recognised in the University’s first Irish language strategy, A Strategy for the Irish Language 2021-2025, which was launched in July 2021.  The communities were recognised at the inaugural event in 2023 and again in 2024 this year with the University fulfilling its role in leading higher education in the Irish language and showing Irish speakers respect, as is set out in the Strategy. Ends 

Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Tá Gradaim Aitheantais Speisialta Gaeilge bronnta ag Ollscoil na Gaillimhe ar dhaltaí ar éirigh leo pas le gradam a bhaint amach i scrúduithe ardleibhéil Gaeilge na Sraithe Sóisearaí.   D’fhreastail thart ar 140 dalta ó 40 scoil i nDún na nGall, Co. an Chláir, Co. Mhaigh Eo, Co. Liatroma, Co. Shligigh, Co. Ros Comáin agus Co. na Gaillimhe ar ócáid speisialta a reáchtáladh san Ollscoil chun aitheantas a thabhairt do na héachtaí atá bainte amach acu agus iad a cheiliúradh. Áirítear na daltaí i measc an 3.1% de dhaltaí ar fud na tíre ar éirigh leo pas le gradam a bhaint amach sa pháipéar ardleibhéil T2 Gaeilge go náisiúnta, nó an 4% de na daltaí a bhain pas le gradam amach sa pháipéar ardleibhéil T1 Gaeilge sa tSraith Shóisearach in 2023 trí scór idir 90% agus 100% a bhaint amach. Chuir Uachtarán Ionaid agus Meabhránaí Ollscoil na Gaillimhe, an tOllamh Pól Ó Dochartaigh fáilte chroíúil roimh na daltaí agus a dteaghlaigh chuig an gcampas, agus rinne sé comhghairdeas leis na príomhoidí agus leis na múinteoirí, agus é ag tabhairt aitheantais dóibh as an dea-obair atá ar bun acu féin sna scoileanna. “Mar chuid dár dtiomantas campas dátheangach a chothú agus don ról ceannaireachta atá againn san ardoideachas agus i dtaighde na Gaeilge a chur chun cinn, tá an-áthas orainn na gradaim seo a bhronnadh anseo inniu. Tugann na gradaim seo aitheantas do dhaltaí a bhfuil éachtaí déanta acu agus pas le gradam bainte amach acu i scrúduithe na Sraithe Sóisearaí. Den dara bliain as a chéile, déanaimid ceiliúradh ar na sár-éachtaí sin, agus muid ag cur béim ar thábhacht na Gaeilge ní hamháin in Ollscoil na Gaillimhe ach freisin i réimse an oideachais trí chéile agus i measc na bpobal atá tiomanta don Ghaeilge a chur chun cinn mar theanga bheo bhríomhar.”   Aithnítear an tábhacht a bhaineann lena chinntiú go mbeidh pobail bhisiúla Ghaeilge sa Ghaeltacht agus taobh amuigh den Ghaeltacht i gcéad straitéis Ghaeilge na hOllscoile, Straitéis na Gaeilge 2021-2025, a seoladh i mí Iúil 2021.   Tugadh aitheantas do na pobail sin ag an ócáid seo den chéad uair in 2023 agus arís in 2024 agus an Ollscoil ag déanamh cúraim don ról a chuir sí roimpi sa Straitéis, ó thaobh ceannasaíocht a thabhairt don ardoideachas i nGaeilge agus meas a léiriú ar lucht labhartha na Gaeilge. Críoch 


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