Meet the scholars
“A Ghost from the Past”: O’Neill, the Emigrant Experience & Intergenerational Memory
Richard Hayes and Kieran Cronin explore Eugene O’Neill’s connections to New Ross, the dramatic life of his father James, and the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of his grandfather — reflecting on the extent to which O’Neill can be considered an “Irish” playwright, and on the influence of the emigrant experience on his writing.
With this evening’s performance of Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Tumanishvili Theatre in mind, the discussion explores universal questions about human relationships in the context of societal devastation — whether through emigration, poverty, or political and cultural change — considering how the past still shapes the present, and how memory can be a form of entrapment.
Dr Richard Hayes is Vice President for Strategy at South East Technological University.
Kieran Cronin is Special Collections, Heritage & Outreach Librarian at South East Technological University.
Reclaiming Lucia Joyce
Deirdre Mulrooney introduces Lucia Joyce, whom she has been reclaiming as an artist and significant figure in the hidden history of modern dance in twentieth-century Ireland — through her 2019 RTÉ Lyric FM feature radio documentary, her short dance film, and her 2024 limited edition publication Lucia Joyce: Full Capacity.
Deirdre will also share her 2026 short aerial dance film The Clouds are not Inaccessible, based on a little-known 1932 surrealist text by Lucia Joyce. Together with Bess Rowen, they ponder the connections and parallels between Lucia Joyce and Eugene O’Neill.
Dr Deirdre Mulrooney is an Irish author, filmmaker, theatre director, broadcaster and scholar. In addition to a number of books, dance films and other works, she has contributed about her own family’s unique adventures to Photo Album of the Irish: Canada, and is currently making a documentary entitled Turtle Island Family Album drawing on her family archive. She serves on the advisory board of Northern Attitudes Dance Company and of the Yeats International Summer School.
New Perspectives on Eugene O’Neill
Bess Rowen and Kelly Aliano draw on their own groundbreaking, original research to present new ways of approaching and understanding America’s greatest playwright.
They will also examine Sunday evening’s play, Ah, Wilderness!, and help position the work within O’Neill’s wider body of writing for those attending the production.
Dr Bess Rowen teaches at Villanova University. She has published widely on the theatre, including The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment. She is also an actor, director and dramaturg, co-editor of the Journal of American Drama & Theatre, and a member of the Governing Board of the Eugene O’Neill Society.
Dr Kelly Aliano is Manager of Education Special Projects at The New York Historical and teaches in the English Department at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY. She is the author of Theatre of the Ridiculous: A Critical History.
