The Institut Ramon Llull has promoted the opening of a Catalan studies course at University College Dublin, which will be coordinated by Lecturer Eva Bru-Domínguez, current president of the Anglo-Catalan Society. It is the third to open in Ireland, after those taught at Maynooth University and University College Cork.
To mark the inauguration of Catalan studies in Dublin, and in conjunction with the beginning of the 2024-25 academic year, the University will hold a celebratory event on Monday 14 October. The event will comprise three activities.
- At noon on the 13th of June, in the QUI013 venue, Explica Dansa, the dance company led by Toni Jodar and Beatriu Daniel, will present a “dance conference”. This stage genre lies somewhere between a performance and a conference and explores numerous influences and trends in the world of dance, as well as its societal implications.
- At 1:00 p.m., the Delegation of Catalonia's Government to the United Kingdom and Ireland will hold an official reception at the Quinn Building. It will include speeches by Regina Uí Chollatáin, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UCD, Síofra Pierse, the head of the School of Languages, Culture, and Linguistics at UCD, Pere Almeda, the director of the Institut Ramon Llull, and Jennifer Velasco, the coordinator of the Delegation.
- Irish actors Regina Crowley, Mike Ryan and Jon Rod, directed by Roksana Niewdzisz, will perform a staged reading of Victoria Szpunberg's play El pes d'un cos (The weight of a body) by at 4 p.m. in the Global Lounge. The academic head of Catalan studies at University College Cork, Helena Buffery, translated the work into English and will attend the reading.
Catalan has been taught in Ireland for over 40 years, starting in 1981 at University College Cork. In 1996, a course on Catalan studies was initiated, which was subsidised by the Generalitat de Catalunya.
This academic year (24-25), the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 (France), and the Brown University of Providence (United States) are joining the XarxaLlull, the university network of Catalan studies abroad. You can see the map of Catalan studies in the world here.