South Kilkenny Historical Society explores impact of mixed marriages

The South Kilkenny Historical Society’s second lecture of 2024 will take place on February 23, when Dr Ruth Duffy and Dr Alison Garden will talk about mixed marriages in Ireland - ‘Acts of Union: Mixed Marriage in Modern Ireland’.

This lecture will give an insight into the history of mixed marriage, and mixed relationships, in twentieth-century Ireland—offering us a glimpse into people’s lives during an extraordinarily turbulent period in Irish and British history.

Taking an all-island approach and looking at a variety of sources – including oral history, popular fiction, poetry, archival materials and more – Ruth and Alison will explore the vast complexities of sustaining a relationship across political and/or religious divides. Although such marriages were relatively common, there has been limited research on this subject. Drawing from a range of moments across the twentieth century, they will examine how this phenomenon was both imagined and experienced, for individuals and their families, when such relationships have historically been a contentious undertaking.

Essential water repairs underway in well-known Kilkenny area

Residents in the Paulstown area may be without water for the next while...

Dr Ruth Duffy is a historian of medical and oral history. Her expertise lies in modern British and Irish history; the Troubles, medicine, Irish society and culture. She particularly focuses on using oral history as a method to uncover hidden or sensitive histories.

Dr Duffy is currently a Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast In the School of Arts, English and Languages. Prior to this, Ruth worked as an Oral History and Public Engagement Officer on the NHS Voices of Covid-19 project at the University of Manchester.

Ruth has collaborated with the University of Birmingham’s Forged by Fire: Burns Injury and Identity in Britain project. Contributing expertise on the La Mon Hotel Bombing to be used in a graphic novel which was published by the project. She has also contributed to the Epidemic Belfast podcast and written a piece for their website about the experiences of medical staff working during the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Ruth’s first monograph on the experiences of the Northern Ireland health service during the Troubles, which is under contract with Liverpool University Press, is due to be published in Autumn 2024. The monograph is based on her PhD thesis which was awarded the Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertation from the American Conference for Irish Studies in 2022.

Dr Alison Garden is a Senior Lecturer and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at Queen's University Belfast. She is an inaugural member of Young Academy Ireland; a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; and a Fellow of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.

Dr Garden is a literary critic and cultural historian, fascinated by how national narratives intersect with the intimate, everyday realities of people’s lives and the stories we tell about this. She has published widely on Irish literary, cultural and political history, and has particular interests in the histories and cultures of love, romance and sexuality.

The lecture takes place in Mullinavat Parish Hall (opposite church) at 8pm, on Friday next (February 23).