CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND
CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND The second half of 2016 has seen the Classical Association in Northern Ireland and its members making connections and presenting talks with other institutions and societies. On October 13 the Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast, hosted a screening of the marvellous Monty Python’s Life of Brian for the second CANI Film Night, before which Dr Peter Crawford highlighted how the reception of the film has gone from blasphemy and bans to academic praise for its depiction of Roman Judaea. On November 3, CANI founder Dr John Curran (pictured below) had the opportunity to present the Sir Samuel Dill Memorial Lecture on behalf of the esteemed Professor Dame Averil Cameron on ‘Samuel Dill, the end of the Roman empire, and learning from history’.
November 2016 Before the year is out though, CANI will return to hosting its own events. On December 8, a day-long public reading of Homer’s Iliad will take place on the grounds of the McClay Library at Queens University, where members of the public will be invited to take part. 2016 will then be closed out on December 15 with a talk by Professor Theresa Urbainczyk of UCD on ‘Some Byzantine Women and their Husbands’. Early 2017 will see CANI venture out into schools to provide help on the historical background to Classical Civilisation courses, and host talks on the March of the 10,000, Greek Percussion, and Constantius II, before the return of the Belfast Summer School in Classics. The CANI website continues to provide not only information, reviews and galleries of its events but also a blog on a variety of ancient subjects – Roman coins in Japan, Far Eastern remains in Roman London, falling down the numismatic rabbit hole, Trojan War playing cards and paper dolls, the classical allusions of the Battle of Cannae and burning princesses in Game of Thrones, and a new subsection on ‘My Favourite Picture of Ancient History’, which has so far covered a 3,300-year-old Egyptian door seal and a 100-year-old picture of a Marchioness of Londonderry as Circe. Find the blog at: https://classicalassociationni. wordpress.com/category/blog/
CLICK TO READ the full text of The Sir Samuel Dill Memorial Lecture 2016 by Dame Averil Cameron: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/IrishStudiesGateway/ NewsandEvents/ValueofMedievalStudiesandHumanities/
On November 15, Dr Peter Crawford was invited to Coleraine Town Hall by the Coleraine Historical Society (www.colerainehistoricalsociety.co.uk) to present a talk on the Coleraine Hoard – a collection of Roman silver coins, ingots and plate buried in the fifth century and uncovered in 1854, and what it might suggest about Romano-Irish relations (pictured, right). 10
We are willing to listen to ideas and are open to future contributions from our readers, so get in touch! Dr Peter Crawford