IX Events and Commemorations

PARNELL LECTURE. This year’s Parnell Lecture was given by Professor Roy Foster in the Sir Humphrey Cripps Theatre on 23 November 2015. His title was ‘The Crowd becomes a People: Drama and Politics in Yeats’s Life’.

W B YEATS DAY. The connections which bind Magdalene College to the writings of the Irish poet W B Yeats are perhaps somewhat oblique but are nevertheless strong and long-lasting, sustained through the interests of a large number of our Parnell Fellows over the years. From the brilliant lecture on ‘Yeats at Sonnets’ by Honorary Fellow Professor Vendler in 1995 to the most recent celebration of Yeats organised by Professor Duffy, Yeats has been a significant presence.

The Yeats Day on 23rd November, 2015, sponsored and hosted by the Embassy of Ireland and Magdalene, commemorated the 150th anniversary of the poet’s birth. After a welcome on behalf of the Irish Government by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Charles Flanagan TD, distinguished panellists engaged with topics including Modernism, Time, Women, Reinventions and Early Writings and, in a series of talks, scholars engaged closely with individual poems.

Speakers included Dr Williams, Dr Peter McDonald, Professor Angela Leighton, Professor David Moody, Dr Chris Morash, Professor Patricia Coughlan, Professor Edna Longley, Professor Fran Brearton, Professor Michael O’Neill, Professor Terrence Brown, and (giving the annual Parnell Lecture) Professor Roy Foster.

The celebration concluded with rare and notable dramatic events, performances of Yeats’s plays: On Baile’s Stand and The Death of Cuchulain, performed by the Marlowe Society and the Magdalene Drama Society and directed by Dr Tim Cribb and Harry Gowers.

Candle-lit production in the Denis Murphy Gallery