The Center for Irish Studies at Villanova University Podcast Series

This podcast features novelist and our 2026 Heimbold Chair Cauvery Madhavan speaking with two poets from Queens University's Seamus Heaney Centre - Niamh Twomey, and Emma Devlin. They discuss the importance of creative community, emphasizing that writing is not purely solitary but shaped by conversation, friendship, teaching, reading, and exchange. A major focus is how environmental concerns a...

This episode features University College Cork historians John Borgonovo and Hiram Morgan discussing the future of Irish historical scholarship after Ireland’s recent “decade of centenaries,” which commemorated events like the Easter Rising and the Irish Civil War. As Irish history shifts from commemorating revolutionary milestones, it is moving towards addressing contemporary issues through histor...

Charles Strozier is the author of Making Peace in Northern Ireland: The Miracle of the Good Friday Agreement . In this conversation with Center Director Joseph Lennjon, Strozier discusses his distinctive approach to history—one that blends psychoanalytic insight with political and cultural analysis—to understand how empathy and inner transformation shaped the peace process. Reflecting on decades o...

Author Cauvery Madhavan discusses her journey from India to Ireland, where she reflects on the challenges and opportunities of migration, from adapting to small-town life to building community and a sense of belonging. In this conversation with Center Director Joseph Lennon, Madhavan emphasizes how migration shaped her identity and writing, blending Indian perspectives with Irish experiences, and...

In this final episode of our 6th season, Emma DeSouza - a journalist and civic leader from the North of Ireland - has a conversation with Political Science and Irish Studies Professor Cera Murtagh. They explore the evolving role of women and youth in Irish politics and society, discussing Emma’s journey into public engagement, the importance of representation, her perspectives on journalism’s role...

Stephen Sexton is an Irish poet and a lecturer at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast. While on campus in March 2025 he sat down with the Center for Irish Studies Director Joseph Lennon to discuss howpoetry can help us navigate the world. He reads poems from his two books   ___________________ Stephen Sexton the author of two books of poems – If All the World and Love...

Dan Colley is an Irish theater and film writer and director whose play , Lost Lear, had its North American premier at Villanova's Mullen Center for Performing Arts in February 2025. While on campus Dan sat down with with Irish Studies and Theater faculty member Bess Rowen, to discuss his career in theater in general and Lost Lear , specifically. Lost Lear is an adaptation of Shakespeare's...

The 1st episode of our 6th season features a conversation between Irish author and 2024 Heimbold Chair Emilie Pine, Villanova creative writing professor Adrienne Perry, Villanova student Charlotte Ralston and Center Director Joseph Lennon. They have a wide-ranging discussion about the writing process, flow and the role of the reader. - - - Emilie Pine is an award-winning Irish creative writer and...

Mícheál McCann  is a poet from Derry City. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Poetry Review, Queering the Green and elsewhere. He is the author of  Safe Home  (Green Bottle Press, 2020),  Keeper  (Fourteen Publishing, 2022) and  Waking Light  (Skein Press, 2022) alongside Kerri ní Dochartaigh. He is the co-editor of  Hold Open the Door  (UCD Press, 2020),  Trumpet  (Poetry Irela...

Poets Catherine Phil MacCarthy, Katie Donovan and Jane Clarke write about an ethos of sustainability in their poetry.  Having grown up on farms in Ireland, they share insights on our interactions with the natural world and our place within it.  In this podcast Joseph Lennon discusses with them culture’s role in spreading an ethos of sustainability and living in harmony with the planet.  If the wor...

Conversation with the 2023 Heimbold Chair of Irish Studies, award-winning writer, translator, and editor, Mary O'Donoghue, and award-winning Irish writer and editor, Lisa McInerney, about the craft of writing, translation, editing, and process and where the arts of each intersect and work together, police one another, or pull apart. This event was recorded on 4/19/2023 and was part of the Conv...

Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon talks to Dr Cera Murtagh, Assistant Professor of Irish and Comparative Politics at Villanova, about her recent trip to Ireland as part of the presidential delegation with President Joe Biden, the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and women’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process. This conversation was part of the event Women as Peacemakers: 25 Years...

Bio: Rosie O’Gorman was born and raised in Wexford. Time spent on the farm as a child with her three sisters encouraged her love of inventive playfulness. Rosie is a mother of two boys Michael and Emmet; she is an artist, a dedicated teacher, and her ancestral home is now the place where Cow House Studios resides. Rosie attended the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, receiving her...

Joseph Lennon interviews Liz Roche about her performance of Yes and Yes —a modern dance interpretation of Ulysses,  which was performed at Villanova University in September of 2022, following its performance in Washington D.C. with Solas Nua. Music credit to Composer Ray Harman.

Philip Arneill is a Belfast-born photographer, educator and AHRC Northern Bridge Doctoral Researcher at Ulster University. He holds an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography from UAL and having lived for 25 years in Scotland, Egypt and Japan, is currently researching a PhD through Creative Practice. Co-creator of the audio-visual documentary project Tokyo Jazz Joints, his work explore...

This episode is a recorded event of a conversation with the 2022 Charles A. Heimbold, Jr. Chair for Irish Studies, Irish author, broadcaster, and scholar, Emma Dabiri, and Kimberly DaCosta, Associate Professor of sociology at NYU. Emma Dabiri has written two very successful non-fiction books:  Twisted  (published as  Don't Touch My Hair  in Ireland) and  What White People...

Megan A. Curran is the Director of Policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. Her research explores policy strategies for child poverty reduction, with an emphasis on income supports, poverty targets, and cross-national learning—including how the structure and impact of child allowance programs in other wealthy nations might inform the creation of a national US child...

Kimberly McClain DaCosta is a sociologist interested in racial inequality and, in particular, the contemporary production of racial boundaries. Her book,  Making Multiracials: State, Family, and Market in the Redrawing of the Color Line  (Stanford University Press, 2007), explores the cultural and social underpinnings of the movement to create multiracial collective identity in the Unite...

Our guest on this episode of the podcast is Monica McWilliams, who led the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition’s negotiating team in the multi-party peace talks leading up to the Good Friday Agreement. Monica co-founded the Women’s Coalition, a political party that became a signatory to the peace agreement in 1998. She represented South Belfast in the first NI Legislative Assembly and acted as Chie...

Award-winning Irish actor of stage and screen Tom Vaughan-Lawlor is our guest on this episode of the podcast. Best known in Ireland for his role as Nigel 'Nidge' Delaney in the RTÉ One series  Love/Hate  and known internationally for his role as Ebony Maw in  Avengers: Infinity War  and its sequel,  Avengers: Endgame.  Tom sits down for a...

Hannah Khalil, Palestinian-Irish Playwright, and 2021 Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Chair

Emeritus Professor and Founding Director of the Villanova Center for Irish Studies, Dr. Jim Murphy, reads his Irish-American memoir, A Child’s Christmas in Brooklyn .

Emer  O’Neill, Irish-Nigerian educator, activist, model, athlete, and mother,  is our guest as we discuss race in Ireland and in the U.S.

Lillis Ó Laire, from National University of Ireland, Galway, is the guest as we discuss the Sean-nós Irish singer, Joe Heaney.

Ms Ciara Ni E completed a B.A. in Modern Irish and English at TCD, and an MA in Irish at UCD where she was a tutor. Ciara is a writer and also works as an editor, teacher, and broadcaster. Ciara taught Irish language courses at Villanova as a Fulbright FLTA in 2017-2018.