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A major symposium on Irish language court records documenting violence against girls and women in the early years of the Irish Free State will be held in the ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ on Tuesday the 11th of November 2025. The symposium will be held from 9am to 4.30 pm and is open to both academics and the public. It will be of particular interest to those interested in history and the Irish language and especially to those interested in Irish language records held in the National Archives.

‘Tá Bean in Éirinn: Violence against Women, the Irish Language and Justice in the early years of the Irish Free State: A National Archive Research Project’ is a Royal Irish Academy funded research project (Commemorations 2024) to support research into important aspects of Irish history that have remained in obscurity until now. The principal investigators on the project are historian Dr Helene Haak and Irish scholar Dr Sorcha de Brún, both of the ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ.

"The records we have discovered in our research are highly significant in the context of the Irish language and violence against women," says Dr de Brún. "We are very proud that our research is based on the lives of real women. These are actual cases, where women suffered profound injustices. We found a number of Irish language cases of great historical and social significance."

Irish scholar Professor Emeritus Alan Titley and historian Professor Emeritus Eunan O’Halpin will be key note speakers at the Symposium, where they will each give talks on their respective areas of expertise, thereby highlighting the importance of the Irish language for research in areas such as history and law.

In addition to the cases that Dr Haak and Dr de Brún have unearthed in the National Archives relating to Irish speaking women in the early years of this century, the researchers have also uncovered other historically significant Irish language documents relating to the sexual abuse of a young girl. The findings of this research is currently in press.

The symposium will take place in the Appellate Court in the Glucksman Library and will begin with a series of papers from Dr Haak and Dr de Brún, followed by lectures from Professor Titley and Professor O’Halpin. After lunch, which will be served in the Library Plaza, the researchers will give an overview of the cases they found in the course of their research, and will focus some of the common tropes. An interactive mock ‘trial’ will then follow, and the symposium will end with a question and answer session. All are welcome to attend all sessions.

‘Our research shows that the Irish language was, and is, no different when it comes to the treatment of women,’ Dr de Brún says. The researchers add that the value of the court cases will highlight how greater use of Irish language sources and further scholarship using Irish is required to inform social and legal history studies. In the same way, history, legal studies and other areas can open up new areas within Irish language studies, while adding to our understanding of misogyny, community life in the Gaeltacht, perceptions of native Irish speakers and gendered violence.

For queries and registration please contact Sorcha.debrun@ul.ie