John McGahern and the historian of modern Ireland.

This is an hour long webinar organised by the John McGahern Barracks. It Is part of a series to sustain and develop an appreciation of McGahern’s contribution to Irish literature and society.

Diarmaid Ferriter is Full Professor and Chair of Modern Irish History at UCD and author of numerous books, including The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 (2004), Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland (2009), Ambiguous Republic: Ireland in the 1970s (2012), The Border: The Legacy of a Century of Anglo-Irish Politics (2019) and, most recently, Between Two Hells: The Irish Civil War (2021). He is a regular television and radio broadcaster and a weekly columnist with the Irish Times. In 2019 he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Tom Inglis is a sociologist. He retired from UCD some years ago and now lives outside Cootehall in a renovated schoolhouse that McGahern and his sisters attended. Most of his writings have been about Irish culture and society, particularly in relation to religion, the media, sexuality, identity and emotions. His first book was Moral Monopoly: The Catholic Church in Modern Irish Society (1987). His most recent book was To Love a Dog (2020).