Thu, 30/03/2023 from 10:30 - 12:30 in Bray Golf Club
This talk will touch on the young Beatles growing up, the formation and development of the Band and what made them special and successful and will be illustrated with some of their music. William Hennigan is a Chartered Accountant by profession, now retired. He spent most of his working life in Financial Services specializing in taxation. William's main interest is music : he sings in a number of choirs and plays piano on his own and with others. He also enjoys golf, reading, gardening and walking, in addition to doing some voluntary work.Thu, 13/04/2023 from 10:30 - 12:30 in Bray Golf Club
Mr Putin’s thoughts on Russian identity and history (and on Ukraine’s non-existence) in summer 2021 came as a surprise to those who think that Russian nationalism was not a factor in his outlook or indeed in modern Russian history. This talk will look at the roots of Russian nationalism in the 19th century and 20th centuries and its contribution to the current crisis. We will discuss briefly its inception during the Napoleonic wars and the debates about Russian identity which animated the educated elites in the middle of the century. Official nationality policy under the Tsars was repudiated by Lenin but did Greater Russian nationalism (a quasi-imperial nationalism) really disappear and how did Ukraine fare under the Soviets? We’ll discuss post-war Soviet Russian nationalism and conclude with a brief look at its post-Soviet forms and influence. Judith Devlin is Professor Emerita in modern history in University College Dublin. She has published books and articles on French and Soviet history. Her most recent publications are: World War 1 in Central and Eastern Europe co-edited with John Paul Newman and Maria Falina (London, New York, I.B. Tauris, 2018, Bloomsbury, 2019 pbk); ‘The Stalin Cult in Comparative Context’ in Susan Grant and James Ryan eds, Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism: Complexities, Contradictions and Controversies (London, Bloomsbury, 2020). Her research focusses on Soviet and Russian political culture and, in particular, the Stalin cult.Thu, 27/04/2023 from 10:30 - 12:30 in Bray Golf Club
Details FollowingThu, 11/05/2023 from 10:30 - 12:30 in
Have you ever wondered who the ‘Kennedys’ in Newtownmountkennedy were? Where were they from? How did they come to own so much land (13,000 acres!) in Wicklow? And what happened to the family’s descendants? The answers to these questions, and much more, are to be presented in this talk by Therese Hicks, author of No Mere Irish: The Kennedys of Mount Kennedy, recently published by Wordwell Books. To satisfy your curiosity and to discover more about this ambitious seventeenth-century Irish family of Gaelic background, please come and join us for this informative and entertaining talk on 11th May. Therese Hicks, originally from the US, has also lived in West Africa, and emigrated to Ireland in 1998. She has MAs in theology and counselling psychology. After retiring from the HSE as a psychotherapist, she returned to her interest in history, and has been engaged in local history research since 2014. She is the author of two books – Spirituality: A User’s Guide, and No Mere Irish: The Kennedys of Mount Kennedy. Copies of No Mere Irish: The Kennedys of Mount Kennedy will be available at the lecture.Thu, 25/05/2023 from 10:30 - 12:30 in Bray Golf Club
We hear a lot about Artificial Intelligence or AI and how it seems increasingly to pervade our daily lives, from chatbots which purport to help you when you are trying to do something on-line, to facial recognition which can track our every movement, and most recently ChatGPT which is supposed to be able to write original essays for students. This talk will explain the basics of AI, how it works, and where it can and can not be used effectively and ethically. AI is at the heart of personalisation and it is dramatically changing how we interact with digital experiences and each other. This talk will also discuss current innovations in AI and how AI agents may be used represent individual users in a variety of circumstances. Owen Conlan is a Professor in Computer Science in the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Director of Postgraduate Teaching and Learning , Co-director of the Trinity Centre for Digital Humanities and a Fellow of the College. He has published widely in the field of Artificial Intelligence with a specific focus on user control over personalised AI-driven systems.Thu, 08/06/2023 from 10:30 - 12:30 in Bray Golf Club
Details followingSun, 22/06/2223 from 10:30 - 12:30 in
Details followingPrint Date: 20 Mar 2023