Irish Screen Studies Seminar 2026
PLACE & SCREEN
Maynooth University
21-23 May 2026
ABOUT SEMINAR 2026 – PLACE & SCREEN
The Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University is delighted to be hosting the 2026 Irish Screen Studies Seminar in Maynooth from 21-23 May 2026.
We invited proposals from scholars and research-based practitioners working in Ireland on screen-based media or working outside Ireland on Irish screen media, to think about the relationships between place and screen.
We received an excellent and broad range of submissions.
PROGRAMME
Please note, the programme may be subject to change.
Thursday 21 May 2026
- 8.45 Registration Opens
- 9.15 Seminar Welcome
- 9.30 – 10.40 Panel Sessions A + B
Panel A: Video Game Spaces Panel B: Horrific Spaces
| Room: AHI Seminar Room | Room: Iontas Seminar Room |
| Chair: Stephanie Rains, MU | Chair: Simon Hewitt, MU |
| Speaker | Paper Title | Speaker | Paper Title |
| James Denis Mc Glynn, Trinity College Dublin | Narrativizing Virtual Spectatorship: A Case Study on Virtual Concerts | Aimee Mollaghan, Queen’s University, Belfast | Ghosts of a Place: Hauntology, Place and Return of the Filmmaker |
| Kane Geary O’ Keeffe, University College Cork | Doolin, aka the Netherworld: Rural Ireland as Fantasy Space in Video Games. | Derek Johnston, Queen’s University, Belfast | Folk Horror in the Home: Theorising Television and Folk Horror |
| C. M. Mitchel, Independent Researcher | Topographies in Flux: Encountering Hidden Dimensions within Kentucky Route Zero | Eilís Nolan, IADT/Maynooth University | “What would you do with a diseased little island?”: 28 Years Later in the Post-COVID, Post-Brexit Landscape |
- 10.40 – 11.10 Tea & Coffee Break
- 11.10 – 12.20 Panel Sessions C + D
Panel C: Ireland in International Places Panel D: Female Spaces/Places
| Room: AHI Seminar Room | Room: Iontas Seminar Room | ||
| Chair: Jennifer O’Meara, TCD | Chair: Aaron Hunter, TCD | ||
| Speaker | Paper Title | Speaker | Paper Title |
| Carlos Menéndez-Otero, University of Oviedo | The Release and Reception of The Quiet Man in Francoist Spain: Film Distribution, Policy, and Cultural Context | Cáit Murphy, Trinity College Dublin | @sofiacoppola: the auteur’s Instagram profile as girlhood bedroom mood board |
| Barry Nevin, Technological University, Dublin | Quality, tradition and innovation in French popular cinema of the 1950s | Anne O’Brien, Maynooth University | European Mothers on Screen |
- 12.20 – 13.30 Lunch Break
- 13.30 – 14.40 Panel Sessions E + F
Panel E: Interior Space and Time Panel F: Technological Spaces
| Room: AHI Seminar Room | Room: Iontas Seminar Room |
| Chair: Denis Condon, MU | Chair: Temmuz Gürbüz, UCD |
| Speaker | Paper Title | Speaker | Paper Title |
| Jennie Carlsten, Ulster University | Metamodern set design in the films of Mike Mills | Declan Tuite, Dublin City University | The Audiovisual Contract in CVR: Congruence, Counterpoint, and Prosthetic Heritage Memory (practice) |
| Tara Mozafari, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran | The Narrative Life of Home: Place, Affect, and Domestic Space on Screen | Patrick Gregg, IADT Dun Laoghaire | Expanded Spheres of Technicity in Film Production |
| Simon Hewitt, Maynooth University | You Can’t Collect Netflix: Industrial Exploitation of the At-Home “Archive” |
- 14.40 – 15.10 Tea & Coffee Break
- 15.10 – 17.40 Screening of North Circular + Q&A with director Luke McManus
Friday 22 May 2026
- 9.00 Registration Opens
- 9.30 – 10.40 Panel Sessions G + H
Panel G: Ulster, Film and Place Panel H: Animated Spaces
| Room: AHI Seminar Room | Room: MUSSI Seminar Room |
| Chair: Jennie Carlsten, UU | Chair: Eilís Nolan, IADT/MU |
| Speaker | Paper Title | Speaker | Paper Title |
| Sacha Wood, University of Galway | Humour, the Irish Language, and the Re-Presentation of Belfast in ‘Kneecap’ (2024) | Steve Woods, IADT | Drawing the Line: Reflections on Irish Animation |
| Karolina Kosińska, Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw | Temporal and spatial confinements of trauma – “The Flats” by Alessandra Celesia | Cormac O’Kane, University of Galway | Animated apparitions – Recreating the Banshee |
| Rose Baker, Royal Holloway, University of London | Ulster Mirror: Performance and abstraction in live documentary | Bárbara Murakami, IADT Dun Laoghaire | Imagined Locations in “Song of the Sea” (2014) |
- 10.40 – 11.10 Tea & Coffee Break
- 11.10 – 12.20 Panel Sessions I + J
Panel I: Public Spaces/Public Spheres Panel J: Traumatic and Remembered Spaces
| Room: AHI Seminar Room | Room: MUSSI Seminar Room |
| Chair: Aimee Mollaghan, QUB | Chair: Máiréad Casey, UG |
| Speaker | Paper Title | Speaker | Paper Title |
| Claire Mullaly, Queen’s University Belfast | Cinema in the two Irelands (1932 – 1937): The alternate public sphere. | Sandra Costello, University College, Cork | Cinematic Genre and the Irish Magdalene Laundries |
| Callum Ratcliffe, University of Sheffield | “For the parish to last evermore”: Lakelands (2022), Irish sporting masculinity and rural spaces in Irish sports film and fiction. | Stephen Baker, Ulster University | A radical remembrance on screen: a short film about a mass, unmarked grave in Co Down. (practice) |
| EL Putnam, Maynooth University | Trading in Visions: the Mythopoetical Materialism of Performance to Video (practice) | Fernanda Lagomarsino, IADT/Universidade Lusòfano, Lisbon | In Search of Monumental Absence: Sublimity as Memory in Pat Collins ‘Silence’ (2012) |
| Ciara Moloney, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick | Trapped at 1334 North Beechwood Drive: The Monkees Pad |
- 12.20 – 14.00 Lunch Break
- 14.00 – 16.00 Screening of In the Opinion of the Censor + Discussion with IFCO director Ciarán Kissane
- 16.00 – 18.00 Launch Event
Saturday 23 May 2026
10.00 – 11.20 Panel Sessions K + L
Panel K: Mediating Spaces Panel L: Early Cinematic Places
| Room: AHI Seminar Room | Room: MUSSI Seminar Room |
| Chair: Stephanie Rains, MU | Chair: Sorcha DeBrun, UL |
| Speaker | Paper Title | Speaker | Paper Title |
| Giuliana Monteverde, Ulster University | “I’m from this town. I know what’s real and I know what’s fake”: Glocalisation Strategies in the Real Housewives Franchise | Shane McKevitt, Trinity College Dublin | The Vanishing American: Werewolves and Early Cinema |
| Lauren Johnson, Ulster University | Live Music on the Smartphone Screen: Digital mediation of the concert experience on TikTok | Rupert MacCarthy-Morrogh, MTU Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork | Through the Lens of the Horgan Brothers: A Cinematographer’ Reflective Practice on Recreating Ireland’s Film Making Origins (practice) |
| Darren Berkland, Ulster University | Peaceful solitudes by the glassy spring: faces, Twitch, and the ethics of the mirror. | Veronica Johnson, Independent Researcher | The Irish Limelight: detailing the landscape of the Irish film industry in 1917. |
| Clodagh McAllister, Ulster University | Online in Isolation: Hypermasculinity, Andrew Tate, and the Pandemic Politics of Influence |
- 11.20 – 11.50 Tea & Coffee Break
- 11.50 – 13.00 All Delegates Round Table/Final Discussion
- Seminar Ends
DIRECTIONS
The Iontas Building. Image courtesy the Irish Universities Association
VIA Public Transport
The ISS Seminar 2026 will be hosted in the Iontas building, at Maynooth University.
Maynooth University is accessible via train, coach or bus.
Main routes:
- Dublin Bus: C3 / C4 (formerly 66/67) from city centre (see dublinbus.ie)
- Bus Éireann 115: from Wellington Quay
- Train Route: From Dublin Connolly Station or Tara Street Station (see Iarnród Éireann)
Maynooth University Arts Humanities Institute (MUAHI)
Iontas Building
North Campus
Maynooth University
Maynooth
Co Kildare
Ireland
W23 F2H6