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Arts, Culture & Society 1650-1750
The Origins of Modern Ireland
Friday April 29th – Sunday May 1st 2016

The third annual Fermoy Heritage Conference will be held in Fermoy over the weekend of Friday April 29th to Sunday May 1st 2016. The first two conferences focused on two local medieval documents, ‘Crichad an Caoille – the Topography of Fermoy’ and the Book of Fermoy. Both conferences attracted large audiences and created a great deal of interest in and around the town.

This year's theme moves on in time to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is titled 'Arts, Culture & Society 1650-1750 – the Origins of Modern Ireland'. Topics covered will include Music, Poetry, Architecture, Sport, Literature, Religion and Industry. One of the main highlights this year will be a presentation by well-known musician Mícheál O Súilleabháin, University of Limerick, who will speak on the first ever published collection of Irish music. Other speakers include Fermoy native Patrick Crotty, who is now Professor of Irish & Scottish Literature at the University of Aberdeen, Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin, Professor of Modern Irish at UCC, and Professor Tadhg O’Keeffe, Professor of Archaeology at UCD.

The conference opens on the evening of Friday April 29th with a display of Munster church silver in the Allied Irish Bank, Fermoy and a talk on its context and significance by noted silver expert John R. Bowen.

The conference keynote address, by Professor Patrick Crotty, will follow in the Fermoy Community Youth Centre. The Centre will be the venue for a full day of lectures on Saturday 30th. The conference dinner will take place on the Saturday night at the Grand hotel Fermoy.
The conference will close on Sunday May 1st with a morning field trip to the historic Georgian town of Doneraile.

It is envisaged that these conferences will form the basis of a significant publication on the history of Fermoy and the surrounding region, with contributions by well-known specialists. This work will become a hugely valuable resource for tourists, historians and the general public alike.