An Foras Feasa - Burns Fellowship at Boston College

The An Foras Feasa/Boston College fellowship is a summer research fellowship open to members of An Foras Feasa, funded by PRTLI Cycle 4, and made available through the support of the Centre of Irish Programs, Boston College.

The Fellowship was held during Summer 2009 by Dr. Conrad Brunström, lecturer with the School of English, Media and Theatre Studies at NUI Maynooth and member of An Foras Feasa.

Conrad Brunström is currently writing a study of Irish and Canadian theories of nationhood from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. He is interested in transatlantic rhetorical strategies, borrowed and re-fashioned figures of speech, and above all in oratory as a literary form. This summer he was a visiting research fellow (Summer Burns Fellow) at Boston College, where he was attempting to recover an early nineteenth century Irish American context for key decisions made by Thomas d'Arcy McGee, who worked on the Boston Pilot while still only a teenager in the early 1840s.

He and his family were granted the use of a beautiful house on the edge of campus, itself housing a superb library of Irish Studies material. He had the opportunity to make new friends (and catch up with a few old ones) while studying on campus (in particular within the wonderful, specialist Burns Library) and across Boston more generally. In the magnificent Boston Public Library for example, Dr Brunström was able to access original Boston Pilots on microfilm, which offer a fascinating glimpse into Irish American political opinion at a crucial period of both Irish and American history (and which cry out to be digitised).

The three weeks were over all too quickly, and he is already considering how to return to Boston to continue his studies. Dr Brunström would like to thank Tom Hachey, Niamh Lynch, and everyone involved in making his fellowship so enjoyable and rewarding.