Show Notes
On Monday, 7 October, Nicholas Canny MRIA delivered this lecture as part of the Dublin Festival of History in the Royal Irish Academy.
Spenser’s View has, for centuries, been treated variously as a trove of prejudiced antiquarian lore useful for disparaging Irish people at moments of crisis, and as a store house of evidence that the English government engaged upon an Irish genocide in Elizabethan times.
This lecture by Nicolas Canny, MRIA, offers a radical re-appraisal of the manuscript copy that Spenser left to posterity in 1596, and asks what motivated Spenser to take time from poetic composition to write this prose dialogue, what circumstances influenced his composition of different passages, and what sources and methods he used to underpin the ideas advanced by his interlocutors?
More from The Royal Irish Academy
In this month’s ARINS podcast host Rory Montgomery speaks with Alan Whysall and Andrew McCormick. The discussion covers the topic of Improving Government in Northern Ireland, with a focus on Alan Whysall's recent report, “Improving Government in Northern Ireland: Towards a programme for reform”, which was published in May 2026 by the Constitution Unit of University College London.
In this episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with Senator Patricia Stephenson.
In this month’s ARINS podcast host Rory Montgomery speaks with Adele Bergin, Seamus McGuinness and Conor Banahan of the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin about their recently published ARINS article ‘Who is Better Off? Updated Cross-Border Differences in Living Standards, Opportunities and Quality of Life on the Island of Ireland’. The discussion covers their recent work which provides an updated assessment of living standards, opportunities for life progression and well-being across the island of Ireland.
In this episode of ‘My Identity’ Professor Colin Graham (Maynooth) is in conversation with Joy Gerrard and Paul Seawright.
Poem by Shirley O’Shea a writer from Carrick-on-Suir and a Teacher of English and German at St. Declan’s Community College, Kilmacthomas since 1999. She is an active participant of Poetry Plus in Brewery Lane Theatre. Her poem ‘With Grace and with Gratitude’ about Dr. Mary Strangman was published for SETU Blue Plaque unveiling at Carriganore House in Waterford in 2023. This poem and another ‘PJ 07’, was shortlisted for the Sean Dunne Literary award in June 2024.