Our speakers:
Brendan Kelly MRIA is Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, Consultant Psychiatrist at Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin, and UCD Visiting Full Clinical Professor at UCD School of Medicine, University College Dublin. In addition to his medical degree (MB BCh BAO), he holds masters degrees in epidemiology (MSc), healthcare management (MA), and Buddhist studies (MA), and an MA (jure officii) from Trinity College Dublin; doctorates in medicine (MD), history (PhD), governance (DGov), and law (PhD); and a higher doctorate in history (DLitt).
He has authored and co-authored over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals, over 600 non-peer-reviewed publications, 21 book chapters and book contributions, and 17 books (11 as sole author). His recent books include Asylum: Inside Grangegorman (2023). He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and Trinity College Dublin. In 2018, he became Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry and in 2020 was elected as Dun’s Librarian at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He was elected as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2024.
Catriona Crowe MRIA is former Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland. She was Manager of the Census Online Project, which placed the Irish 1901 and 1911 censuses online free to access. She was editor of Dublin 1911, published by the Royal Irish Academy in late 2011. She presented the RTE documentaries, Ireland before the Rising, shown in February 2016, and Life After the Rising, shown in January 2019.
She is a former President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland, and an Honorary Vice-President of the Irish Labour History Society. She is curator of the First Thought Talks strand of the Galway International Arts Festival, and chairperson of the SAOL Project, an advocacy, education and rehabilitation centre for women with addiction issues in Dublin’s North Inner City. She was elected as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2011.
Royal Irish Academy Discourse Series
Our discourses are the oldest and most renowned series of talks in Ireland. The first discourses were presented in 1786. Historically, Academy discourses were the occasion reserved for the most distinguished academics to first reveal and discuss their research in public. Continuing in this tradition, the Discourse Series brings international experts to the Academy to discuss important contemporary issues in front of a live audience.