ABEI Associação
Brasileira de Estudos Irlandeses
A brief account on the history of the Association.
Since 1979 there has been a substantial exchange of cultural experiences between Irish and Brazilian Universities. Several Irish scholars have already given lectures or post graduation courses in Brazilian Universities.
In 1988 the Ambassador of Ireland for Portugal and Brazil, Mr. Bernard Mc Hugh, visited the University of São Paulo (USP). On that occasion there was the possibility of establishing a formal agreement between USP and Irish Universities for periodic exchange of visiting lecturers; and the donation of books through the Cultural Relations Committee.
With the objective of developing teaching of Irish Studies in Brazil through graduate and undergraduate courses, the ABEI (Associação Brasileira de Estudos Irlandeses) was founded in December, 1989.
Postgraduate Programe of Linguistic and Literary Studies
FFLCH – USP
The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, through the Cultural Relations Committee, has been supporting Irish Studies research at USP since 1986 with donations of books and by funding the visits of Irish lecturers to give postgraduate courses at USP and other Brazilian universities. Thus, we have been privileged to receive Maurice Harmon (UCD), Terence Brown (TCD), Nicholas Grene (TCD), Declan Kiberd (UCD), Terence Dolan (UCD), Patrick Sheeran (NUI-Galway), Paul Durcan, David Norris (TCD), Margaret Kelleher (NUI-Maynooth), Christopher Murray (UCD), John Brannigan (UCD), Fintan O’Toole, John Banville and Billy Roche. In 2002, they also supported the international conference, “Interrelations: Irish Literatures and other forms of knowledge”, organized by the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL) and hosted for the first time in a South American country. Since 2001, the Embassy of Ireland in Brasília, through the first Irish Ambassador in Brazil, Mr. Martin Greene, has been strengthening links with these Irish universities and promoting exhibitions and translations into Portuguese.
Other academic exchanges have enabled us to develop multilateral relationships with other Institutions and Centres of Irish Studies through the visits of the poet Michael Longley and David Harkness, Ronald Buchanan, John Cronin and Edna Longley from Queen’s University Belfast; Richard Allen Cave and Ann Varty from Royal Holloway, University of London; Maureen Murphy (Hofstra University, NY), James Doan (Nova Southeastern University), Heinz Kosok (Wuppertal University), Ann Saddlemyer (Massey College, University of Toronto), Maria Tymoczko (Amherst, Massachusetts University), Dawn Duncan (Concordia College, USA).