by Barbara Black

The first edition of the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies to be published at Concordia will make its appearance next week. The editor is Michael Kenneally, coordinator of Concordia’s Irish Studies program.

The Journal has been in existence for 25 years and was based for many years at the University of British Columbia. It moved to the University of Saskatchewan, and more recently was published for five years by Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Valuable back copies of another scholarly journal found a home at Concordia recently when Paul Dempsey, Ireland’s ambassador to Canada, donated 138 copies of Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review from his personal collection.

The volumes cover the years from the journal’s founding in 1912 to the 1970s, and are particularly useful as historical indicators of Irish life in the decades after Independence and leading up to more recent times. Mr. Dempsey and his wife Jane, who attended a number of events at Concordia during the campaign to raise $3 million for the Canadian Irish Studies program, have since retired to Dublin.

Joseph and Susan Kruger have donated $25,000 to establish a Canadian Irish Studies collection at the Concordia University Library. As the cost of academic skyrockets, their generous gift will greatly help to fill some holes in the collection.

The Canadian Irish Studies Foundation is inviting potential donors to contribute to three scholarships named after celebrated Irish-Canadians.

They are Francis Hincks (1807-1885), who was a founder of both the Liberal and Conservative parties of Canada, a rare distinction, and became a federal finance minister under our first prime minister; the great popular singer Mary Travers (1894-1941), better known to her fans as La Bolduc; and Thomas D’Arcy McGee, influential publisher and Father of Confederation, assassinated in Montreal at the age of 43.