Maura Laverty, writer and chef: Unlike Laverty’s novels, which were banned or decried because they approached controversial subjects in a graphic way, her cookbooks could be successfully subversive in part because of their genre
Dr. Rhona Richman Kenneally
Dr. Rhona Richman Kenneally, a Professor in the Department of Design and Computation Arts and Fellow of Concordia’s School of Canadian Irish Studies essay is featured by Irish Times.
It is an excerpt from Rhona's essay that appears in a collection entitled Ireland and Quebec: Multidisciplinary perspectives on history, culture and society, edited by Margaret Kelleher and Michael Kenneally. Ireland and Quebec was launched at the Canadian Embassy in Dublin in June, and its Canadian launch will be held at the School of Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia, on 29 September. Other Concordia contributors to the book are Michael Kenneally, Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, and Jean-Philippe Warren.
The overarching aim of Rhona's research is to explore mid-twentieth-century Irish domestic space as a dynamic built environment whose design, new technologies introduced during that period, and human-nonhuman interactions affected and reflected the agency of the women who ran the household. Her work focuses on issues of spatial and material engagement within Irish domestic space especially in rural areas, accessed through direct contact with the architecture itself, as well as through ethnographic and archival research. The intention is to highlight, within the Irish national narrative, the experiences of those women of the house, and also of the individuals and organizations that promoted, supported, and helped to empower them. These stories have direct implications on present-day considerations of work-in-the-home, and on the role and respect of carers.
Other recent food-related publications by Rhona include “Towards a New Domestic Architecture: Homes, Kitchens and Food in Rural Ireland during the Long 1950s,” in Food and Drink in Ireland, ed. Elizabeth FitzPatrick and James Kelly which was published by the Royal Irish Academy and launched at the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium last June; and “The Elusive Landscape of History: Food and Empowerment in Sebastian Barry’s ‘Annie Dunne,’” in “Tickling the Palate”: Gastronomy in Irish Literature and Culture, ed. Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire and Eamon Maher. The latter collection won a Gourmand World Food History Award in 2015 and has since become the bestselling title in Peter Lang’s Reimagining Ireland series. Rhona also recently participated on a keynote panel at the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium, and gave food-related keynote lectures at the Daniel O’Connell School in Ireland and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy.