Ireland and Transnational Solidarities

Following Ireland’s formal recognition of Palestine as a sovereign and independent state in May 2024, the 2025 SOFEIR-University College Cork Conference aims to bring together researchers from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds to consider transnational solidarities in the Irish context. Thinking critically about transnational solidarities in relation to Ireland may involve reflecting on how Ireland’s international interactions over time were shaped, and continue to be shaped, by Ireland’s changing position in the global capitalist system and by the country’s particular experiences of imperialism and of settler colonial dispossession. Historically and culturally, the anti-colonial struggle against British rule in Ireland involved the support of cultural, political and military solidarities as expressed by a wide variety of nations and political groupings including, for example, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Spain as well as North American first nations such as the Choctaw and Cherokee, and Indigenous Australians. Today, Ireland’s position in the global capitalist system is one of alignment with a neoliberal economic vision predicated on eradicating any form of (trans)national solidarity. Thus, in May 2024 the Irish government could interpret its formal recognition of the state of Palestine as an act that both signalled the country’s ambition for a stronger influence amongst former colonial powers in Europe and flagged its bonds to countries in the Global South formerly under colonial occupation. The topic may also entail reflecting on the influence of transnational solidarities, whether expressed formally or thematically, in Irish and literary texts as well as consideration of how such texts imagine and represent political and ethical solidarity. How do Irish writers, artists, performers instigate, explore and give expression to international solidarity? How do print, visual and material cultures contribute to the establishment of networks of solidarities? Thinking critically about transnational solidarity in an Irish context may prompt papers focused on particular case studies, but also exploratory papers arguing for solidarities across space and time that have not yet been articulated. Papers concerned with theorising international solidarities would also be most welcome, as would papers exploring connections of solidarity between Ireland and France.