Our next 2024 BAIS Bursary awardee is Mikelyn Rochford (University of York). Mikelyn’s bursary enabled her to present her research in Poland:

My bursary helped fund my registration and travel costs to participate in a conference hosted by the Polish Association for Irish Studies with the theme “Mobility of Forms,” which took place from the 11th-12th October in Kraków’s Jagiellonian University. My presentation was titled “Crossing Narrative Boundaries: Flann O’Brien and Metanarrative” and focused on how Flann O’Brien’s metafictional narratives participate in longstanding Irish cultural storytelling tradition and are at the same time adaptable and fluid across time and social change. This presentation, as a smaller portion of my postgraduate research project, is an intervention within the field of narrative theory, which often misconstrues Irish metafiction as paradigmatic of “unnatural narrative,” or in opposition to imposed realist norms. I argue it is only through a contextualist and historiographic understanding of Irish metafiction that we can understand the innovative and regenerative nature of continued participation in such literary traditions. The conference also had an emphasis on fostering scholarly relationships between Ireland and Poland, and included plenary talks by Ambassador of Ireland to Poland H.E. Patrick Haughey, Professor Eve Patten, Alice Lyons, Sean O’Reilly, Evelyn Conlon, and Dr. Fintan Vallely.

Having the funds to attend this conference opened up a great opportunity for global engagement and bringing my research to a wider audience. It presented the ability to receive feedback and talk through ideas relating to my research, especially with researchers working on similar topics. I benefited from the ability to interact and engage with one of the scholarly communities in my research and made valuable connections with fellow students and researchers, academics, writers, artists, and professionals working in Irish Studies from outside of the UK. It also opened the door for future work with PAIS, through future conferences, events, and publishing opportunities.

Mikelyn is a PhD candidate at the University of York. Her doctoral research focuses upon the works of twentieth-century Irish novelists and playwrights such as Flann O’Brien, Seán O’Casey, Brendan Behan, and Pádraic Ó Conaire. Through analysis of the works of these authors, she aims to confront the ways that narrative theory’s existing theoretical paradigms obscure these texts’ cultural traditions and formulate them as contingent upon a realist standard.

Image is an illustration for Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman by Nancy Martinez