Study

Renata Sperandio is the director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Dublino, the Dublin branch of the Italian cultural institute. Renata, from Belluno in the Veneto region of Italy, has been in Dublin for three years. She has another three to go before her next posting. And, God bless her, she’s learning Irish – with the help of Duolingo, the well-known Irish language learning app. ‘Duolingo’s on my phone too’, says Dublin.ie. ‘It’s terrific.’ ‘Is it?’, asks Renata. ‘Well, yes it is’, I explain. Duolingo does an excellent job indeed. But it’s got its work cut out for it – because, make no mistake

Professor Aoife McLysaght is one of the world’s leading genetics researchers. She is also a Lecturer in Genetics at Trinity College Dublin, as well as a past student. She speaks to Karl Whitney at Dublin.ie about her experiences of studying and working at the prestigious university. Trinity life, according to Aoife McLysaght The thing that I find interesting and exciting: new ideas and trying to figure them out. And that works better when you’ve got somebody to talk about it with. You learn from the experience of working with people who are

A pathfinder for Brazilians coming to Dublin Ed Giansante – aka Edu or Eduardo Giansante – left Sao Paulo for Dublin in 2008 with the hope of learning English and making a new start in Ireland. Initially, he lived with a host family in a Dublin suburb and went to an English language school near Mountjoy Square. Since then, his English, his career and his following have all come a long way. From boom, to bust, to blogging Ed’s timing was both good and bad. Upon his arrival in 2008, Ireland’s economy had hit a massive recession and the country was facing into a period of austerity. It would be hard for a native to survive in

In a corner of University College Dublin’s suburban campus, archaeologists are building houses using thousand-year-old methods and casting bronze tools in fire pits using moulds they’ve made themselves. Brendan O’Neill, a PhD student in UCD’s School of Archaeology, has built a wooden roundhouse as part of his research. It took him about thirty days’ work over the course of ten months to complete. He wove hazel rods from a managed forest in the Irish midlands to create walls and a roof, which is topped with heather to help waterproof the structure. Inside the house, there’s a surprising amount of space. A central fireplace surrounded by s

Anyone for capoeira? Fancy an evening of food and drink? Or how about spending time with some serious Harry Potter fans? Universities and colleges in Dublin have a strange and eclectic mix of student clubs and societies. Yes, there’s soccer and Gaelic games, but what about caving and potholing or sepak takraw – a type of kick volleyball? Yes, drama and debating are to be expected, but

Imagine if Dublin had an instrument panel: a set of gauges and graphs that revealed to its residents the precise current state of their home town. Professor Rob Kitchin and his team at Maynooth did exactly that. And they built it, online. It’s called Dublin Dashboard. Dublin.ie: What’s on Dashboard right now that the ordinary person might be interested in? Robin Kitchen (RK): Probably the real time page where you can see how many spaces there are in the car parks or what the sound levels are or what the pollution levels are or how many bikes are in the bike stand, that kind of thing. The city is increas

‘Since it opened in 1961’, says the brochure, ‘the Goethe-Institut has broadened the professional and personal horizons of 50,000 people who have attended its German courses’. Currently housed in Fitzwilliam Square while it awaits the refurbishment and extension of its Merrion Square HQ round the corner, its director is Dr Thomas Lier. Thomas is from Bavaria. Don’t call him ‘Bavarian’, though. That, Dublin.ie learns, would be like calling a Cornishman ‘English’. Because Thomas is really a Franconian, from Wurzburg, and Franconia was an autonomous region until Napoleon kicked it into Bavaria. ‘Wurzburg has a

Creative Writing postgraduate programmes have long been a staple of the academic world in the US. Prominent writers like Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace and Joyce Carol Oates have all worked as creative writing professors since as far back as the seventies. Yet, despite Dublin’s literary heritage and wealth of authors, it has only recently come to be recognised as a centre of excellence for such courses. Now, it attracts scores of hopeful young writers from around the world every year. UCD’s Masters in Creative Writing “You can’t teach people to be creative. You can only accelerate the pace at which people are developing creatively.̶

Irish folklore is all just leprechauns, legends and fireside stories, right? Well, not quite. If you go down to UCD today, you’ll actually find a very different story. The National Folklore Collection Back in the 1920s, Irish folklore collectors began to scramble around the country on a mission to record Ireland’s dying heritage and traditions. And that’s how the National Folklore Collection at UCD originated. Since then, it has grown into one of the biggest and most impressive collections of folklore and oral traditions anywhere in the world. It is the history that we don’t learn in school. The collection itsel

What’s going on at Dublin’s water research centre At Dublin City University, researchers are stepping up. Professor of chemistry, Fiona Regan, is the founder and director of the Water Institute which, in 2015, brought together researchers from across a range of disciplines to carry out research into national and global water problems. Why the world needs DCU’s Water Institute The devastating conflict in Syria was sparked by a water scarcity that pushed people into the cities and provoked unrest. The unrest in Yemen is rooted in a water crisis. Large parts of America and

Every year, tens of thousands of people from over 130 countries come to study in Ireland’s universities, institutes of technology and colleges. What’s bringing them here and why are they choosing Ireland? Sheila Power is director of the Irish Council for International Students. She points out that overall statistics for the number of international students are hard to pin down, but says that we need to broaden the conversation out. Ireland is an attractive destination for international students because it is perceived as friendly and safe “Ireland is an attractive des