TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN has announced that a lecturer of English has been appointed as the Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing at the university.
Professor Chris Morash, who lectured at NUI Maynooth where he also set up the Centre for Media Studies, has published widely on Irish writing.
The professorship was named after one of Ireland’s greatest writers and Nobel laureates, who died in August of last year. Heaney had a long-standing relationship with TCD having been made an Honorary Fellow in 1998.
The provost of TCD said that the appointment will form part of Heaney’s legacy to Irish writing and literary studies.
“The professorship was established in the last year of the great poet’s life and he had expressed delight at his association with it,” said Dr Patrick Prendergast. “We hope to fulfill the aspirations for the role that we had discussed with him at the time, and build on Trinity’s extraordinary literary tradition with significant impact for writing in Ireland and internationally”.
The new professorship was set up with the philanthropic support of several benefactors, including Dr Martin Naughton, the Chair of Glen Dimplex, and American businessman and philanthropist Dr Mark Pigott.
Chris Morash did his PhD at Trinity College Dublin in the last 1980s and has worked at NUI Maynooth since 1990. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2007.
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