WIT, as part of a summer research project within the School of Humanities is hosting a project to authenticate and consider original correspondence from the 1950s and 1960s relating to the Waterford playwrights Teresa Deevy and James Cheasty.
The letters from Deevy to Cheasty, which were donated to WIT in 2016 by the family of the late James Cheasty, are a unique and important discovery to Irish theatre scholars. The project will involve a field visit to Dublin to authenticate a representative sample of the correspondence and also to associated archives in Dublin.
The project is designed and guided by Dr Una Kealy and Dr Kate McCarthy, lecturers in Theatre Studies and English in WIT and specialists in archival research and educational facilitation and who have presented nationally and internationally on Deevy’s work. Specialist archival presentations will be provided by Joanne Rothwell and WIT Library Staff (TBC).
Click for more on the project and a schedule of events.
Biographies
Dr Úna Kealy works part-time in WIT and questions of identity, marginalization, social inclusion and exclusion drive her current research. Her research into the work of Teresa Deevy includes curated exhibitions, rehearsed play readings, community projects and public lectures. A full list of her published work can be accessed on her profile page.
Dr Kate McCarthy is Lecturer in Drama at WIT. Her research interests include: drama and theatre education, the arts and education, contemporary theatre practice, in particular participatory performance and live art, and the work of Teresa Deevy. She is a member of the Arts Education Research Group at Trinity College Dublin. As a practitioner, Kate has facilitated and devised numerous contemporary performance projects. A full list of her published work can be accessed on her profile page.
Joanne Rothwell (BA, H.Dip Archival Studies) was appointed Waterford County Archivist in October 1998 and since the merger of Waterford City and County Councils in 2014 is the Waterford City and County Archivist. She served as Training Officer with the Society of Archivists, Ireland (now Archives and Records Association, Ireland) 2001-2004. She served as Chairperson of the Local Authority Archivists Group 2001-2009 and was involved in the production of the National Retention Policy for Local Authority Records in Ireland, 2002 and is currently involved in the revision of the policy. She is the current Chair of the Irish Archives Resource a portal to archive collections in Ireland, north and south.