Public Lectures

Record of Public Lectures and Invited Speakers

(with video content)

Home / Research / Public-lectures

Michael Mullaney Small
St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth is proud to host and collaborate with others in facilitating the sharing of scholarship and research. Our lecture series provides opportunities for sharing insight, conversations and community. Please scroll down where you will find a list of past lectures including much video content.

- President Michael Mullaney. St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth.

The Devlin Lecture

The Premier Public Lecture hosted by the Faculty of Theology named in honour of long time benefactor of St Patrick's Pontifical University. It celebrates the best of international scholarship, research and insight.

Cultural Disruption or Enrichment? Religion, Politics and the Challenge of Hospitality.

A lecture by Professor Mona Siddiqui OBE, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh and Erkko Chair at Helsinki Collegium.

Friday, May 19th, 2023, Aula Maxima, St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth.

Prof. David Hollenbach, S.J., the Pedro Arrupe Professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service and Senior Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University, USA.

Title: "Human Rights in Catholic Social Thought: A Living Tradition and Some Urgent Challenges Today.”

4th March 2019

Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville Tennessee

Of Pearls and Prodigals: Understanding Jesus's Parables in their Jewish Context.

Thursday 30th November 2017

Prof Elizabeth Johnson. Fordham University New York.

Ask the Beasts:’ Darwin and the God of Love.

12 March 2015

Marilynne Robinson, the Pulitzer-prize-winning American novelist

Prof. Julia Kristeva, University of Paris Diderot

Prof. Richard Kearney, Charles Seelig Professor of Philosophy, Boston College.

Dr Patrick Riordan SJ, Heythrop College, University of London

Prof. Judith Lieu, Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge.

Prof. Miroslav Volf. Director of the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture.

The Corish Lecture

In honour of former President and Internationally renowned scholar, The Monsignor Patrick J. Corish Lecture concerns Ecclesiastical History

CORISH LECTURE 2020 was delivered by Prof. David Morgan, Duke University, NC, on 11 March 2020 in Renehan Hall, St Patrick's College Maynooth, at 7:30pm. Topic: 'The Visual Culture of Revelation: Visions, and the Imagery that Make Them Visible'

Fr Columba Stewart, OSB

Executive Director, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

St John’s University, Collegeville, MN

A Modern Monk’s Work: Preserving the Manuscript Heritage of Endangered Christianity in the Middle East

Monday 8 October 2018

Prof. Candida Moss (University of Birmingham)

Dying to Live Forever: Identity and Virtue in the Resurrection of the Bodies of the Martyrs.

Watch the Lecture Here.

Prof. Carlos Eire (Yale University)

Ecstasy as polemic: Mysticism and the Catholic Reformation

Watch the Lecture here

Prof. Robert Bartlett (University of St Andrews)

Barbarous Latin, Snake Saints & Croaking Crows: Medieval Miracle Accounts as Stories

Watch the Lecture here

2014: Prof. Peter Brown (Princeton University)

Monks, Labour and the "Holy Poor": Early Christian Monasticism between Egypt and Syria

Watch the Lecture here

For Photo Gallery click here

2013: Dr Morwenna Ludlow (University of Exeter)

Useful and beautiful: towards a new framework for understanding early Christian literature

Prof. Caroline Walker Bynum (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)

The Sacrality of Things: An Inquiry into Divine Materiality in the Christian Middle Ages

Prof. Euan Cameron (Union Theological Seminary, New York)

Cosmic Time and the Theological View of World History

The Irish Theological Quarterly

Sponsored by the internationally renowned and respected Journal of the Faculty of Theology at St Patrick's Pontifical University.

The Irish Theological Quarterly hosted an online lecture on Tuesday 10 May 2022 at 6pm by Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond (Campion Hall, University of Oxford) entitled:

'THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF POPE FRANCIS’ INTEGRAL ECOLOGY'

Prof John Milbank, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham.

Title: "Religious Experience and the question of Spirit”

February 19th 2019.

Prof. Kees de Groot (Tilburg University)

The Liquidation of the Church

(*co-sponsored with the Department of Sociology, Maynooth University)

Prof. Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

“Like Adam and Eve, Like Abraham and Sarah”: Biblical Models and Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Christian Europe

(*in association with the Irish Conference of Medievalists)

Watch the Lecture Here.

Click Here for a Photo.

Professor Gerard Mannion (Georgetown University)

Pope Francis and the Art of Magisterium

The Trócaire Lecture

Hosted in conjunction with Trocaire, the development agency of the Irish Episcopal Conference, this lecture raises awareness of international issues of social concern.

March 7th 2023

The event featured special guests Dr Ethna Regan CHF (Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics, Dublin City University) and Cardinal Michael F. Czerny (Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development) who co-delivered the annual lecture. Eileen Dunne, a well-known broadcaster, as moderator. The event took place in Renehan Hall, St Patrick's College, Maynooth

Trócaire Online Lecture 8th March 2022.

“How women of faith are responding to the ecological crisis”. Speakers: Dr Carmody Grey (Assistant Professor of Catholic Theology at Durham University) and Lucy Vokihwa (Chairperson of Catholic Women Association of Malawi)

Trocaire Online Lecture 9th March 2021: "Caring for the Human Family and our Common Home," by Cardinal Luis Tagle.

Recorded on video: https://vimeo.com/521889485

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin. 'At the Service of Justice and Peace.’ On the occasion of the recognition of decades of service by Trócaire with an honorary doctorate from the Pontifical University. 13th March 2019

To read more, click here.

David Donoghue. As the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the UN in New York, David co-facilitated, with Kenya, the UN negotiations that resulted in the SDGs on 2015.

6th March 2018

To Read More Click Here.

Mr Peter Sutherland. Special Representative of the Secretary General for Migration and Development and President of the International Catholic Migration Commission.

19th May 2016.

To Watch the Video Click Here.

Cardinal Peter Turkson. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. “Integral ecology and the horizon of hope: concern for the poor and for creation in the ministry of Pope Francis.”

Thursday 5th March 2015

To Watch the Video Click here.

Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, SJ in which he highlighted that water needs to understood not as a commodity but part of the common good.

Archbishop John Odama from the Diocese of Gulu, Uganda presented the annual Trocaire lecture at St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth on Monday 13 February. Archbishop Odama is a key figure in the peace process which brought a vicious civil war in Uganda to an end.

The Newman Lecture

This lecture series has traditionally been jointly sponsored by the Faculty of Theology, SPPU, the Department of Education, National University of Ireland Maynooth, and An Foras Feasa (Institute for Research in Irish Historical and Cultural Traditions), National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

Dr Benjamin King (University of the South, Sewanee)

John Henry Newman and the Church Fathers: Writing Church History in the First Person

Response: Dr Janet Rutherford, Maynooth Patristic Symposium.

Prof. Terrence Merrigan (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

Is a Catholic University a Good “Idea”? Reflections on Higher Education from a Newmanian Perspective

Response: Mr Tom Boland, CEO, Higher Education Authority.

Watch the Lecture Here.

Prof. Eamon Duffy (Magdalene College, Cambridge)

Smoke and Mirrors: Newman on himself

Response: Prof. R.V. Comerford, Department of History, NUI Maynooth.

Prof. Áine Hyland (University College Cork)

Newman’s Idea of a University: Then and Now

Response: Tom Collins, Vice-President for External Affairs/Dean of Teaching and Learning, NUI Maynooth.

Prof. Sheridan Gilley (University of Durham)

Newman then and Ireland now: permanence and development in a time of crisis

Response: Dr Garrett Fitzgerald, Chancellor National University of Ireland and former Taoiseach of Ireland.

Photo

The Gillmartin Lecture

Held in honour of Prof Thomas Gillmartin, former Professor of Ecclesiastical History at St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth.

Prof. William R. Cook, Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, State University of New York at Geneseo. Monday 10 February 2014. The lecture is entitled "Francis: the Saint and the Pope: Translating the Charism of Assisi"

Watch the Lecture Here.

If you live outside Ireland, check out our dedicated area for international students.

Let’s talk

For Undergraduate queries: email admissions@spcm.ie.

For Postgraduate queries: email pgadmissions@spcm.ie.

For The Centre for Mission & Ministries queries, email: cmmadmissions@spcm.ie.