American football may be the name of the game in the Aviva Stadium this weekend but today the discussions are centred on Irish history as part of the two-day Notre Dame 1916 Dublin Conference.
“Obviously, we have a big game on Saturday with 35,000 Notre Dame fans attending, but we’re also a university so the intellectual side of things is very importance to us,” Kevin Whelan, of the Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre in Dublin, said yesterday, adding that the 11 speakers were “some of the best and the most astute commentators” on the topic of the 1916 Rising.
Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan said: “I’m very grateful to the University of Notre Dame for their interest in and commitment to this important part of our history.”