Following the success of the first 'Machnamh 100' event in December, President Michael D. Higgins has announced the speakers addressing the second seminar in the series at Áras an Uachtaráin on Thursday, February 25.

Entitled 'Empire: Instincts, Interests, Power and Resistance', the seminar continues the President’s ‘Machnamh 100’ series of reflections on the context, consequences and continuing reverberations of the War of Independence, Civil War and Partition.

The seminar, which will be chaired by broadcaster, author and historian Dr. John Bowman, will recall significant events in Ireland a century ago, in the context of changes taking place within the British Empire.

Professor John Horne will provide the lead contribution in the seminar, which will be responded to by Dr Niamh Gallagher (St. Catharine's College, Cambridge), Professor Eunan O’Halpin (Trinity College Dublin), Professor Alvin Jackson (University of Edinburgh), Dr. Marie Coleman (Queen’s University Belfast), and President Higgins.

The third ‘Machnamh 100’ seminar is scheduled to take place in May this year, and will focus on hope, class and gender in the Irish independence struggle and its historiography.

The principal address at that seminar will be given by Dr Margaret O’Callaghan (Queens University Belfast), and respondents will be Dr Caitríona Clear (NUI Galway), Professor Linda Connolly (NUI Maynooth), Ms. Catríona Crowe, Archivist, and Dr. John Cunningham (NUI Galway).