Conference: Places to Play: Irish Sporting Heritage

As 2010 opened, a debate about the place of sport in our landscape, featured heavily in the media. The decision by the local council to take land off Greystones Rugby Club, so that it could be sold for development, is symptomatic of a wider debate about the place of sporting spaces within our lives. Should sporting spaces be seen as simply functional places for play, to be relocated and redesigned as necessary? Or are they important markers of who and what we are? Should heritage and cultural organisations be looking to care for and maintain sporting sites of historic importance? Or, given the financial demands of the sporting industry and the role of health and safety in all our lives, do we simply have to let the sporting past disappear?

This one day event will discuss these issues, and much more. The idea is to bring together scholars who are working in this area, who will provide and national and international perspective on the sporting heritage experience, with individuals and organisations in the cultural and sporting arena who are charged with caring for aspects of the nation’s past or else ensuring the sporting present and future.

The event is part of a wider project undertaken by Boston College, which is funded by the Department of Art, Sport and Tourism.

09.30-10.45: Case Studies 1
Professor Mike Cronin (Boston College): Sporting Heritage – The British Experience
Professor Douglas Booth (University of Otago, New Zealand): Bondi Beach as heritage place

10.45 – 11.15: Coffee

11.15 – 12.40: Roundtable 1: Sporting Heritage from the cultural view
Kevin Baird (Irish Heritage Trust)
Dr John McCullen (Superintendent, Phoenix Park)
Michael O’Doherty (Heritage Office, Football Association of Ireland)

12.40 – 1.45: Lunch

1.45 – 3.00 : Case Studies 2
Dr Roisin Higgins (Boston College): The Irish Sporting Heritage Project
Professor John Bale (Keele University, UK): Sporting Spaces and Love of Place

3.00 – 3.30: Coffee

3.30 – 5.00: Roundtable 2: Sporting heritage from the Associational view
Mark Dorman (Director, GAA Museum Croke Park)
Orla Strumble (Irish Greyhound Board)
Sarah O’Connor (Federation of Irish Sports)

The event will take place on 13th January 2010 at Boston College, 42 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. If you need any assistance in locating us, please call the office on 01-6147450 or else email bcirl@bc.edu