Hibernian Hellenists

Seating at the Roman theatre in Dougga, Tunisia - Maynooth University

The Hibernian Hellenists was formed in 1963 by the late Professor George Huxley (previously Adjunct Professor to the Department of Ancient Classics at Maynooth University) in order to foster classical scholarship throughout the island of Ireland, north and south. This was a time when the meetings of classicists so common today were a rarity. The first meeting was held at Ballymascanlon, Dundalk, suitably close to the border, and meetings continued in an unbroken sequence for fifty years.

Students at the final meeting of the Hibernian Hellenists - Maynooth University

In the mid-80s, as a result of rising costs, the venue for the meetings changed to St Patrick’s College, Maynooth and subsequently to Maynooth University. Here it continued, organized by classicists from Queens University, Belfast and Maynooth University until its final meeting on 8-9 March 2013.

The quality of the speakers over the years needs no comment. A full list of speakers and paper titles may be found below, along with some remarks by Prof. Huxley on the occasion of the final meeting.

Left: Ancient Classics postgraduate students at the final meeting of the Hibernian Hellenists

Final Meeting

Address by G.L. Huxley at the Final Meeting of the Hibernian Hellenists

It falls to me to say a few words at this last, but distinguished, meeting of the Hibernian Hellenists.

Ancient Classics - Hibernian Hellenists cake - Maynooth University

The first gatherings of Greek scholars forming the Hellenists were at Ballymascanlon fifty years ago at the foot of the Carlingford Mountains. The intention was to foster scholarship by inviting persons of merit from northern and southern Ireland and oversea to speak; younger scholars were regularly encouraged to talk about their work. There were two meetings in each year and two discourses at each meeting. Over the years a certain ritual developed, including a walk to the Proleek Dolmen nearby.

When I left Belfast, the arrangements were taken over by the Reverend Professor Gerard Watson. After a move from the County Louth to Maynooth, the meetings came to be called ‘Ballymaynooth’, a term invented by the late, and much lamented, Kevin O’Nolan, who attended the meetings with exemplary regularity. The diversity and the quality of topics and speakers can be seen from the lists going back to 1963; the annals are available today, having been carefully maintained.

Latterly, Ballymaynooth has been devotedly promoted by Drs McGroarty and Alden; to Dr Alden scholars in Ireland are especially indebted for her steadfastness in opposition to malign attacks upon the Humanities at the Queen’s University of Belfast. The Northern presence at our gatherings has always been an essential part of our purposes. No longer will the Muses smile upon the meetings of the Hibernian Hellenists, but Mnemosyne, their mother, will ensure that the memory of our discourses and debates will be cherished and will vividly endure.

List of Past Speakers

SPRING 2013

H. VERSNEL (Leiden University), ‘Coping with the Gods. Implications and Complications of Ancient Greek Theology’.
A. SNODGRASS (Clare College, Cambridge), ‘Myth and Reality in Greek Agriculture.’
S. HARRISON (Corpus Christi College, Oxford), ‘The Classical Radio Plays of Louis MacNeice’.
A. KELLY (Balliol College, Oxford), ‘Stesikhoros’ Homer’.

SPRING 2012

D. KENNEDY (Bristol), ' The Political Epistemology of Infinity: some thoughts on the politics of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.'
R. WYLES (Oxford: Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama), 'Mme Dacier's comic contribution.'
W. DESMOND (Maynooth University), 'Plato and the Mythology of reason.'
H. DODGE (Trinity College Dublin), 'Symbols of Power and Colours of Victory: Egyptian Stones for the City of Rome.'

SPRING 2011

F. MACINTOSH, (Director, Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, Oxford), ‘From Sculpture to Vase-Painting: Models for Modern performance of Greek Tragedy.'
S. WEST (Oxford) 'Every Picture tells a Story: Reflections on Herodotus 4. 88.'
M. WEST (Oxford) ‘Odysseus re-routed.'
A. CLEMENTS (Trinity College Dublin) ‘Duality, Mixture, Deception: Philosophizing Theatre in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae.'

SPRING 2010

A. d'ANGOUR (Jesus College, Oxford), 'The Varieties of Innovation: What's New in Ancient Greece.'
K. NI-MHEALLAIGH (University of Exeter), 'Reading Novels with Lucian.'
A. CHAHOUD (Trinity College Dublin), 'Colloquial Latin in Literary Texts.'
C. HAYWOOD (University College Dublin), 'Power from the Grave: The Veneration of Mycenaean Tombs in Hellenistic Kephalonia and Western Greece.'

SPRING 2009

M. SILK (King's College London), 'The Greek Dramatic Genres: Theoretical Perspectives.’
H. VAN WEES (University College London), ‘Perfect oligarchs? Birth, merit and wealth in Homer.'
C. McCALLUM-BARRY (University College Cork), ‘Early Modern Versions of Greek Tragedy.'
D. O’ROURKE (Maynooth University), ‘Our First Virgil Reader: Propertius Book 4.'

SPRING 2008

S. OAKLEY (University of Cambridge), 'Renaissance Discoveries of Latin Texts'.
R. NAUTA (University of Groningen), 'Statius in the Silvae.'
M. LLOYD (University College Dublin), 'The Mutability of Fortune in Euripides.'
G. CAMPBELL (Maynooth University), 'Lucretius: Myth, Magic, and Prophecy.'

SPRING 2007

N. TALLIS (British Museum), ‘Aspects of continuity and change in Achaemenid Art.’
C. MARTINDALE (University of Bristol), ‘Dryden’s Ovid and Aesthetic Tradition.’
M. CUYPERS (Trinity College, Dublin), ‘Formularity, Intertextuality, and Meaning. The Limits of Interpretation in Quintus’ Posthomerica.’
E. HERRING (NUI Galway), ‘In Whose Image? Approaching the Depiction of Native People in Apulian Vase-Painting.’

SPRING 2006

K. DOULAMIS (University College Cork), ‘Writing for the masses: style and literary ambition in the “pre-sophistic” Greek novels.’
I. J. F. DE JONG (University of Amsterdam), ‘The Euripidean prologue as narratological riddle.’

AUTUMN 2005

D. BRAUND (University of Exeter), 'Slaves and skinners in Herodotus: contexts for Scythian gold.'
T. URBAINCZYK (University College Dublin), 'Rebels or Sambos? Slaves in Classical Greece.'

SPRING 2005

A. SOMMERSTEIN (University of Nottingham), 'What is an oath?'
D. WOODS (University College Cork), 'Caligula, Pompey and Alexander the Great'.

AUTUMN 2004

E. STAFFORD (University of Leeds), 'Herakles, Asklepios and the problem of the hero-god'.
M. GALE (Trinity College Dublin), 'Putting on the yoke of necessity: myth, intertextuality and moral agency in Catullus 68'.

SPRING 2004

G. SHIPLEY (University of Leicester), 'Between Macedonia and Rome: landscapes and social change in Hellenistic Greece'.
M. BRADY (University College Dublin), 'All Getans are Liars: Ovid's exile poetry and the wanderings of Odysseus'.

AUTUMN 2003

G. L. HUXLEY (Oxford and Dublin), 'Poetry and Politics in Early Sparta'.
A. J. SPAWFORTH (University of Newcastle), 'The Greek Temple Revisited'.
P. LIDDEL (Trinity College Dublin), 'Greek History at the Crossroads: Bishop Thirwall's History of Greece.'
T. P. WISEMAN (University of Exeter), 'Roman Hellenism'.

SPRING 2003

R. GIBSON (University of Manchester), 'The Politics of excess in Ovid, Ars Amatoria 3.'
K. McGROARTY (Maynooth University), 'The influence of Xenophon's writings on Alexander the Great?'

AUTUMN 2002

P. ROBERTS (British Museum), 'Blood and Sand: the Roman Arena.'
N. HUMBLE (University College Cork), 'Mythologising the Battle of Mantineia.'

SPRING 2002

M. VICKERS (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), 'Images on Textiles: The Weave of Athenian Art and Society.'
J. H. D. SCOURFIELD (Maynooth University), 'Chastity on Trial: History and Fiction in Jerome Letter 1.'

AUTUMN 2001

N. PURCELL, ‘Crete: what kind of island?’
R. GARLAND, 'Up-staging Greek Tragedy: The Use and Abuse? of Genre.'

SPRING 2001

D. H. J. LARMOUR, 'The Reader in extremis: The Sirens and Labyrinths of Lucian's True History.'
J. CURRAN, ‘The failure of Roman Judaea’.

AUTUMN 2000

F. WILLIAMS, Eutopia or Outopia? Some thoughts on Greek and More.
D. L. CAIRNS, The meaning of the Veil in Ancient Greek Culture.

SPRING 2000

O. TAPLIN, Mapping the life of Oedipus.
B. C. McGING, On the Fringes? Culture and history in the kingdom of Pontus.

AUTUMN 1999

J. GRIFFIN, Sophocles and the democratic polis.
K. KAPPARIS, Lysias fragment 10: An abortion trial in classical Athens.

SPRING 1999

G. McLAUGHLIN, Epinician transfer: the Danaids in Augustan Rome.
R. JANKO, The Derveni papyrus and the religion of Socrates.

AUTUMN 1998

J. L. MOLES, The Cynic model in relation to New Testament studies.
D. WOODS, Zosimus, Ammianus and Julian's Letter to the Romans.

SPRING 1998

H. TARRANT, Shadows of Justice: Unreal Images in Apuleius' Metamorphoses.
J. MOSSMAN, Is the Pen Mightier than the Sword? The Failure of Rhetoric in Plutarch's Life of Demosthenes.

AUTUMN 1997

M. PULBROOK, The Lyde of Antimachus.
M. CLARKE, Words, dew and flowers: a bundle of early Greek metaphors.

SPRING 1997

F. WILLIAMS, Daphne in Botanic Avenue.
P. MURRAY, Plato's Muses.

AUTUMN 1996

M. CRUDDEN, Nepioi anthropoi: the human element in the Homeric Hymns.
R. PARKER, Parthenoi in Attic Cult.

SPRING 1996

J. WILKINS, Old Comedy and Ancient History.
S. JACKSON, Apollonius of Rhodes: The Theseus/Ariadne Desertion.

AUTUMN 1995

D. WHITEHEAD, O NEOS DASMOS: 'Tribute' in Classical Athens.
R. G. USSHER, The Rhesus of Euripides.

SPRING 1995

K. COLEMAN, Martial's Spectacular Panegyric of Domitian.
J. DIGGLE, Sophocles' Ichneutae.

AUTUMN 1994

J. DILLON, A Platonist's Ars Amatoria.
K. SIDWELL, Misunderstanding Aristophanes and His Rivals.

SPRING 1994

N. R. E. FISHER, Liquor Louts and the law in classical Athens.
A. HARDER, Callimachus' Aetia as didactic poetry?

AUTUMN 1993

G. HUXLEY, Byzantine responses to early Islam.
D. WHITEHEAD, Cardinal virtues: the language of public approbation in democratic Athens.

SPRING 1993

E. HALL, Women as Works of Art.
S. W. JAMISON, Draupadi on the Walls of Troy.

AUTUMN 1992

K. J. McKAY, The Dakleh Oasis and Isocrates.
E. HAAN, `Heaven's Purest Light': Paradise Lost 3 and Vida.

SPRING 1992

T. FINAN, Some Hiberno-Latin Poetry.
A. ERSKINE, Roman Power, Greek Reaction.

AUTUMN 1991

T. URBAINCZYK, Outsiders in Church History.
A. SMITH, Iamblichus and the Philosophy of Religion.

SPRING 1991

W. G. ARNOTT, Walter Headlam's Failure.
F. WILLIAMS, Unacceptable Sacrifices.

AUTUMN 1990

M. LONGLEY, Departures: the Odyssey as a source for modern lyric.
M. ALDEN, An Intelligent Cyclops.

SPRING 1990

G. L. HUXLEY, Chazaria and Adjacent Territories in Byzantine Texts.
M. LLOYD, Characterisation in Euripides.

AUTUMN 1989

A. COLLINGE, The Theft of the Delphic Tripod.
A. B. SCOTT, Latin Writing in Ireland in the Late Middle Ages.

SPRING 1989

M. MULLETT, Writing in Early Medieval Byzantium.
J. DILLON, Plutarch and Platonist Orthodoxy.

AUTUMN 1988

G. WATSON, Aristotle and Plato's Gorgias.
B. C. McGING, Three Unpublished Dublin Papyri.

SPRING 1988

R. E. MITCHELL, Social Mobility in the Roman Republic.
B. ARKINS, Yeats and Platonism.

AUTUMN 1987

E. HAAN, Written Encomiums: John Milton's Poetry in its Italian Context.
F. WILLIAMS, Cercidas of Megalopolis.

SPRING 1987

C. GAYNOR, Isocrates and the defence of rhetoric.
M. O'BRIEN, The Day of Laughter in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius.

AUTUMN 1986

N. J. RICHARDSON, Hapax legomena in Iliad 22.
M. McGANN, Text and Intertext: Reading a renaissance Latin poem.

SPRING 1986

E. L. BOWIE, Wasps: Ritual stereotype and comic reversal.
B. C. McGING, The governorship of Pontius Pilate.

AUTUMN 1985

M. B. CUNNINGHAM, Invective against emperors in early Byzantine texts: continuity or change?
K. SIDWELL, The trial scene in Aeschylus' Eumenides.

SPRING 1985

M. LLOYD, Homer on Poetry.
R. MELLOR, The local character of Roman imperial religion: Greek East to Latin West.

AUTUMN 1984

A. M. WILSON (CRABBE), "Unaccustomed as I am to secular rhetoric" ... Some literary aspects of Eustratios' Life of Eutychios.
M. PULBROOK, The Aitia of Callimachus.

SPRING 1984

K. LOMAS, The frontiers of Hellenisation: the Elymians and the Greek polis.
R. G. USSHER, Aspects of Greek Epistolography.

AUTUMN 1983

J. PINSENT, The Odyssized Iliad.
J. D. G. EVANS, Indefinite Reference and the Problem of Substance in Aristotle Metaphysics Z.

SPRING 1983

M. SMITH, Epicureanism in a Stoa: The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda.
A. SMITH, Porphyry.

AUTUMN 1982

B. C. McGING, The propaganda of Mithradates Eupator.
R. DAVIS, Constantine - constantly munificent?

SPRING 1982

J. V. LUCE, The Thera Ship-fresco and the Minoan Thalassocracy.
P. CARTLEDGE, Why didn't the Greeks' Slaves Revolt? A comparative view.

AUTUMN 1981

R. J. WILLIAMS, Greek Proverbs, Ancient and Demotic.
R. J. A. TALBERT, Greeks and the Senate of Imperial Rome.

SPRING 1981

C. E. SCHULTZE, A Polis on the Tiber: Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Rome.
A. A. LONG, The Afterlife in early Greek Thought: Pindar and Empedocles.

AUTUMN 1980

J. DILLON, What happened to Plato's Garden?
G. L. HUXLEY, The Scholarship of Georgios Synkellos.

SPRING 1980

M. ALDEN, Mycenaean Burial Customs.
K. HOPKINS, Brother-Sister Marriage in Graeco-Roman Egypt.

AUTUMN 1979

A. E. HINDS, Sophocles. Structure and Infrastructure.
R. G. USSHER, The Greek Mime.

SPRING 1979

G. WATSON, Phantasia in Greek Philosophy.
J. SHEPARD, Byzantine Foreign Policy.

AUTUMN 1978

W. G. FORREST, Theory and Practice in Ancient Historians and Politicians (with special reference to Polybius VI).
J. L. MOLES, A Contradiction in Aristotle's Poetics.

SPRING 1978

R. J. A. WILSON, The Continuity of Hellenism in Roman Sicily.
C. J. McKNIGHT, Prediction in Plato's Middle Dialogues.

AUTUMN 1977

WILLIAMS, Storytelling in Classical Antiquity.
M. PULBROOK, The Fusion of Epic and Drama in Apollonius' Argonautica.

SPRING 1977

HALL, What the Greeks contributed to Islamic Civilisation.
G. L. HUXLEY, Iconoclasts and Hagiographers (717-787).

AUTUMN 1976

K. O'NOLAN, Doublets in the Odyssey.
P. A. CRONIN, Greek Weather Lore.

SPRING 1976

J. L. MOLES, The Career and Conversion of Dio Chrysostom.
S. BROCK, Greek into Syriac and Syriac into Greek.

AUTUMN 1975

J. SALMON, Political Hoplites?
P. CARTLEDGE, "Marx Without Tears": The Ancient Greek Class Struggle Revisited.

SPRING 1975

M. MULLETT, Theophylact of Ochrid and Greek Letter-writing.
J. D. HOWARD-JOHNSTON, Byzantine Society and Institutions in the Dark Age.

AUTUMN 1974

G. O'DALY, Plato's Protagoras.
G. L. HUXLEY, Pindar's Vision of the Past.

SPRING 1974

W. M. CALDER, The Politics of the Late Aeschylus.
W. B. STANFORD, Irish Historians of Classical Antiquity.

AUTUMN 1973

J. N. COLDSTREAM, Hero Cults in the Age of Homer.
J. MADDEN, The Life and Poetry of Macedonius Consul.

SPRING 1973

W. MEANY, Palladas the Pessimist.
N. K. SANDARS, The Role of Natural Topography in Near Eastern and Greek Creation Myths.

AUTUMN 1972

J. J. CLEARY, A Characteristic Aristotelian Dialogue: The Eudemos.
A. E. ASTIN,Cato and the Greeks.

SPRING 1972

F. G. MAIER, Recent Discoveries at Old-Paphos.
J. HERRIN, The Process of Hellenization in the Early Middle Ages.

AUTUMN 1971

W. B. STANFORD, Poetical Truth and Scientific Truth amongst the Greeks.
R. J. A. TALBERT, Sources for the Timoleontic Narratives of Plutarch, Nepos and Diodoros.

SPRING 1971

G. CADOGAN, Was there a Minoan Landed Gentry?
G. L. HUXLEY, The Cretan Constitution in Aristotle's Politics.

AUTUMN 1970

K. O'NOLAN, Aspects of Homeric Oral Technique.
J. B. SALMON, The Cypselid Building Programme in the Corinthia.

SPRING 1970

E. D. PHILLIPS, Architecture and Town Planning in Greek Literature.
JORDAN, The Evidence of Dialect and Tradition for early Migration in the Peloponnese.

AUTUMN 1969

D. W. GOODING, The Septuagint and Alexandrian-Jewish Propagandist Historians and Chronographers.
J. P. BARRON, The Athenian Theseus Epic.

SPRING 1969

J. V. LUCE, The Eruption of Thera.
R. G. USSHER, The Cyclops of Euripides.

AUTUMN 1968

K. J. DOVER, The Language of Aristophanes.
J. GRAINGER, Xanthos of Lydia.

SPRING 1968

G. L. HUXLEY, Choerilus of Samos.
R. M. ERRINGTON, Ptolemy's History of Alexander.

AUTUMN 1967

H. W. PARKE, Klaros.
L. J. D. RICHARDSON, Trivium and Triodos.

SPRING 1967

J. BOARDMAN, Excavations at Tocra.
V. A. RODGERS, Some Thoughts on Dike.

AUTUMN 1966

W. G. FORREST, The Eusebian Thalassocracy List.
J. V. LUCE, Plato's Cratylus.

SPRING 1966

R. MEIGGS, Public Monuments and Public Policies.
W. B. COLDSTREAM, Phoenicians in the Aegean?

AUTUMN 1965

L. H. JEFFERY, Ancient Traditions on Early Greek Writing.
A .E. HINDS, The Prophecy of Helenus in Sophocles' Philoctetes.

SPRING 1965

R. G. USSHER, The Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes.
J. P. BARRON, Kos and its Coins in the Pentekontaetia.

AUTUMN 1964

G. L. HUXLEY, Ion of Chios.
G. WATSON, The Stoic Theory of Knowledge.

SPRING 1964

W. B. STANFORD, The Sound of Greek.
M. TIERNEY, Problems in Ancient Map-Making.

AUTUMN 1963

H. W. PARKE, The Oracle of Zeus at Dodona.
E. D. PHILLIPS, Tuberculosis in Antiquity.

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Final Meeting

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