Bernadette Devlin McAliskey to deliver Seamus Deane Honorary Lecture

We’re delighted to announce that Field Day’s upcoming Seamus Deane Annual Lecture will be delivered by Bernadette Devlin McAliskey.

This year’s lecture, “A Terrible State of Chassis”, will take place at the Playhouse, Artillery Street, in Derry on Friday 30 September 2016 at 8pm.

Tea and Coffee reception 7pm. Lecture starts 8pm.

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey campaigning for People’s Democracy

This lecture series aims to bring to Derry some of the world’s leading artists and thinkers who have the potential to make the city an international centre of intellectual discovery every year.

Professor Emer Nolan of NUI Maynooth will introduce the event. A Q&A session will be chaired by human rights activist and lawyer Michael Farrell afterwards. There will also be a short performance of pieces for solo cello by renowned musician and Field Day board member, Neil Martin.

Tickets will be on sale at the door, but to avoid disappointment please book at the Playhouse online, www.derryplayhouse.co.uk. Tickets cost £10/£8.

Click here for full press release.


Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is from Cookstown, Co. Tyrone. While still a student at Queen’s University, she and her colleagues in the newly-formed People’s Democracy transformed political resistance in the Northern Irish statelet by spearheading a socialist, anti-sectarian, mass movement for change. Her celebrity began when she was elected to Westminster for Mid Ulster in 1969 – then the youngest woman MP ever – and when she became a leading organizer on the barricades in Derry during the Battle of the Bogside.

‘Bernadette’ as she is still known, currently works supporting migrants’ rights in South Tyrone and remains Ireland’s finest political orator, the unforgettable voice of the Troubles.