Lecturer in Creative Writing Mary Morrissy, above, who heads up the fiction component in UCC’s MA in Creative Writing,  will present the Embassy of Ireland lecture at the University of Lisbon on Thursday, May 19. https://www.facebook.com/ceaul.ulices/

Her lecture ,entitled “The Past Is a Foreign Country”, will consider the writing of fiction, with particular reference to historical fiction. She will also read from her latest collection, Prosperity Drive. A short story from that collection, “The Gender of Cars”, has been translated into Portuguese and featured in the anthology Contar um Conto (eds. Ana Raquel Fernandes and Mário Semião, 2014).

The Embassy of Ireland Lectures were launched by Ambassador James Brennan after his visit to the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, in May 2008, to address students enrolled in the recently created curricular unit on Irish Literature and Culture. Since then, the embassy has brought many distinguished Irish writers and academics to Portugal.