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Professor Eoin Devereux (Centre for the study of Popular Music and Popular Culture, University of Limerick) will give an illustrated talk about Jim Kemmy’s vast contribution to the cultural life of the city of Limerick. In addition to being a trade unionist, socialist activist and politician, Jim Kemmy had a long-life interest in the arts and in creative writing in particular.
Devereux’s talk will assess Kemmy’s contribution to the arts, his particular interest in writers such as Michael Hogan, The Bard of Thomond, Kate O’Brien, John Francis O’Donnell and Michael Curtin. Kemmy’s practical support for the arts as well as his own efforts as a poet will also be examined. True to his socialist convictions, Kemmy saw the arts and culture in terms of its capacity to the participatory and to reflect the experiences of ordinary working class people.