Irish South Asian Radical Connections
Tuesday, 21st March 2023, 7pm
Tickets from Eventbrite
Laois Libraries is delighted to present an online history talk by Catherine Candy and Laurence Cox focusing on the impact of Irish people as agitators against Empire and agents of decolonisation in British controlled South Asia. From Margaret Cousins, leading Irish suffragist, feminist and cultural revivalist, who became a key player in the Indian Freedom movement, to Dublin born Laurence Carroll, later known as U Dhammaloka, the first foreign Buddhist monk in Burma and radical opponent of British political and cultural colonisation in that region. The event is part of the Laois Libraries Decade of Centenaries programme for 2023.
Catherine Candy is author of the forthcoming ‘Mystics Against Empire: Margaret and James Cousins, 1873-1956′ and her research was informed by her time as Associate Professor of British Imperial History at the University of New Orleans.
Laurence Cox is Professor at the Sociology Department of Maynooth University and co-author of ‘The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk Who Faced Down the British Empire’.
Pictured above is Margaret Cousins (front right) as one of the ‘Tullamore Mice’ – so-called because they were imprisoned in Tullamore goal in 1913 and on hunger-strike – which was then addressed by the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ where hunger-strikers would be released and then re-imprisoned after they had built back their strength. Cousins had been involved in smashing windows at Dublin Castle as part of the campaign for women’s enfranchisement.
A zoom link will be sent to all attendees the afternoon of the talk.