PARNELL SUMMER SCHOOL 2010
8 - 13 August

Gotcha! The Role of Media in Politics and Society
The 2010 Parnell Summer School will be the twentieth occasion that politicians, academics, journalists, historians and all other interested parties will meet in Avondale, Co.Wicklow and this year’s focus is highly appropriate not only to Parnell but also to the current ongoing story of Ireland. The theme of the summer school is Media – its role in the Ireland of today and its relevance in the life of Charles Stewart Parnell. As a newspaper owner himself as well as a victim of the slanderous Pigott forgeries, Parnell’s relationship with journalism and media was an important part of his story. Was Parnell’s demise in part contributed to by a hostile Press? How does the Irish media 150 years later deal with politicians or public figures facing a private crisis? Ireland is currently experiencing an economic crisis, a crisis within the Catholic Church and a looming media crisis with the rapid growth of online reading, Twitter and citizen journalism challenging the status quo of the hitherto tightly controlled and increasingly small concentration of media ownership – the Parnell Summer School will address these and other related issues as we turn the spotlight this year on the media themselves.

The Academic Director for 2010 is Eithne Hand – former Head of RTE Radio 1 and deputy MD of RTE Radio. Hand devised and set up the Today with Pat Kenny Programme and Rattlebag Arts show as well as winning a Prix Italia award for VoiceJazz. Now an independent consultant, she was the launch co ordinator of one of RTE’s digital radio channels, RTE Junior, in 2008. Eithne is the daughter of one of the Parnell Society's founding members, the late Máire Tobin.