As per usual the Cumann Staire is holding our annual Cóisir na Nollag with our three fellow members of the Fantastic Four - Ceithre Chumann group: Na Claisicí - Seandálaíocht - Tíreolaíocht. Free drink and finger food will be available of course. Beidh chuile rud ag tosnú ar a naoi thíos staighre sa Skeff agus beidh oíche den scoth againn.. ná déan dearmad ar Solpadine a fháil!

Dr. John France is a Professor of History at the University of Wales-Swansea where he also serves as Director of the Callaghan Centre for Conflict Studies. The primary focus of his research is medieval warfare and crusading, both areas in which he teaches multiple courses at both the undergraduate and post-graduate level. He has undertaken field work in Italy, France, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon. Professor France has dozens of publications on the crusades, including The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000-1714 (Routledge, 2005). He is currently working on a study entitled Perilous Glory: Understanding the History of Western Warfare, the research of which is supported by a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship during the academic year 2008-2009. As a result of his research covering this period, he has compiled an electronic database of lives of saints prior to the year 1000. He is also an editor of the Journal Of Medieval History.

The mighty Cumann Staire Table Quiz will be back in the back room of the bar (so really faaaar back!) and only costs a recession friendly 5 euro per person.. don't worry about having enough of a gang to form a table of four as we'll be mixing and matching ye to form teams! A great way to meet new people, have the craic and curse the questions for being too easy/hard/weird/etc. This years 'Fresher from Tír Chonaill', Mícheál Rua, will be in charge so come along and prove his questions are no match for the mighty minds of the Cumann Staire! The prizes will be many and merry - na duaiseanna is fearr sa domhain, riamh! ;)

Glac páirt - Take part.. have an idea for a history related event; one celebrating a past event or the place of history in today's society? Get in contact with us and lets build this new week into a great first semester NUI society event!

This event is co-hosted with the Roinn Na Staire (department of history) and is intended as a official reception for new history research postgrads. Existing postgrads and staff are also to attend so that we can create a better sense of community for all. Hopefully, this meet-and-greet will allow us to get to know who is doing what and will help the settling in of new PhD and MLitt students. Those thinking of pursuing such study in the future are also more than welcome to come along for a chat and a glass of fíon, or two.

Born in Cill Chainnigh he took his BA and MA in History at UCD, followed by a PhD at Cambridge University, England. He is currently Professor of Modern History at the University of Manchester and a Fellow of the British Academy (and no he never played football for Gaillimh!). At Manchester, he has been successively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader and (since 1996) Professor of Modern History. He has lectured widely in France and Germany, and been a Visiting Professor at the Sorbonne, EHESS (Paris), École des Chartes (Paris), Nancy, Montpellier, Lyon. During the academic year 2006-7, he was a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg (Berlin), where he began working on a large-scale general study on church, society and religion in seventeenth-century France. He has published seven books, including Crown, church and episcopate under Louis XIV, The Seventeenth Century and The Rise of Richelieu.

Dr. Gunn is a lecturer in modern history at the University of Oxford where his current research concerns the councillors and courtiers of Henry VII, and war and society in early Tudor England and the Netherlands. He has also published in the wider fields of Tudor government, foreign policy and political culture and the comparison of the English state in this period with those in continental Europe. He has written books on Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, c1484-1545 (1988), Early Tudor Government, 1485-1558 (1995), and War, State and Society in England and the Netherlands, 1477-1559 (2007), and edited Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art (1991), Authority and Consent in Tudor England (2002) and The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries, 1270-1580 (2005).

Socs Day is upon us and we will welcome all members, new and old, into our clann that very same evening with a gloine fíon nó dhó! So come along for an introduction to our events and organising coiste, and a drink with us. A great way to meet people and find out more about the Cumann Staire.