04/06/2026
🎫Book your ticket to join Special Collections & Archives for the launch of this exhibition on a rarely seen cross-over in Irish and Spanish history in the Russell Library, 17/06/2026 [tinyurl.com/BookExileReturn]
Explore the story of Irish migrants in the seventeenth century who — largely due to the completion of the Tudor conquest and its chilling effect on the free practice of Catholicism — sought refuge within the Spanish Empire, with some undertaking the hazardous return on the “Irish Mission,” leaving extensive documentary traces in the Salamanca Archive. This launch will focus on the early years of their struggles and desires for the communities they were shaping at home and abroad, while engaging with enduring questions surrounding migration, identity, and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in society.
Curated by Dr Laura Francis, a researcher and translator specialising in multilingualism in the early modern world in the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies) in Maynooth University.
