Where can a Classics degree take me? What transferable skills can I gain from a Classics degree? What kind of jobs might I pursue after my Classics degree? These are just some of the questions that will be discussed at the Careers with Classics event held in Maynooth University (online and in person) on 21 September. The event is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students of all Irish universities, secondary-school students and anyone interested in studying Classics. Come along and be inspired by the diverse experiences and career journeys of Classics graduates!
The event will be hosted by Maynooth University on Thursday, 21 September 2023, 11:00-13:00. This is a hybrid event: you can attend in person (Classhall F, Arts Building) or online (though Microsoft Teams). For more information or to register your interest, please contact Dr Cosetta Cadau at cosetta.cadau@mu.ie.
As we reach the end of another hectic academic year, it’s time to look back on some of the visits and activities that made this Access Classics’ busiest year to date!
School visits
As ever, second-level school visits are the beating heart of Access Classics, and we were delighted to welcome hundreds of students to UCD and to travel to second-level schools: since September 2022, Access Classics has interacted with … wait for it … c. 1,300 second-level students!! Working closely with the UCD Classics Museum, and its curator Dr Jo Day, we welcomed second-level school groups from Dublin, Wexford and Leitrim to the UCD campus, where the students took part in lots of activities, including tours of the Museum collection, artefact handling, unlocking the mysteries of ancient languages and creating curse tablets!
We also continued our visits to schools. Highlights include meeting the Transition Year students and their teacher Chantelle Delahoy in Loreto Beaufort and chatting with the newly formed Classics Club in St Raphaela’s Secondary School in Stillorgan, run by former UCD Classics student Dylan McKeever. It was great to see such enthusiasm for Classics in a school that does not currently offer the subject at Junior or Senior Cycle! We were also delighted to continue the strong tradition of collaboration beyond the UCD Classics corridor, joining forces with the UCD College of Arts and Humanities to welcome visiting students from America during the summer, with UCD Global to introduce newly arrived international students to options available for study in university, and with UCD Access and Lifelong Learning to bring Classics to DEIS-school students during a UCD Experience day in March!
Classical Association of Ireland Teachers (CAI-T) Young Classicist Awards, 2023
March was a particularly busy month for Access Classics: we hosted school visits to UCD, travelled to Cork to chat about goddesses in University College Cork and, most importantly, collaborated with the Classical Association of Ireland-Teachers (always a huge pleasure!) on two events: the Young Classicist Awards and the Leaving Certificate Lecture Day.
Access Classics’ Dr Christopher Farrell and Dr Bridget Martin joined Trinity’s Dr Charlie Kerrigan to judge the Young Classicist Awards and were blown away by the high standard! On 14 March, we were delighted to facilitate CAI-T in hosting the Awards in UCD (in person for the first time since 2020!). On the day, the finalists in the four categories – Junior Award (1st-3rd year), Senior Award (4th-6th year), Languages Award (for a project based on/with a component of Latin or Ancient Greek) and the Sustainability Award (for a project connected to Global Sustainability Goals) – presented their projects to the hundreds-strong crowd of students and teachers, with CAI-T’s wonderful Caitríona Maher acting as MC!
The students did amazing work, producing creative projects ranging from stop-motion animation videos to hand-drawn comic strips, paintings, sculptures, posters, essays, PowerPoints and even some spoken Ancient Greek! To round out the day, Access Classics’ Bridget gave a short lecture on Greek tragic drama as a preface to an amazing student-production of Euripides’ Medea! With the amount and standard of entries going up each year, we can’t wait to see what next year’s competition will bring!
CAI-T Leaving Certificate Lecture Day
Close on the heels of the Young Classicist Awards, Access Classics’ Chris organised the in-person return of the CAI-T Leaving Certificate Lecture Day, which was held in UCD on 25 March. Huge thanks to the UCD School of Classics’ lecturers who kindly gave up their Saturday afternoon to present short lectures on aspects of the new Leaving Certificate curriculum to a full house of c. 180 students and teachers! All handouts and PowerPoints from the day are available by clicking on the “CAI-T lecture day 2023” tab above. The strands and topics covered are as follows:
Gods and Humans: Experiencing Ancient Temples (Dr Jo Day)
Gods and Humans: Funerary Practices (Dr Bridget Martin)
Judging them by the Enemies: Alexander and the Persians; Caesar and the Gauls (Assoc. Prof. Philip de Souza)
Gods and Humans: Morality and Living Well in Plato’s Crito (Dr Christopher Farrell)
Roman Spectacle: The Colosseum and Circus Maximus (Assoc. Prof. Alexander Thein)
World of Heroes: Odysseus and Aeneas as Heroes (Dr Nicholas Freer)
World of Heroes: The Aeneid as Propaganda (Dr Helen Dixon)
Student news
The Access Classics team was delighted to join forces with Dr Martin Brady to run the level-three Access Classics module in UCD for the third time this year! This module, which teaches students techniques of outreach and engagement, always attracts very dedicated and enthusiastic students, and this year was no exception! From conducting podcast interviews to producing posters explaining and advertising artefacts from the Classics museum, doing an amazing job with the module Twitter account (@AccessClassics) and being constant supports at Access Classics events, the students were a stellar bunch this year!
Spreading the word
In exciting news, Access Classics will feature in an upcoming publication! Arising from a joint talk on Classics at second level in Ireland (for a Classical Influences and Irish Culture (CLIC) seminar in May 2022), Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson, Ms Aryn Penn and Access Classics’ Dr Bridget Martin wrote a chapter entitled “Green shoots on the Emerald Isle: an update on Classics in schools and communities in Ireland” for “Class and Classics”, a Trends in Classics volume by De Gruyter. This gives an overview of Classics in and outside the classroom in Ireland, and we are particularly pleased that the chapter will be available through Open Access, so keep an eye out!
In April 2023, Access Classics launched a survey of Classics at second level in Ireland!
We sent a questionnaire to all second-level schools to gain a greater understanding of the current landscape of Classics in second-level schools in Ireland (e.g. how many schools offer Classics in some form, how many students take Classics/Greek/Latin, how many schools offer Classics at TY level), uncover the reasons the majority of second-level schools cannot/ do not offer Classics, and measure the reach and impact of Access Classics at second level, particularly the use of the Access Classics Transition Year Unit on Classical Studies. This is just the first step in some far larger plans for Access Classics, and we look forward to seeing what emerges from the responses! If you would like more information on this, drop an email to bridget.martin@ucd.ie.
Thank you!
Finally, a huge thank you to all the students, teachers, colleagues (in and outside UCD) and friends for their help and enthusiasm over the past year! It was a particularly busy academic year, and we looked forward to doing it all again next year!
The Classical Association of Ireland (CAI) Summer School will take place on 18 and 19 August, 2023, in Maynooth University! Join the CAI for lots of Classics chat and for a great line-up of talks, including the intriguingly titled keynote by Dr Jane Masséglia (Leicester): “Hoodies with Knives: A Field Guide to the Romans of Inner Anatolia”. For more information on the Summer School, please contact Dr Maeve O’Brien at maeve.obrien@mu.ie, and click on the form below for registration details.
Since its creation in 2019, a fundamental aim of Access Classics has been to increase knowledge about and uptake of Classics in second-level schools in Ireland. To help us achieve this aim, we are conducting a survey of all second-level schools and adult-education institutes in Ireland to gain a greater understanding of the following:
(i) the current landscape of Classics in second-level schools in Ireland (e.g. how many schools offer Classics in some form, how many students take Classics/Greek/Latin, how many schools offer Classics at TY level);
(ii) the barriers to maintaining and introducing Classics in second-level schools (whether lack of knowledge about the subject, lack of interest from teachers and/or students, lack of resources, etc.)
(iii) the impact of Access Classics, particularly the use of the Access Classics Transition Year Unit on Classical Studies.
The data we receive from this survey will form part of a report on Classics in second-level education in Ireland that will be available on this website (keep an eye out for updates!) and will be used to lobby for greater support for the subject at government level.
A link to a questionnaire will be sent to all second-level schools and adult-education institutes. If your school does not receive the link and you would like to be involved, please email Dr Bridget Martin, Director of the Access Classics, at bridget.martin@ucd.ie.
The UCD Classical Society, in conjunction with the UCD School of Classics, is proud to announce that the annual Inaugural Lecture this year will be given by Dr Joseph Skinner (Newcastle University). Following the successful return of the Inaugural Lecture last year, we look forward to welcoming many students, staff and friends for a wonderful evening! All are welcome! The details of this year’s lecture are as follows:
Dr Joseph Skinner (Newcastle University)
“The Histories of the explored (the explored exploring…)“
Congratulations to all involved in the latest publication in the “Our Mythical Childhood” series: Classical Mythology and Children’s Literature…An Odyssey. This beautiful volume by Dr Elizabeth Hale and Dr Miriam Riverlea (and with wonderful illustrations by Steve K. Simons) takes the reader through an alphabetical journey of Classics in children’s literature, opening up a world of possibilities for how and where younger (and older) people today can engage with the ancient world! Both informative and thought provoking, this is a little gem. And, if that wasn’t enough, the volume is … wait for it … open access! You can download a copy here. Really looking forward to more upcoming volumes from the series, particularly Teaching Ancient Greece: Lesson Plans, Vase Animations, and Resources, edited by Dr Sonya Nevin!
The UCD School of Classics and the Access Classics team are looking forward to hosting the annual Classical Association of Ireland Teachers (CAIT) lecture day for Leaving Certificate Classical Studies students on Saturday, 25 March! UCD School of Classics lecturers will give talks based on topics from the Leaving Certificate curriculum, allowing students to expand and consolidate their knowledge, as well as enjoy a day on the beautiful UCD campus! The lectures will take place in Theatre O of the Newman Building. The provisional schedule is as follows (click on the image above for a pdf of the schedule):
10:00 Welcome 10:05 – 10:35 Gods and Humans: Experiencing Ancient Temples (Dr Jo Day) 10:40 – 11:10 Gods and Humans: Funerary Practices (Dr Bridget Martin) 11:15 – 11:45 Judging them by their enemies: Alexander & the Persians; Caesar & the Gauls (Assoc. Prof. Philip De Souza) 11:50 – 12:10 Gods and Humans: Morality and Living Well in Plato’s Crito (Dr Christopher Farrell) 12:10 –13:00 Lunch ***Please ensure that you bring something to eat and drink. There are vending machines and water fountains for snacks and beverages, but UCD cafes and restaurants will be closed. *** 13:00 – 13:30 Roman Spectacle: the Colosseum and Circus Maximus (Assoc. Prof. Alexander Thein) 13:35 – 14:05 World of Heroes: Odysseus and Aeneas as Heroes (Dr Nicholas Freer) 14:10 – 14:40 World of Heroes: The Aeneid as Propaganda (Dr Helen Dixon)
There’s great excitement in the UCD School of Classics as our level-three outreach module is back with a new cohort of students! We are really looking forward to hearing all the students’ opinions on and ideas about the place of outreach in Classics and can’t wait to see what materials they produce. As a first step, the student will take over the dedicated @AccessClassics Twitter feed and, over the next few months, will use this to promote engagement with Classics. Look back through the feed to see the work of previous student cohorts – it makes for a good read! Please consider supporting our students by following @AccessClassics!
After a very successful run last year, the Classical Association of Ireland is delighted to announce the 2023 Latin Summer school, an exciting opportunity to learn Latin through a two-week immersion.
The Latin Summer School is designed for secondary school students between the ages of 12 and 18, with little or no knowledge of Latin and/or Classics.
If you are not studying Latin or Classics, but you are interested in ancient languages and history, this is the place for you! Whether you are studying Classical Studies or the new Junior Certificate Classics or not, the Summer School offers an exciting opportunity to explore the culture of the Romans through their language. Perhaps you want to improve your language learning skills or understanding, communicating and writing in English? Or you are exploring your academic future? If you are you thinking about studying Classical Civilisation, Archaeology, Classical Languages, Ancient or Medieval History, Philosophy, Religion, History of Art, Romance languages in college, the CAI Summer school is a great place to start!
Over the course of two weeks (19-30 June), you will immerse yourself in the language and history of Rome and engage in a variety of fun activities, led by experienced and passionate teachers. There will be interactive and online games, singing contests, Latin cartoons, and a bit of spoken Latin, too!
The Latin Summer School offers courses at Beginners level for students who have not studied Latin before. Each course has three 50-minute classes per day. All resources and learning materials are provided. After two weeks, students will be able to read simple Latin texts and have sufficient knowledge of the language to continue studying it independently or enter a higher-level course.
The Summer School will be conducted in a hybrid format this year, i.e. in presence for those who choose to do so (venue: Trinity College Dublin), and online via Zoom.
Contact hours: three classes/per day for two weeks
Here at Access Classics, we’re always interested to see what our Classics outreach colleagues are up to, and Maximum Classics is doing some fantastic work! If you would like to introduce some Ancient Greek or Latin to your classes, would like to try your hand at an more in-depth approach or are interested in teacher training in these areas, have a look through the great resources on the Maximum Classics website or send them a quick query!
Access Classics 