May 1st 2025 saw the launch of the Irish Humanities Alliance’s new Working Group on the Legal Humanities. The new Working Group brings together scholars from across the disciplines with interests in the cultural production and reception of the legal imagination.
The launch event, ‘Antigone and Ireland’, was hosted on the Peacock stage at the Abbey Theatre and took as its focus the continuing impact and power of Sophocles’ heroine and her refusal of state power to determine her private ethic. Brining together legal and literary scholars, as well as some of Ireland’s preeminent writers, the event drew on the work of the Legal Humanities Working Group to bring an interdisciplinary rigour to bear on Antigone / Antigone – the figure and play that speaks across the millennia in ways that continue to trouble the literary and legal imaginations.
Exploring the original work and its contexts, as well as its many modern reimaginings, speakers on the day reminded us of just how foundational the Antigone story has been for writers across diverse places and periods - her confrontation with her uncle, King Creon, standing as an impowering model for staging dramatic conflict and political process. For legal thinkers, moreover, Antigone’s insistence on burying her brother has acted as a key source for exploring the origin and personality of law, whether this be natural law or positive.
Continuing the tradition of the Irish Humanities Alliance and its commitment to public engagement, the symposium was aimed at anyone with an interest in law, literature, or the theatre. Speakers on the day included: Mr Justice Brian Cregan, playwright Marina Carr, writer Carlo Gébler and academic and playwright Darren Murphy.
Below: Playwright Marina Carr in conversation with Dr Melissa Sihra (TCD).
