Living well with the dead in contemporary Ireland

We will develop a medical humanities network equipped to research changing understandings in Ireland of what constitutes care of the dead body. Though of international relevance, this topic is particularly salient in Ireland given the investigation into burial practices by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and the Irish government’s commitment to enacting long-awaited human tissue legislation.

We will create a transdisciplinary dialogue to develop new questions and ways of researching the dead body that go beyond existing intellectual frameworks and enhance our network’s capacity to intervene in public debates about the dead and develop more ambitious projects in this area.

The project will consist of transdisciplinary workshops with scholars from around the world, archival and ethnographic research, and a public seminar aimed at redefining questions about the dead.