In the Half Light: Voices from Black Ireland

Recorded October 2nd, 2025. Thinking Aloud, Thinking Together is a new series of live and recorded conversations amplifying voices that have been silenced in Irish cultural life. It gives space to artists, writers and thinkers who offer radical new perspectives on existing narratives. Our first conversation takes the form of a podcast series. Entitled 'In the Half Light: Voices from Black Ireland', this podcast is delivered in partnership with the Museum of Literature Ireland and curated by Dr Phil Mullen (Assistant Professor of Black Studies at Trinity College Dublin and a leading researcher on the historical experiences of 'mixed-race' people growing up in Ireland). Using the audio format, Phil has created an anonymised, open space for 'mixed-race' people who grew up in Irish care institutions to explore the impact of their erasure from institutional abuse history and discourse in Ireland. Through this conversation, she aims to undo that erasure, one voice at a time. Phil will be in conversation with journalist and researcher Caelainn Hogan. The conversation will be chaired by writer Eoin McNamee. This event is organised in partnership with the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Trinity Research in Social Sciences. Speakers Dr Phil Mullen is Assistant Professor of Black Studies and located in the Department of Sociology. She teaches on the Trinity elective which introduces students to the epistemology of Black Studies as an intellectual pursuit. This is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field of knowledge that interrogates historical events that have impacted on those who are racialised as Black, while centring the perspectives of Black people in constructing and deconstructing these events. Sheleads a research project to recover the lived experiences and sociological impact of African students who came to Trinity in the early 20th century, which amplifies our understanding of Blackness in pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Caelainn Hogan is a writer and journalist from Dublin. Her first book Republic of Shame investigates the ongoing legacy of Ireland's religious-run, state-funded institutions and the shame-industrial complex that incarcerated women and children. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, National Geographic, The Guardian, VICE, Harper's, The Washington Post, The Dublin Review and more. Eoin McNamee is a novelist and screenwriter. His nineteen novels include Resurrection Man and the Blue Trilogy. He has written six Young Adult novels including the New York Times bestselling The Navigator, and three thrillers under the John Creed pseudonym. He wrote the screenplay for the film Resurrection Man directed by Marc Evans and I Want You directed by Michael Winterbottom. His television credits include Hinterland (BBC Wales/Netflix) and An Brontanas (TG4). He has written seven radio plays for BBC R4. He is the Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre and Co-Director of the M.Phil in Creative Writing Course at Trinity College Dublin. Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub