Nina Fitzpatrick

Life
[pseud. of Nina Wotiszek; a ‘works at Polish-Irish-Norwegian writer]; issued of Tales of the Irish Intelligentsia (London: Fourth Estate 1991; rep. 1991), co-authored with her partner Pat Sheeran (UCG), which won the Irish Times-Aer Lingus Award, 1991 - but withdrawn when the Irish identity of the author was questioned; collaborated in writing with Sheeran from 1984; wrote The Loves of Faustyna (1994; pb. Fourth Estate 1995), set in Poland during the Fall-of-the-Wall period (see Books Ireland Review, Sept. 1994); Fables of the Irish Intelligentsia was filmed as Talking to the Dead (2000), narrated by Sheeran and dir. Pat Collins - a film that explores ‘the obsessive hold that the dead have on the living in this country’ (Sheeran); suffered the death of Sheeran in 2001 and moved to Norwa where she is a Research Professor at the Center for Development and the Environment in Oslo.

Nina Wotiszek - Academic CV incls. comparative cultural History at NUI (Galway), 1995-1997) and the European University in Florence (1997-1999); fellowships at the Swedish Collegium of the Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Uppsala, 1993; exchange teaching Robinson College, Cambridge, 1995; Mansfield College, Oxford, 2001; visiting professorship at Stanford University, 2010. (See Wikipedia - online; accessed 11.08.2023).

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Works
Fiction
[as Nina Fitzpatrick] with Patrick Sheeran, Tales of the Irish Intelligentsia (London: Fourth Estate 1991), 140pp.
Cultural studies
  • The Theatre of Recollection: A Cultural Study of the Modern Dramatic Tradition in Ireland and Poland ( Stockholm: University of Stockholm Press 1988) [incl. comments on Thomas Kilroy et al.].
  • with Sheeran, ‘The Traditional of Vernacular Hatred’, in The Crows Behind the Plough: History and Violence in Anglo-Irish Poetry and Drama , ed. Geert Lernout (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1991), pp.11-27.
  • with Sheeran, Talking to the Dead: The Irish Funerary Traditions (Atlanta: Rodopi 1997).

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Notes
Pat Sheeran: b. 14 Oct. 1943, Navan; son of Mary Elizabeth McArdle from Dundalk and a senior Garda from a farming background in Roscommon; ed. at St Patrick's Classical School, Navan, and UCD, following a short period as a Customs Officer in Dundalk; grad. BA and MA degrees at UCD; worked as an RTE journalist before accepting a lectureship at Galway in Oct. 1968; completed a PhD under Lorna Reynolds as “The Novels of Liam O’Flaherty; A Study in Romantic Realism”, successfully examined by A. N. Jeffares and published by Wolfhound in 1975. Sheeran was a founding member of the Teaching Section of the Workers' Union of Ireland in UCG and was a moving force in Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta in an atmosphere of cultural renewal involving Michael D. Higgins, John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy, Bob Quinn (Cinegael) and Desmond Fennell, who argued the need for independent government in the Gaeltacht (Iarchonacht); noted for his bilingual approach to literary criticism and his support for student involvement in syllabus-design; protested against the honorary degree conferred by UCG on President Reagan, conferring honorary degrees on all comers in Eyre Square in academic dress on the sole condition that they could spell their names.

Film Scholarship: The Pat Sheeran MA in Film Studies hosted by the Huston School of Film and Digital Media at UCG (Galway NUI) has instituted a scholarship worth €2,000. The programme is directed by  Dr. Seán Crosson. (IFTN News - 1 May 2012.)

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