This collection emerged from a conference held in TU Dublin at a time when the theme of «New Beginnings» seemed particularly apposite. In the few years prior to the gathering, COVID-19 had brought the world to almost a complete standstill. The need to recalibrate, to find new and more effective ways of dealing with the climate crisis, domestic and international politics, literary expression, and technology, was clearly felt by everyone. The fourteen essays deal with literary figures such as Jonathan Swift, George Moore, Colm Tóibín, Richard Murphy, Seamus Heaney, Michael OSiadhail, Sally Rooney and Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Other issues broached are the diplomatic work carried out by Seán T. OKelly as Irelands envoy to Paris when an independent Ireland was seeking international recognition; depictions of the AIDS crisis in Irish theatre; the Neganthropocene in the French TV series Zone Blanche; new opportunities for learning through digital archives; strategies to save the rural Irish pub; innovative strategies employed by Ireland on the world stage, and the use of science to manipulate the French publics beliefs about COVID-19. The diversity of material and approaches guarantees that New Beginnings will appeal to a large number of readers.

Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire is a senior lecturer at Technological University Dublin, chef, culinary historian, broadcaster and ballad singer. Co-founder and chair of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium, he also chairs the Masters in Gastronomy and Food Studies in TU Dublin. He co-edited 'Tickling the Palate': Gastronomy in Irish Literature and Culture (Peter Lang: 2014), 'The Food Issue' of The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies (2018), and in 2021, guest edited a special issue of Folk Life on Irish food ways. Máirtín also co-edits the European Journal of Food Drink and Society. In 2021 and 2022, he was awarded a Research Ally Prize by the Irish Research Council. Eamon Maher is Director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies in TU Dublin. He is General Editor of Reimagining Ireland and Studies in Franco-Irish Relations and has edited and co-edited several books in both series. He is currently working on a monograph in English on the French priest-writer Jean Sulivan (1913-1980).