June 5-8, 2017, SHU hosted a conference entitled Sea, Land, and Spirit: Coastal Environment in the West of Ireland organized by Dr. John B. Roney (SHU). At that time SHU had developed a collaboration called Project Draíocht, a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with University College Cork (UCC), Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), and the Institute of Technology Tralee (ITT) [Cork and Tralee have now amalgamated to form the Munster Technological University]. The conference was made possible with grants from the Irish Marine Institute/ Foras na Mara, Rinville, Oranmore, Co. Galway, and the Irish Environmental Protection Agency, Johnstown Castle Estate, Co. Wexford, as well as with support from the Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium/ Mara Beo Teo, and the above-listed universities. Scholars from several American universities joined scholars and graduate students from UCC, ITT, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, Trinity College Dublin, and Queen’s University, Belfast, as well as practitioners in environmental education and management. Several of the conference presentations have been published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2022, edited by John B. Roney and Mark Beekey under the same title: Coastal Environment in the West of Ireland: Sea, Land, and Spirit.

June 2017 and June 2019 Sacred Heart University and the John Moriarty Institute for Ecology and Spirituality sponsored educational tours called In the Footsteps of John Moriarty. This included an eight-day trip following the journey of the distinguished Irish philosopher and storyteller John Moriarty, including significant places on the Dingle peninsula, Killarney, Skellig Michael monastery, Listowel, Clare, and Connemara. Tours were led by Dr. Michael W. Higgins, at the time Distinguished Professor of Catholic Thought at SHU and Brother Séan Aherne, each bringing a different dimension to the tour. Higgins placed Moriarty’s ideas in the context of other significant twentieth-century thinkers, with insights from his own biographies of Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen. Sean Aherne knew Moriarty very well, and offered valuable insights into how Moriarty experienced nature and sought a deeper spirituality. The tours visited the Dingle peninsula and toured several well-preserved ancient forts and chapels, such as Gallarus and Kilmalkadar, and holy wells. The tour also spend several days in Killarney where John Moriarty lived at the foot of Mangerton Mountain, and explored the beauty of Killarney National Park. Traveling north from Killarney the tour visited Listowel, near Moriarty’s birthplace and famous for its writers’ conferences, followed by a visit to the Cliffs of Moher, and then on to Connemara.

April 9-12, 2018, SHU in Dingle hosted a conference-workshop entitled Deep Time – historical exploitation of marine resources sponsored by Norfish Project & European Oceans Past Platform, Trinity College, Dublin. Dr. Poul Holm, Professor of Environmental History at TCD, and President of the European Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centres, organized the conference-workshop. See: https://www.tcd.ie/tceh/news/

April 8-10, 2022, SHU in Dingle hosted a workshop entitled Atlantic Anthropological / Antraipeolaíochta Atlantach convened by Dr. James Cuffe (UCC) and Dr. Fiona Murphy (Queen’s University, Belfast). The workshop has a collaboration between University College Cork, Queens University Belfast, and Sacred Heart University, and was made possible thanks to the following generous sponsors: CACSSS Graduate Studies Office and CACSSS International Office at University College Cork; The School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queens University Belfast; The Society, Economy, & Culture Research Centre, UCC & WIT, and SHU in Dingle. Faculty involved in presentations were Isabel Bennett (SHU), James Cuffe (UCC), Billy Mag Fhloinn (SHU), Kieran Keohane (UCC), Dáithí de Mórdha (SHU), Fiona Murphy (QUB), and Kevin Power (SHU).