A Decade Backing Irish Studies in Hungary: Embassy Bursary Winners 2024
On 12 March, the Embassy marked the 10th anniversary of its Bursary scholarship programme with a St Patrick’s Day reception celebrating Irish studies in Hungary.
Alongside members of the Forum of Hungarian Scholars of Irish Studies, Ambassador Almqvist presented this year’s Bursaries to Borbala Andl-Beck, a PhD student at ELTE, and Boglarka Dobos, an MA student at the Karoli Gaspar University of Reform Church.
Generously sponsored by McHale and Pannonia Bio, the bursaries will fund Ms Andl-Beck's research trip to Limerick and Sligo to research the intersection of othering in Irish history and literature, with Ms Dobos travelling to the National Library of Ireland to research the papers of diplomat Sir Owen O’Malley.
Ambassador Almqvist’s address in presenting the Bursaries is available here:
"Tisztelt Barátaim, It’s an honour to welcome you to our home.
This Sunday, we mark St Patrick’s Day. A holiday that speaks to some of the paradoxes of our people.
It’s a celebration of Ireland. But it honours a Welshman. It’s a day. But it stretches over a fortnight. It’s our national festival. But it’s celebrated with far more fervour abroad than at home.
So whereas Prime Minister Orbán and his cabinet will spend 15 March in Budapest. 17 March will see our Taoiseach in the White House. And his Government scattered across the world.
Since medieval monks put quill to parchment, Ireland has been revered as the land of saints and scholars. Saints are in short supply these days. But, with more than half our population holding degrees, we’ve a surplus of scholars.
That attainment rate – the third highest in the OECD – is largely the result of decades of sustained investment in education. But it stems too from our openness to immigration.
Almost one in five people in Ireland today was born overseas. And, whether from Budapest or Brasilia, New Dehli or New York, these immigrants are, on average, highly educated.
And, like St Patrick a millennium and a half ago, motivated to better our nation. I know. Because my father was one such person.
Bo Almqvist was a folklorist. In the 1950s, he learned Gaelic at Uppsala University and took to travelling to the west of Ireland - primarily to Kerry - to collect from storytellers there.
Papa was a fluent writer and speaker of many languages. But he learned his English from Swedes. And, as such, spoke with such a heavy accent that few friends of mine could ever understand him. But, as the people of Dunquin – who christened him ‘‘an Lochlannach’’ or the Viking – put it, he spoke Irish like a Kerryman.
Pure as the poitin they distilled there – even more potent than your pálinka. In the late 70s, Bo met my mother, Eilis, a writer and fellow folklorist. A photo of their wedding day, in Uppsala some years later, shows the two of them sitting quietly at a kitchen table shortly before the ceremony. Mam is in a plain white dress, my father in a simple suit, both ignoring each other completely, heads buried blissfully in books. It’s a picture that captures my childhood.
A life crammed with books, art and music. A home frequented by writers, scholars and storytellers. Where we could sit for hours in each other’s company, happily saying nothing, only to burst into debate about the correct interpretation of an Irish proverb.
It’s one of the reasons that, as a diplomat, I’ve always been drawn to scholars. And why, since arriving here in Hungary, one of my greatest joys has been to meet – and get to know – the outstanding individuals profiled in these pages.
This directory documents – and celebrates – 33 brilliant men and women. Scholars who have enriched old Irish art with new Hungarian insights. Translators who have rendered Hiberno-English into Magyarul meters.
Teachers, tutors, mentors whose passion has instilled a new generation of Hungarians students with a love of Irish culture. Barátaim, I could not be more grateful for your efforts. Ireland could not be more grateful.
This publication is a small testament to that. But I’m determined to demonstrate it over the coming years by doing more to connect your colleges with Irish counterparts. And to support your academic and artistic freedoms.
Alongside the catalogue launch, we celebrate today the tenth anniversary of the Embassy’s Bursary Programme. Supported by local Irish enterprise, and by the Irish Studies Scholar Forum, the programme has paved a path for young scholars to study in Ireland.
I owe my colleague, Marianna, a huge köszönöm for developing it a decade ago. And for managing it since.
The quality of the applications to the Bursary this year were excellent. Hand on heart, I can say that I didn’t have a role in choosing the recipients. But, before I was a diplomat, I worked as a Library Assistant in the National Library of Ireland – which Boglárka Dobos will now visit to research British diplomat Sir Owen O’Malley. And, before I worked in the National Library, I studied English literature in Trinity - which Boróka Andl-Beck will now have a chance to visit to advance her studies on Bram Stoker and the ‘othering’ of our Traveller community. Subjects I’m also deeply interested in.
Boglárka, Boróka. Gratulalok. I look forward to hearing about your visits. And to seeing the research you produce on foot of it.
A Chairde, Barataim, One of my father’s great delights in life was the wisdom of proverbs – in Irish sean-fhocail, or old words. As I grapple with – and more often than not mangle magyarul – I find I learn most by studying közmondás.
Folklore is built on the rule of three. So no surprising that one of my favourites is: "Három a Magyar igazság"
So, please join me in raising your glasses. And wishing: Egésegedre, Sláinte, Health and Happiness. To Boglárka. To Boróka.
And to all the brilliant Hungarian scholars - young and less young – that have done so much to reimagine Ireland. Köszönöm a chairde."