ABOUT US
The Centre is based in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at UCC and the School of Humanities at WIT.
The Economy & Society Summer School is run as part of this centre.

Our logo is the Dagda’s Cauldron from Knowth, a dining vessel that never emptied and from which everyone got a fair share. This vessel serves as a symbolic representation of the gift relation; the anthropologically universal foundation of Society, Economy, and Culture.
Prof. Maggie O’Neill and Dr. Ray Griffin are the current directors of the centre.

Maggie O'Neill
UCC

Ray Griffin
WIT
The Society, Economy, and Culture Research Centre:
- Studies the manner in which the development of the modern global economy, driven by unlimited technological growth and an unbridled profit motive damages the very tissue of social life;
- Through research and teaching suggests novel ways to stop this process by re-ethicizing the social fabric that is necessary in order to live a healthy, meaningful and ethical life;
- Organizes courses, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, that promote an education oriented towards a responsible, meaningful, healthy and hopeful life.
- Conducts research in and with communities and civil society organisations using participatory, creative, biographical, feminist and ‘non procedural’ methods and methodologies
It is evident that Ireland, just as the rest of the world is experiencing a very fundamental social, political and cultural crisis, which incorporates environmental crises and climate breakdown as well. Any claim that this crisis can be overcome by the standard means, and therefore soon we can return to business as usual, is not sound practical reason, but an irresponsible evasion of facing reality.
We have to reckon that we, altogether, have reached an impasse, or even paralysis. It is necessary to find a way forward, but for this we must be able to overcome some deeply ingrained ways of thinking. In the words of John Maynard Keynes, who faced a similar situation, ‘the difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds’.
The Centre takes its mission from, amongst other sources, Max Weber’s writings from an historical period that has troubling similarities to our own; namely, Weber’s formulation of the problem of escaping the seemingly watertight, irresistible and irreversible ‘iron cage’ of the present age of rationalized acquisitiveness; the comprehensive intellectual, political and moral programme that Weber set out in Economy & Society; and the hopefulness of ‘Politics as a Vocation’ where he says: “It is perfectly true, and confirmed by all historical experience, that the possible cannot be achieved without continually reaching out towards that which is impossible in this world”.
President Michael D. Higgins opening the 2015 Summer School with staff and students.
Our annual event – the Economy + Society Summer School is now open for applications. This year’s theme is | Returning: Out of the digital and into the dialogue –
Returning, getting back, starting again – these are the themes of our times as we hope to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of crisis. Yet, even as the pandemic crisis seems to abate, economic crises of inflation, social crises of mental health, political crises of populism or polarisation and geo-political crises loom, without mentioning the ever-deepening ecological crisis. And yet, we return, to try again, to think anew, to hope for better days.
Deadline April 30th!
SCHEDULE
Events and Activities
Times | Monday 13th | Tuesday 14th | Wednesday 15th | Thursday 16th | Friday 17th |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
9:30 -11 am | Arrivals and Orientation: Conveneat at 11:30 in our Aula | Reading groups ![]() | Reading groups | Reading groups | Solitary Reflections |
Mid Morning Break | Mid Morning Break | Mid Morning Break | Mid Morning Break | Mid Morning Break | Mid Morning Break |
11:30 - 1pm | Introduction: Economy & Society 2019 Maggie O'Neill UCC | Nisha Kapoor Warwick | Damian O'Doherty Manchester | Kieran Keohane | Student Presentation s |
Lunch sitting at 1pm | Lunch sitting at 1pm | Lunch sitting at 1pm | Lunch sitting at 1pm | Lunch sitting at 1pm | Lunch sitting at 1pm |
Afternoon sessions with breaks | Rene Ten Bos Radbound Victoria Grace Canterbury NZ | Tom Boland WIT Jill O'Mahoney WIT & James Cuffe UCC Carmen Kuhling UL & Tina Kinsella IADT | Walk to Bridgetown Abbey Abbey lecture: Maggie O'Neill UCC ![]() | Ray Griffin WIT & Colette Kirwan WIT James Fairhead UCC Professorial: Mary Daly Interview | Michael Cronin TCD Closing Roundtable |
Dinner sitting at 7pm | Dinner sitting at 7pm | Dinner sitting at 7pm | Dinner sitting at 7pm | Dinner sitting at 7pm | Dinner sitting at 7pm |
Evening time: Dinner at 7ish, Reconvene at 8ish | Bonfire of the Vanities![]() | Salon: Paul Clogher WIT | Salon: Triona Ni Shiocahin UCC | Salon: Ger Mullally UCC | Parting Glass Celebration (departures Sat AM) |
Location of event
Hosted entire online for the first time in 2021. Previously hosted at Blackwater Castle, Connaberry, Castletownroche, Co. Cork