Organising Committee Profiles
Anke Klitzing
Dr Anke Klitzing (she/her) lectures on the history, sociology and culture of food and eating as well as food writing and media at the Technological University Dublin, Ireland, where she has completed her PhD research on the theory and methodology of reading food in literature. Besides academic publications, she has written on food, literature and society for Irish, German and Italian publications. She serves on the organising committee of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium, as editor of the Journal of Franco-Irish Studies, production editor of the European Journal of Food, Drink, and Society, on the board of the National Centre of Franco-Irish Studies and as co-host the Oxford Food Symposium "WikiClub" virtual events. She is currently the chair of Softball Leinster.
Brian Murphy
Dr Brian J. Murphy lectures in the School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology at the Technological University Dublin. He has broad gastronomic research interests but is currently focused on the role that place, story and heritage play in food and drink product engagement. He is keen to encourage and develop transdisciplinary links across a range of disparate research areas. A founding committee member of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium, Brian has published and presented widely on various research topics including the role of “place and story” in contemporary drink culture and on how food and drink locations communicate and engage with different audiences.
Diarmuid Cawley
Diarmuid Cawley lectures at TU Dublin. He holds an MA in Anthropology of Food from SOAS in the University of London and a BA Culinary Arts from TU Dublin. A former chef and sommelier, he lectures on all things food and wine related. Other areas of interest have included the language used in the global movement of food and wine; Gender and sexism in wine; Food security in conflict zones; Food heritage and PDOs; Food in science fiction; and the influence of nutrition and time on contemporary food consumption. His ongoing PhD research focuses on the legacy of Formal Wine Writing in Ireland, 1975 – 2005.
Dorothy Cashman
Dr Dorothy Cashman is an independent researcher. After her undergraduate degree at University College Dublin she worked for Aer Lingus for thirty years. In 2009 she completed her M.Sc. at TU Dublin with a dissertation on Ireland's printed cookbooks and in 2016 was awarded her PhD on Irish culinary manuscripts. Currently researching the account books of the Order of Friars Minor held at UCD Archives, She has presented at international symposia and at the National Library of Ireland on the culinary manuscripts in their collection.
Eamon Maher
Eamon Maher is Director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies at TU Dublin (Tallaght Campus). He is a member of the organising committee of the DGS and in that capacity co-edited, with Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire, an essay collection, ‘Tickling the Palate’: Gastronomy in Irish Literature and Culture (Peter Lang, 2014), which contained a number of essays from the first DGS conference in 2012.
Eamon is General Editor of two academic book series with Peter Lang Oxford, Reimagining Ireland and Studies in Franco-Irish Relations. He has published widely on representations of Catholicism in 20th-century fiction, with particular reference to France and Ireland.
John Mulcahy
John has an unusual and diverse skillset from four decades of experience in the tourism & hospitality industries, the public service, and academia. His most recent role was with Ireland’s National Tourism Development Authority where he led the Food Tourism, Hospitality Education, and Tourist Accommodation Standards division. Since 2017, John has completed his PhD at TU Dublin, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Food Travel Association in 2021. Currently he is extern examiner for the Seychelles Tourism Academy, and Shannon College of Hotel Management, while also being regularly invited as guest lecturer when he advocates for a wider understanding of the role of food 'in' tourism. Meanwhile, he is compiling an inventory on Irish Food, aiming to publish it as a book next year. More at LinkedIn
Elaine Mahon
Dr Elaine Mahon lectures in culinary arts, gastronomy and food studies at the School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology at Technological University Dublin. She is on the board of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies and is a trustee of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery where she also coordinates the Young Chefs programme. Elaine is on the organising committees of the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium and the Food And Drink As... conference series, and is editor of the Journal of Franco-Irish Studies. She was awarded her PhD for her research on diplomatic dining, state entertainment and the protocols established for the reception of important visitors to Ireland following the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, and is currently preparing a monograph for Peter Lang, Oxford entitled The Minister requests the pleasure: Irish Diplomatic Dining, 1922-1963.
Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire
Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire is a senior lecturer at Technological University Dublin, 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.