Increase in MA applicants for SpIRE

June 1, 2016 in 201606, Featured News

Dr Michael O’Sullivan SJ has accepted 24 people for the MA in Applied Spirituality at SpIRE, the Spirituality Institute for Research and Education, Milltown Park, Dublin. The course will begin this August. He says the original intention, when the application process opened in March was to accept no more than 18 because of the nature of the programme and the staffing demands. However, such was the extent and strength of interest in the programme that the closing date for applications was brought forward by more than two months and 24 applicants were offered and accepted places.

“This is the first time in Ireland that an Institute of Technology will award an MA in Applied Spirituality and I was responsible for handling all inquiries, processing the paperwork for applications, interviewing all the applicants, and recommending to Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), who are awarding the MA, the applicants to whom places were to be offered”, he says.

SpIRE has just recently acquired a substantial number of books on spirituality from the John Hand Library, All Hallows College, now available in the Jesuit Library at Milltown Park.  According to Michael, “The trustees of All Hallows College who have donated the books to the Jesuit Library for the sake of forwarding spirituality study and research as an applied academic discipline in and from Ireland.”

SpIRE was co-founded by Michael O’Sullivan and Dr Bernadette Flanagan PBVM, and both have just returned from Manchester where they were giving papers and chairing sessions at the bi-annual international conference of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality.

This August SpIRE will also host a summer school in Milltown Park exploring topics such as spirituality and autobiography, spirituality, imagination and art and spirituality and literature. It takes place from 15-19 August, costs €200, and early booking is advisable and possible through Eventbrite.ie.

For further information see the SpIRE website or contact Dr Michael O’Sullivan SJ at [email protected]