The Irish start-up ‘FiftyTwoWords’  host their second event, titled ‘Struggle’

FiftyTwoWords provides a platform for people to share their personal experiences, tell their stories and define their words. Each event is based around a word or a theme through which 3-4 speakers will explore and share their diverse and personal perspectives of that theme.
Speaking about the motivation behind setting up FiftyTwoWords, Co-Founder Diarmuid says “We want to create an environment where people can share ideas and experiences in order to promote discussion and even challenge people’s perceptions and ideals. Through these events we hope to ignite people’s passions and potentially raise interest in worthwhile endeavours and causes.”

At their debut event four selected speakers shared their experiences and stories revolving around the word ‘Risk’. The event proved to be a real success with audience members commending and connecting to the diversity of speakers on the night.

STRUGGLE: The four speakers:

Dr. Shane Hegarty (Neuro-Scientist and Researcher)

Richard Barrett (COO & Co-Founder Pundit Arena & One Zero Sports Tech Conference)

Philip Quinlan (Retired Army Captain & Management Consultant with KPMG)

Sandra Gowran (Education & Support Programme Manager at Educate Together, Director of Constituency Mobilisation, Yes Equality Campaign)

UCC Neuroscientist and researcher Dr. Shane Hegarty portrays an academic approach to the concept of ‘Struggle’. As a Neuroscientist, he researches struggle to try to define and explain how we experience, create and manage struggles, and explores the impact of struggle on our lives, from a biological, psychological and neuroscientific view-point. He uses the case study of his own life experiences as a Parkinson’s researcher to discuss his hypotheses on struggle.

Dr. Hegarty will be followed by Richard Barrett, the Co- founder of both Pundit Arena and the recently held One-Zero Sport Tech Conference. He will present his experiences of the entrepreneurial struggle in starting out and growing a business. He will shed some light on the high and lows that come part and parcel with building a business from nothing. An example being the withdrawal of Lance Armstrong as the main speaker, less than twenty four hours from the recently held One-Zero Sport Tech Conference held in the RDS last October.

Phil Quinlan a retired Captain in the Irish Army, who now works as a management consultant with KPMG will present on struggle as being formative in our personal and cultural development. He will discuss how struggle can remain personal, even in the midst of wider conflict, citing his overseas experiences in the war torn regions of Kosovo, Uganda and Western Sahara. These personal experiences coupled with his extensive studies and research in political science and conflict resolution will make for a dynamic presentation.

The final speaker, Sandra Irwin Gowran, works as the Education & Support Programme Manager at Educate Together. Speaking about her previous role as Gay and Lesbian Equality Network’s former director and Civil Marriage Equality campaigner she will provide the audience with an insight into the struggles she and the civil marriage equality campaign faced on route to making Ireland allow open access to civil marriage for same sex couples. This will be an extremely insightful and honest talk around the subject of homosexuality and the struggle for LGBT rights in Ireland.

FiftyTwoWords, Diarmuid says, “We are really excited about our line up and feel we have an amazingly, interesting and dynamic show, that everyone can learn and take something away with them.”

Patrons of this FiftyTwoWords event will also have the opportunity to share their own ‘Struggle’ stories during the mid-way break. No matter how large or how small the struggle, guests are invited and encouraged to define their own words and the meaning of struggle in their own life in a short impromptu presentation during the interlude.

DOORS: 7.30pm