I am the corresponding member for Ireland on the International Geographical Union's Commission on the World Political Map. My role is basically to pass on any information I receive about the Commission's activities to other political geographers in Ireland. This is not a very onerous job because political geographers in Ireland are few and far between (although paradoxically several Irish-born political geographers figure very prominently on the world stage).
I was the local organiser of an international conference hosted in Maynooth and Queen's University Belfast in 1998 on behalf of the IGU Commission on the World Political Map. This turned out to be a much larger undertaking than I had imagined. However, I made a lot of new friends, so it was well worthwhile. I developed a web site before the conference to provide information to intending delegates. Some of the information (e.g. costs, and how to get here) is now irrelevant, but the site contains the full text of most of the papers and other potentially useful or interesting information. I have therefore left the site as a memorial to what I think was a successful and certainly very enjoyable event. (IGU Conference).
Following the conference, I acted as the editor of special editions of three journals which published many of the papers presented at the Conference. Unfortunately it was not possible to accommodate all the papers within the themes selected by the journals, so some excellent papers had to be omitted. Some of these have since found other publication outlets. The three journals which I edited were:
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