Published: August 9, 2025
Three members of Mary Immaculate College (MIC) have been named among the 18 recipients of the 2025–2026 Fulbright Irish Awards, announced by Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, and the U.S. Embassy in Dublin. The awardees — Michaela de Búrca, Melissa Scully, and Dr Julie Morrissy — were formally honoured at a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin.
Michaela de Búrca, who graduated with first-class honours in 2024 with a BA in Education, Mathematics, and Gaeilge from MIC Thurles and is now pursuing an MA sa Ghaeilge at MIC Limerick, will travel to the College of Our Lady of the Elms in Massachusetts as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA). She aims to inspire students’ passion for Gaeilge and Irish culture.
Melissa Scully, a Kildare native currently completing a Master’s in Applied Linguistics at MIC Limerick, will serve as a Fulbright FLTA at the University of Montana. She looks forward to sharing Irish language and culture while gaining valuable international teaching experience to bring back to Ireland.
Dr Julie Morrissy, a poet and Postdoctoral Research Fellow on MIC’s Pathologies of Violence: Inscriptions of Global Conflict in Irish Literature 1922–present (PATHOS) project, has been named one of nine Fulbright Irish Scholars for 2025. Her research will focus on the transatlantic friendship between U.S. activist Alice Park (1861–1961) and Irish activist Hanna Sheehy Skeffington (1877–1946). She will conduct her work at the University of California, Berkeley, with additional research at Stanford University and The Huntington Library.
Speaking at the ceremony, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Edward S. Walsh praised the awardees for strengthening U.S.–Ireland ties through education and cultural exchange. Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris T.D. highlighted the Fulbright Programme’s historic role in fostering the special relationship between the two countries. MIC President Prof. Dermot Nestor commended the recipients for their academic excellence, cultural dedication, and commitment to international engagement.
The Fulbright Programme in Ireland, established in 1957, provides annual grants for Irish citizens to study, research, or lecture in the United States and for Americans to do the same in Ireland. The 2025–2026 awardees will undertake their projects in the U.S. from August 2025 to August 2026 across a range of disciplines.
Source: Mary Immaculate College
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