The first annual conference of ICIS, the international congress of Irish studies, was held at, and academically sponsored by, the University of California at Berkeley in July 2012. The four main themes of the conference were: Performing Arts; Literature, Language, and Identity; Politics, Technology, and the Economy; and Issues of Intellectual Freedom. These proceedings of this highly successful event, in conjunction with the editor’s Ireland: a colony once again (CSP, 2012), attempt to explore the reinstatement of Irish identity in our present, vastly-changed political and cultural landscape.