From: "Brian McGinn"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Faction Fights

Irish fisheries workers also brought recreational fighting
to Newfoundland. See Cyril J. Byrne, ed., Gentlemen-Bishops
and Faction Fighters: the letters of Bishops O Donel,
Lambert, Scallan and other Irish Missionaries (St. John's:
Jesperson Press, 1984) for late 18th--early 19th C
references.

D.W. Prowse, in A History of Newfoundland (London: Eyre and
Spottiswoode, 1896), describes "Irish faction fights on the
Barrens, when General Finn stripped to fight General
Muldowney for the honour of Waterford against the 'yallow
bellies' of Wexford. These fights were simply for
'diversion'; the town was dull after the fishery was
finished....; what could an Irish boy in those times
without a bit of lively fun?" These events took place c
1813.

In addition to the well-known Yellow Belly, the Dictionary
of Newfoundland English, edited by G.M. Story, W.J. Kirwin
& J.D.A. Widdison (University of Toronto Press, 1982, 1990)
has other faction epithets that are new to me: Clear Airs
(Tipperary); Dadyeens (Cork); Doones (Kilkenny) and (my
favorite) Whey Bellies (Waterford). According to DNE,
citing Pedley 1863, the three Munster counties in St.
John's were lined up against the Leinster factions, c 1815.

I wonder if some of the reported 'riots' among Irish canal
workers in 19th C U.S. reflected the same phenomenon?
Connemara and Kerrymen were still regularly 'at it' and
each other, on the slightest provocation, in the Irish
dance halls in mid 1960s New York...


Brian McGinn
Alexandria, Virginia

>>From: Marion R. Casey
>>To: comp[at]osullivan.britishlibrary.net
>>Subject: UNLIKELY MONUMENTS
>>

If you are in New York City, instead of heading over to 8th Avenue as Dan
Cassidy suggests, simply turn on any faucet or flush any toilet and there
is your unlikely monument to the Irish Diaspora.

Since 1842 the City has been supplied with water from the dammed Croton
River in Westchester County. The original Croton Aqueduct (40.5 miles or
65.2 kilometers) was built between 1836 and 1842. Beginning in the 1850s
and continuing until 1911, the Croton system was extended. These
improvements included a new reservoir in Central Park completed in 1862
and a New Croton Aqueduct in 1890. The water was distributed from
reservoirs in Central Park and at 42nd Street (site of the New York Public
Library) through underground trunk mains made of unlined cast iron. This
system was the main source of water for New York City until the first
world war.

>From the 1850s, the T.E. Crimmins Company had important contracts for the
extension of the Croton System. The firm had expertise in
street excavations and in constructing subways for electric wires and
water pipes. Thomas Crimmins emigrated from Limerick in 1835. After
working for more than a dozen years for Thomas Addis Emmet, Crimmins began
work as a contractor. His son John D. Crimmins entered the firm in 1860
at age 16 and succeeded his father in 1872. The company was the first to
use the steam drill, a very important advantage in a City built on
bedrock. Its payroll averaged about 2,000 but at times was as high as
12,000 men (i.e. the proverbial Irish laborer). The 1904 edition of Who's
Who in New York City & State says that without mentioning the Crimmins
name "a history of the material development and growth of Manhattan
Island would be incomplete."

Today the Croton System still accounts for 10% of the more than 1500
million gallons (5678 million liters) of water used every day in the
City. In the last decade New York has experienced a large number of water
main breaks that disrupt daily routines. Chances are good that the iron
pipe that needs to be replaced was laid down by the Crimmins Company
during the second half of the nineteenth century.

The City's water system is much larger today that it was a century
ago. Two tunnels just north of the City in Yonkers, completed in 1917 and
1936, feed the trunk mains with water from the Catskill and Delaware
reservoirs. These tunnels were built by "sandhogs" in a combination of
mining and construction work. The sandhogs are members of Tunnel Workers
Local 147, a traditionally Irish union. The first section of a third
major water tunnel was opened recently. For insights into the Irish
American sandhog world, see the novels Table Money by Jimmy Breslin or
Payback by Tom Kelly.

A metropolis without water -- let's not even think about it!

Marion R. Casey
Department of History
New York University


Bibliography

Kenneth T. Jackson, The Encyclopedia of New York City (1995),
s.v. "water," "Croton Aqueduct," "John D. Crimmins"

On New York City and water, see Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace,
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (1999)

On Thomas Crimmins, see Chapter XXVII of Rossa's Recollections by
O'Donovan Rossa (1898)

p.s.
John D. Crimmins is the author of St. Patrick's Day: Its Celebration in
New York and Other American Places, 1737-1845 (1902), and Irish American
Historical Miscellany (1905).

p.s.

For information on the new City Water Tunnel No. 3 see a great interactive
page on the NYC Department of Environmental Protection website

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/dep/

Choose "News" for the story and see in particular photographs number 2, 3,
7 & 12

Also see Mayor Giuliani's 16 August 1998 radio address on the subject at

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/om/html/986/me980816.html

H-Net have posted a review of Frank Neal's book...

Reviewed for EH.NET by Ron Weir
Frank Neal. _Black '47: Britain and the Famine Irish_. London:
Macmillan Press and New York: St Martin's Press, 1998. xv + 292 pp.
$69.95 (cloth), ISBN:0-333-66595-3.
http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=28462952719610

My own review of this important book will appear on the Ir-D list, soon.

P.O'S.


- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: Linda Dowling Almeida
"Almeida, Ed (Exchange)"
Subject: RE: Ir-D Help with Book selection

Kerby Miller's Emigrants and Exiles:Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North
America, Oxford University Press is a very good book. It is long and
detailed, but it covers the period your teaching (1607-1921) and you can
assign it in sections. Also as the title suggests, it focuses primarily on
migration to North America. I've used it very successfully with
undergraduates. Good luck with your course.
Linda Dowling Almeida
New York University

> -----Original Message-----
> From: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk [SMTP:irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk]
> Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:13 AM
> To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
> Subject: Ir-D Help with Book selection
>
>
> From: Dean_Holt[at]att.net
> Subject: Help with Book selection
>
> Hello: I hope this question will not be offensive for
> being too elementary. I am a new list member who will
> teach an upper-division history course on Ireland
> 1688-1923 in Fordham University Night School this Fall.
> I have never taught anything but a general survey before.
> Thus I have never been able to include one good book on
> Irish emigration/diaspora. What one book would list
> members suggest for a good discussion of the topic(keep
> in mind the chronology of the course)? These are night
> school students so I want to avoid anything too lengthy.
> Thanks in advance for your help.
> Patrick Holt
> St. Basil College - Ukrainian Catholic Seminary
> 195 Glenbrook Road
> Stamford, CT 06902-3099
> phone: (203)324-4578
> Fax: (203)357-7681
> Dean_Holt[at]worldnet.att.net


***********************************************************************
Bear Stearns is not responsible for any recommendation, solicitation,
offer or agreement or any information about any transaction, customer
account or account activity contained in this communication.
***********************************************************************

FORWARDED ON BEHALF OF
New Hibernia Review
Thomas Dillon Redshaw, Editor
tdredshaw[at]stthomas.edu


Dear Folks:

March fades; April blooms. The first issue of the fourth volume of
New Hibernia Review will shortly be in the post to all subscribers.

The covers for this volume for the year 2000 are all drawn from
contemporary patchwork art created by Irishwomen North and South. The
transparencies were provided by Karen Holland. The first cover portrays
Mullaghmore as rendered by Ann Fahy in four quilted panels.

Writing from Providence, Rhode Island, Prof. Karen Holland opens this issue
with a history of Irish quilting and patchwork art in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, taking particular note of contemporary artists and the
role of patchwork guilds in the Irish women's movement.

After that, Dr. Bruce Stewart offers a detailed, yet pointedly
polemical essay on the century-long influence of Douglas Hyde's "On the
Necessity of De-Anglicising Ireland" on Irish ideology and cultural
criticism.

Then comes a suite of highly crafted poems from the Cork poet
Gregory O'Donoghue-chiefly an extended sequence of poems deriving from his
decade working on the British railways in Lincolnshire.

The young American historian David Holmes then provides our readers
with a detailed analysis of Dublin's 1932 Eucharistic Congress and its
contribution to the formation of Ireland's Catholic identity.

Prof. Richard Harp examines the letters and diaries of the
long-forgotten Irish poet, journalist, and nationalist Alice Milligan.

That modern Ireland descends directly from late Victorian Ireland is
a crucial truism. Prof. Thomas Jordan looks into the nineteenth-century
census to reveal
a bit of amelioration of Irish life during those decades.

Details of late Victorian Irish often appear in fiction. Dr. Nicole
Greene
looks into the spoken language-dialect and idiolect-of The Real Charlotte
by Somerville and Ross.

From a different angle, Dr. R. J. Clougherty examines Bram Stoker's
Dracula
to argue that it is an autiobiographical novel of Stoker's social
displacement in Imperial London.

The issue concludes with a raft of book reviews.

Readers of the Irish Studies list interested in subscribing to New
Hibernia Review should either consult the recently updated Center for
Irish Studies web site http://department.stthomas.edu/IrishStudies or
contact James Rogers, Managing Editor at jrogers[at]stthomas.edu
.

Readers interested in sending their work to New Hibernia Review
should contact either James Rogers or Thomas Dillon Redshaw, Editor, at
tdredshaw[at]stthomas.edu .

Thanks for reading all this.

Thomas Dillon Redshaw, Editor

From: MCagney766[at]aol.com
Subject: Re: Ir-D Help with Book selection

Hi,
I'm researching Irish Americans at present and have found a number of books.
One that is very readable is Prof. Lawrence J. MCCaffrey's The Irish Catholic
Diaspora in America which deals mainly with Catholic immigrants. It is
excellent. McCaffrey is a former history professor at Loyola university in
Chicago

Mary Cagney

From: Dean_Holt[at]att.net
Subject: Re: Ir-D Help with Book selection

Linda Dowling Almeida:

Thanks for your message..I will take a look at Miller's
book...sounds like just what I need.
Patrick Holt

- --
St. Basil College - Ukrainian Catholic Seminary
195 Glenbrook Road
Stamford, CT 06902-3099
phone: (203)324-4578
Fax: (203)357-7681
Dean_Holt[at]worldnet.att.net
>
>
> From: Linda Dowling Almeida
> "Almeida, Ed (Exchange)"
> Subject: RE: Ir-D Help with Book selection
>
> Kerby Miller's Emigrants and Exiles:Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North
> America, Oxford University Press is a very good book. It is long and
> detailed, but it covers the period your teaching (1607-1921) and you can
> assign it in sections. Also as the title suggests, it focuses primarily on
> migration to North America. I've used it very successfully with
> undergraduates. Good luck with your course.
> Linda Dowling Almeida
> New York University
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk [SMTP:irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk]
> > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:13 AM
> > To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
> > Subject: Ir-D Help with Book selection
> >
> >
> > From: Dean_Holt[at]att.net
> > Subject: Help with Book selection
> >
> > Hello: I hope this question will not be offensive for
> > being too elementary. I am a new list member who will
> > teach an upper-division history course on Ireland
> > 1688-1923 in Fordham University Night School this Fall.
> > I have never taught anything but a general survey before.
> > Thus I have never been able to include one good book on
> > Irish emigration/diaspora. What one book would list
> > members suggest for a good discussion of the topic(keep
> > in mind the chronology of the course)? These are night
> > school students so I want to avoid anything too lengthy.
> > Thanks in advance for your help.
> > Patrick Holt
> > St. Basil College - Ukrainian Catholic Seminary
> > 195 Glenbrook Road
> > Stamford, CT 06902-3099
> > phone: (203)324-4578
> > Fax: (203)357-7681
> > Dean_Holt[at]worldnet.att.net
>
>
> ***********************************************************************
> Bear Stearns is not responsible for any recommendation, solicitation,
> offer or agreement or any information about any transaction, customer
> account or account activity contained in this communication.
> ***********************************************************************

Leon Litvack has brought this to our attention...
Subject: The Irish in Atlantic Canada


Dear friends,

Those of you with an interest in the Irish in Atlantic Canada
might wish to check out Virtual Atlantic's set of web pages on
the subject.

Point your browser to

http://www.discribe.ca/atlantic/vac/irish-in-ac.html

----------------------
Leon Litvack
Senior Lecturer
School of English
Queen's University of Belfast
Belfast BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK

L.Litvack[at]qub.ac.uk
http://www.qub.ac.uk/english/prometheus.html

Tel. +44-(0)2890-273266
Fax +44-(0)2890-314615

From: Patrick Maume
Subject: Re: Ir-D Race & the Irish

From: Patrick Maume
THe professor was Julius Pokorny; there is an article about him by Pol
O Dochartaigh in the current HISTORY IRELAND (Spring 2000)
Best wishes,
Patrick


On Sat 25 Mar 2000 13:25:00 +0000 irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:

> From:irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk> Date: Sat 25 Mar 2000 13:25:00
+0000
> Subject: Ir-D Race & the Irish
> To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>
>
> From: "Marion R. Casey"
> Subject: Race & the Irish
>
>
> Today (3.24.2000) MSNBC is featuring a Reuters story that List
members
> might be interested in discussing:
>
> "Geneticists find Irish are a race apart; Emerald Isle westerners
share
> unique Y chromosome type"
>
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/385467.asp?cp1=1
>
> It's based on a Trinity College study done by Daniel Bradley, et.al.
>
> The report reminds me of a New York Times story (10/28/1925) "Irish
Come
> from Eskimos, German Professor Suggests." This was an Associated
Press
> story. According to the Berlin professor of philology, "In isolated
parts
> of Ireland and Scotland are to be found types with Mongol features,
> oblique eyes, straight black hair and thin lips. Anthropologically
these
> types could only be connected with the Eskimos..."
>
> Marion R. Casey
> Department of History
> New York University
>
>
>

Forwarded on behalf of
Dublin Business School (Republic of Ireland)


Lecturer in Archaeology

Dublin Business School, incorporating LSB College, is expanding its range
of humanities and social sciences programmes through the development of a
BA in Archaeology and Anthropology. Applications are now sought for the
position of Lecturer in Archaeology. Candidates should have a relevant
post-graduate degree (preferably a PhD), a growing research profile and
some teaching experience. Applications are particularly welcome from
candidates with interests in the commercial applications of archaeology.

This appointment will be made on a one-year contract basis. Further
information, together with remuneration details, is available on request.
Apply to Dr David Slattery, Academic Dean and Head of the Department of
Anthropology, LSB College, Balfe Street, Dublin 2, or email: Dean[at]LSB.ie

From Patrick O'Sullivan

On faction fights, images of the peasant, Captain Rock, Captain Swing, Rebecca, and so
on...

I have a soft spot for
Patrick O'Sullivan, 'A literary difficulty in explaining Ireland: Tom Moore and Captain
Rock, 1824', in Swift & Gilley, eds., The Irish in Britain, 1815-1939, Pinter, London,
1989.

Despite the fact that my revered Editors gave the chapter a daft title, which I do not
understand. When I confronted Sheridan Gilley, he said that they felt that the title
needed to indicate that this was not a usual work of history...

It was one of my first substantial, published forays into Irish stuff. It is basically a
study of the ways in which the Captain Rock outrages in Ireland were explained to and in
London - and specifically of the _silences_ within texts. And I have been looking at the
chapter again, because I find myself once again writing about 'the discourse of the
peasant' - with special attention to the influence of Thomas & Znaniecki's Polish Peasant
on studies of migration. (My argument, briefly, is that T & Z accept, extraordinarily
uncritically, an elite European 'discourse of the peasant...')

In my Captain Rock piece one of the books that I used was
Samuel Clark and James S. Donnelly, Jr., Irish Peasants: Violence and Political Unrest,
1780-1914, Manchester UP/U of Wisconsin Press, 1983 - especially Jim Donnelly's chapter on
Pastorini and Captain Rock (of which I am critical), and Paul E. W. Roberts on the
Caravats v Shanavests faction fights of 1802-11. Roberts offers a social class
explanation of this particular tranche of faction fights - rural poor (Caravats) versus
well-to-do farmers (Shanavests). The names of the factions refer to their uniforms or
'gang colours' - it's the Cravats versus the Old Waistcoats (or vests, as the Americans
say...)

These class divisions would be more or less invisible to the ruling elite. Roberts
comments on 'the peculiar mixture of ignorance, indifference, and paranoia with which the
Irish ruling class related to the world below them...' And that was one starting point
for my study of the Captain Rock publications. Mostly what we are studying are elite
perceptions.

Kevin Kenny will be pleased to note that I make use of Hobsbawm & Rude, Captain Swing
(London, 1969) - Captain Swing was the English Captain Rock. Especially the elite's
notion of 'the man in the gig' - the renegade member of the elite, the outside agitator,
who goes round fomenting unrest. Because, of course, peasants are not clever enough to
organise anything by themselves...

(An aside... I note, from Paul O'Leary's new book about the Irish in Wales, Immigration
and Integration, that Irish migrants in Wales in 1834, would be terrorised by the 'Scotch
Cattle', a secret society of Welsh workers...)

I have downloaded from Northern Light the article mentioned previously on the Ir-D list,
Carolyn Conley, The agreeable recreation of fighting, Journal of Social History,
10/01/1999. Summary: Using 19th century Ireland as a case study, Conley argues that
historians have overlooked the significance of the recreational element in studying
violence. At times, violence served as sport in Ireland. It cost me $2.95.

I still have not seen her book - but evidently, from what has been said, the book is a
more lengthy re-working of the material, and the argument. I have to say, I have some
misgivings. The research is set in a later period that that outlined above - Conley's
study is based primarily on the records of 1,932 homicides reported by the Irish police
between 1866 to 1892. Conley tries to make subtle distinctions between different codes of
violence - and acknowledges briefly that 'The records do not support the notion of the
Irish as particularly prone to violence. Most years the Irish homicide rate was only about
two thirds that of England and Wales'. But once again, still, the existing research
agenda has decided that what needs to be explained is Irish violence, peasant violence.
Many of her examples would seem to be susceptible to Roberts' social class explanation -
above.

I do not discount entirely the 'recreational violence' part of the argument - though,
again, I feel that there is an agenda here. There are certain patterns in the knowledge
that elites wished to learn from those who had explored, or emerged from, 'the poor man's
country' - examples are, violence and gambling. On page 209 of Children of the Dead End,
his autobiographical novel, Patrick MacGill covers both, almost as if writing to an
agenda. The homo-erotic charge that is surely there in MacGill's accounts of fighting
would certainly have been of interest to his patron, Canon Dalton of Windsor - who liked
rough trade. See Patrick O'Sullivan, 'Patrick Macgill: the making of a writer', in
Hiutton & Stewart, Ireland's Histories, Routledge, 1991.

Paddy O'Sullivan

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: "Marion R. Casey"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Race & the Irish


Thanks, Patrick, for confirming my hunch. The NY Times spelled the name
"Porkory".....dare we suggest that the Times was using race in an
entirely different sense with a subliminal reference to pigs in this
news item on the Irish?!!

Marion R. Casey
Department of History
New York University


On Sun, 26 Mar 2000 irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:

>
>
> From: Patrick Maume
> Subject: Re: Ir-D Race & the Irish
>
> From: Patrick Maume
> THe professor was Julius Pokorny; there is an article about him by Pol
> O Dochartaigh in the current HISTORY IRELAND (Spring 2000)
> Best wishes,
> Patrick
>
>
> On Sat 25 Mar 2000 13:25:00 +0000 irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:
>
> > From:irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk> Date: Sat 25 Mar 2000 13:25:00
> +0000
> > Subject: Ir-D Race & the Irish
> > To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
> >
> >
> > From: "Marion R. Casey"
> > Subject: Race & the Irish
> >
> >
> > Today (3.24.2000) MSNBC is featuring a Reuters story that List
> members
> > might be interested in discussing:
> >
> > "Geneticists find Irish are a race apart; Emerald Isle westerners
> share
> > unique Y chromosome type"
> >
> > http://www.msnbc.com/news/385467.asp?cp1=1
> >
> > It's based on a Trinity College study done by Daniel Bradley, et.al.
> >
> > The report reminds me of a New York Times story (10/28/1925) "Irish
> Come
> > from Eskimos, German Professor Suggests." This was an Associated
> Press
> > story. According to the Berlin professor of philology, "In isolated
> parts
> > of Ireland and Scotland are to be found types with Mongol features,
> > oblique eyes, straight black hair and thin lips. Anthropologically
> these
> > types could only be connected with the Eskimos..."
> >
> > Marion R. Casey
> > Department of History
> > New York University
> >
> >
> >
>
>

Subject: Re: Ir-D Faction Fights
From: Eileen A Sullivan

Dear Brian


The faction news is surfacing, and I have so much to add about it from
Carleton.

Your references and others are helpful.

Was in St Aug on Thurs the 23rd. Charles sends his regards. I'll send a
copy af the first baby baptised in St Augustine: quite interesting.

Dr. Eileen A. Sullivan, Director
The Irish Educational Association, Inc. Tel # (352) 332
3690
6412 NW 128th Street E-Mail :
eolas1[at]juno.com
Gainesville, FL 32653

From: "noel gilzean"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Faction Fights

So who won?
When I was a boy in Wexford Yellow Belly was an insult that we in Rosslare
Strand reserved for the occupants of Wexford Town rather than ourselves.
Noel
>
>From: "Brian McGinn"
>Subject: Re: Ir-D Faction Fights
>
>Irish fisheries workers also brought recreational fighting
>to Newfoundland. See Cyril J. Byrne, ed., Gentlemen-Bishops
>and Faction Fighters: the letters of Bishops O Donel,
>Lambert, Scallan and other Irish Missionaries (St. John's:
>Jesperson Press, 1984) for late 18th--early 19th C
>references.
>
>D.W. Prowse, in A History of Newfoundland (London: Eyre and
>Spottiswoode, 1896), describes "Irish faction fights on the
>Barrens, when General Finn stripped to fight General
>Muldowney for the honour of Waterford against the 'yallow
>bellies' of Wexford. These fights were simply for
>'diversion'; the town was dull after the fishery was
>finished....; what could an Irish boy in those times
>without a bit of lively fun?" These events took place c
>1813.
>
>In addition to the well-known Yellow Belly, the Dictionary
>of Newfoundland English, edited by G.M. Story, W.J. Kirwin
>& J.D.A. Widdison (University of Toronto Press, 1982, 1990)
>has other faction epithets that are new to me: Clear Airs
>(Tipperary); Dadyeens (Cork); Doones (Kilkenny) and (my
>favorite) Whey Bellies (Waterford). According to DNE,
>citing Pedley 1863, the three Munster counties in St.
>John's were lined up against the Leinster factions, c 1815.
>
>I wonder if some of the reported 'riots' among Irish canal
>workers in 19th C U.S. reflected the same phenomenon?
>Connemara and Kerrymen were still regularly 'at it' and
>each other, on the slightest provocation, in the Irish
>dance halls in mid 1960s New York...
>
>
>Brian McGinn
>Alexandria, Virginia
>
>
>
>


Noel Gilzean
rosslare51[at]hotmail.com
University of Huddersfield UK
http://www.hud.ac.uk/hip

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

Please distribute widely...
Forwarded on behalf of...

Christina Buckridge
Media Officer,
University of Melbourne

Email: c.buckridge[at]media.unimelb.edu.au



MEDIA RELEASE

Issued: February 2000

ATTENTION:

Melbourne set to become major Irish studies centre

Melbourne could become an international academic centre for all things Irish, according to
Dr Elizabeth Malcolm - an Australian-born historian of Irish parentage - who is to be the
inaugural Gerry Higgins Professor of Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne.
One of the leading historians of modern Ireland, Dr Malcolm predicts that Melbourne could
join Liverpool and Boston as a major international centre of Irish studies.
She is well-qualified to judge having worked in institutes of Irish Studies in both
Belfast and Liverpool and having taught Irish history in Australia, Norway, the Irish
Republic, Northern Ireland and England.
And Professor Peter McPhee of the University's Department of History says that Dr
Malcolm's arrival is being eagerly awaited by a strong contingent of students enrolling in
Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne in Second Semester.
Elizabeth Malcolm joined the newly-established Institute of Irish Studies at the
University of Liverpool in 1990 as a senior research fellow and, since 1997, has lectured
there in Irish social history. She has played an important role in the development of this
Institute, now recognised internationally as a leading centre for Irish Studies.
With a first-class honours degree from the University of New South Wales, where she
studied Irish history under Professor Patrick O'Farrell, and a master's degree from the
University of Sydney, Dr Malcolm went on to Trinity College, Dublin, where her PhD
dissertation was supervised by Professor T.W. Moody. A post-doctoral fellowship then took
her to Queen's University, Belfast, where she worked for seven years.
Regarded as one of the most innovative modern Irish historians, Dr Malcolm has long been
eminent in the field of social history. Her work on drink and temperance, popular culture,
asylums and mental illness, crime and policing and women is widely recognised. She has
published three books and a number of important articles in the major Irish history
journals.
?2/

- - 2 -

Melbourne set to become major Irish studies centre (cont.)
Her current project - a social history of Irish policing in the 19th and early 20th
centuries - - is expected to make a major contribution to modern Irish history.
Being of Irish parentage, Dr Malcolm is delighted to have been appointed to the Chair of
Irish Studies which, she says, offers a very exciting opportunity to develop the study of
Ireland in Melbourne and also in Australia generally.
"Melbourne boasts a very large community of Irish descent which has made a significant
contribution to the city since its foundation. So it is appropriate that this new chair
should be located in Melbourne."
The Gerry Higgins Chair of Irish Studies has been created through an endowment by Mr John
Higgins in the name of his father, Mr Gerry Higgins, a post-war migrant from County Mayo,
Ireland, who established a commercial painting business, now known as Higgins Coatings and
run by Mr John Higgins. The Chair is located in the University's Department of History in
the first instance.
The Gerry Higgins Professor of Irish Studies will also participate in the life of Newman
College, an affiliated residential college of the University.
Professor McPhee said that Dr Malcolm's appointment as the foundation professor is a
marvelous boost to Irish Studies at the University of Melbourne and in Australia
generally. "Dr Malcolm is a distinguished social historian of modern Ireland and has
extensive, successful experience in working with the wider community. All of us are
indebted to the generosity of the Higgins family", he said.
Rector of Newman College, Fr Peter L'Estrange, said that Dr Malcolm's appointment "will
continue Newman College's long tradition of promoting Irish Studies and will hearten Irish
communities in Australia".



Media enquiries:
Christina Buckridge
Media Officer,
University of Melbourne
0412 101 316
Christina Buckridge,
Media Officer,
The University of Melbourne 3010
AUSTRALIA

Phone: 61 3 9344 6158; mobile 0412 101 316
Fax: 61 3 9349 4135

Email: c.buckridge[at]media.unimelb.edu.au

Subject: Carleton's "Battle of the Factions" in his TRAITS and STORIES of the IRISH
PEASANTRY
From: Eileen A Sullivan

Dear Paddy,

My Carleton Bio is coming along ; he has just left the Clogher Valley
and slowly making his way to Dublin, having experienced the aborted trip
to Munster as the "Poor Scholar" and travelled as "The Lough Derg
Pilgrim."

His account of the great faction fight between the O'Callaghans and the
O'Hallaghans in "The Battle of the Factions" is required reading for
anyone interested in faction fighting. More tragic than amusing, the
tale is true Carleton.


Dr. Eileen A. Sullivan, Director
The Irish Educational Association, Inc. Tel # (352) 332
3690
6412 NW 128th Street E-Mail :
eolas1[at]juno.com
Gainesville, FL 32653

From: "Brian McGinn"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Faction Fights 3

Noel,

Prowse doesn't specify whether Waterford or Wexford 'won'.
A partisan observer could draw some inferences from the
placename 'Yellow Belly' Corner, a well-known St. John's
landmark where, quoting Prowse, 'the wounded in the melee
used to be washed up in the little brook..."

Brian

From: "Charles E. Orser"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Faction Fights 1

Paddy:
I would simply note that Roberts' characterizations of the Caravats and the
Shanavests comes right out of Lewis's On Irish Disturbances (1836?). So
while it is an elite perception, it is one that was made at the time. Also,
one purpose of clothing is to symbolize membership (of class, rank,
occupation, etc.) so it is not completely unreasonable for the elites to
understand the different meanings of rural clothing patterns.
Charles Orser

At 10:13 AM 3/27/00 +0000, you wrote:
>
>From Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>On faction fights, images of the peasant, Captain Rock, Captain Swing,
Rebecca, and so
>on...
>
>I have a soft spot for
>Patrick O'Sullivan, 'A literary difficulty in explaining Ireland: Tom
Moore and Captain
>Rock, 1824', in Swift & Gilley, eds., The Irish in Britain, 1815-1939,
Pinter, London,
>1989.
>
>Despite the fact that my revered Editors gave the chapter a daft title,
which I do not
>understand. When I confronted Sheridan Gilley, he said that they felt
that the title
>needed to indicate that this was not a usual work of history...
>
>It was one of my first substantial, published forays into Irish stuff. It
is basically a
>study of the ways in which the Captain Rock outrages in Ireland were
explained to and in
>London - and specifically of the _silences_ within texts. And I have been
looking at the
>chapter again, because I find myself once again writing about 'the
discourse of the
>peasant' - with special attention to the influence of Thomas & Znaniecki's
Polish Peasant
>on studies of migration. (My argument, briefly, is that T & Z accept,
extraordinarily
>uncritically, an elite European 'discourse of the peasant...')
>
>In my Captain Rock piece one of the books that I used was
>Samuel Clark and James S. Donnelly, Jr., Irish Peasants: Violence and
Political Unrest,
>1780-1914, Manchester UP/U of Wisconsin Press, 1983 - especially Jim
Donnelly's chapter on
>Pastorini and Captain Rock (of which I am critical), and Paul E. W.
Roberts on the
>Caravats v Shanavests faction fights of 1802-11. Roberts offers a social
class
>explanation of this particular tranche of faction fights - rural poor
(Caravats) versus
>well-to-do farmers (Shanavests). The names of the factions refer to their
uniforms or
>'gang colours' - it's the Cravats versus the Old Waistcoats (or vests, as
the Americans
>say...)
>
>These class divisions would be more or less invisible to the ruling elite.
Roberts
>comments on 'the peculiar mixture of ignorance, indifference, and paranoia
with which the
>Irish ruling class related to the world below them...' And that was one
starting point
>for my study of the Captain Rock publications. Mostly what we are
studying are elite
>perceptions.
>
>Kevin Kenny will be pleased to note that I make use of Hobsbawm & Rude,
Captain Swing
>(London, 1969) - Captain Swing was the English Captain Rock. Especially
the elite's
>notion of 'the man in the gig' - the renegade member of the elite, the
outside agitator,
>who goes round fomenting unrest. Because, of course, peasants are not
clever enough to
>organise anything by themselves...
>
>(An aside... I note, from Paul O'Leary's new book about the Irish in
Wales, Immigration
>and Integration, that Irish migrants in Wales in 1834, would be terrorised
by the 'Scotch
>Cattle', a secret society of Welsh workers...)
>
>I have downloaded from Northern Light the article mentioned previously on
the Ir-D list,
>Carolyn Conley, The agreeable recreation of fighting, Journal of Social
History,
>10/01/1999. Summary: Using 19th century Ireland as a case study, Conley
argues that
>historians have overlooked the significance of the recreational element in
studying
>violence. At times, violence served as sport in Ireland. It cost me $2.95.
>
>I still have not seen her book - but evidently, from what has been said,
the book is a
>more lengthy re-working of the material, and the argument. I have to say,
I have some
>misgivings. The research is set in a later period that that outlined
above - Conley's
>study is based primarily on the records of 1,932 homicides reported by the
Irish police
>between 1866 to 1892. Conley tries to make subtle distinctions between
different codes of
>violence - and acknowledges briefly that 'The records do not support the
notion of the
>Irish as particularly prone to violence. Most years the Irish homicide
rate was only about
>two thirds that of England and Wales'. But once again, still, the
existing research
>agenda has decided that what needs to be explained is Irish violence,
peasant violence.
>Many of her examples would seem to be susceptible to Roberts' social class
explanation -
>above.
>
>I do not discount entirely the 'recreational violence' part of the
argument - though,
>again, I feel that there is an agenda here. There are certain patterns in
the knowledge
>that elites wished to learn from those who had explored, or emerged from,
'the poor man's
>country' - examples are, violence and gambling. On page 209 of Children
of the Dead End,
>his autobiographical novel, Patrick MacGill covers both, almost as if
writing to an
>agenda. The homo-erotic charge that is surely there in MacGill's accounts
of fighting
>would certainly have been of interest to his patron, Canon Dalton of
Windsor - who liked
>rough trade. See Patrick O'Sullivan, 'Patrick Macgill: the making of a
writer', in
>Hiutton & Stewart, Ireland's Histories, Routledge, 1991.
>
>Paddy O'Sullivan
>
>--
>Patrick O'Sullivan
>Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
>Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>Irish-Diaspora list
>Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
>
>Irish Diaspora Research Unit
>Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
>University of Bradford
>Bradford BD7 1DP
>Yorkshire
>England
>
>
>
>
>
>
****************************************************************************
Charles E. Orser, Jr.
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology,
Founding Editor, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, and
Adjunct Professor of Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway

Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Campus Box 4660
Illinois State University
Normal, IL 61790-4660

Phone: 309.438.2271
Fax: 309.438.5378
e-mail: ceorser[at]ilstu.edu
field school website: www.ilstu.edu/~ceorser/field_school.htm
****************************************************************************

This will interest the Irish-in-the-Caribbean folk...

P.O'S.


- -----Original Message-----


CALL FOR PAPERS:
Contextualizing the Caribbean: New Approaches in an Era of
Globalization;
A Conference at the University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL, September 29-30, 2000

As we enter the new millennium, scholars across the globe are faced with
the increasing disjunction between existing "Western" theory and finding
ways to approach the diverse literatures of the Caribbean. How do
migrations affect our perspectives of the Caribbean subject? How can
postcolonial theory accommodate a growing transnational/global culture? How
is Caribbean literature being redefined by shifts in economic, social, and
political structures? What are some of the issues in comparing the diverse
literatures of the Caribbean? What roles do language, culture, and history
play in such comparative approaches? How are exiled identities situated in
resisting and/or accommodating colonial power structures in the
Caribbean? What underwrites Caribbean historiography?

This conference will explore methods of conceptualizing the Caribbean
within a global context. The following are proposed topics for panels
and/or discussion groups. Panel speakers will give a 20-minute
presentation; discussion participants will give a 10-minute presentation.

Proposed panels/discussion groups:
The Caribbean and Cultural Studies
Early Caribbean Literature and the Travel Narrative, 15th to 19th
century
The Caribbean in America: New literatures, new identities
Past the Postcolonial: Migrations and Transnationalisms
Mapping the Caribbean: Comparative Perspectives on (within) the
Literatures of the Caribbean
Transatlantic Displacements: Colonial Diasporas, Caribbean Connections

Proposed session: Pedagogical Issues in Teaching Caribbean Literature -
Workshop and Roundtable. This session will explore the experiences of
instructors who have taught Caribbean literature in the college
classroom. We invite proposals from experienced teachers of Caribbean
literature focusing on any facet of pedagogical issues related to Caribbean
studies and encourage perspectives from within and outside the
Caribbean. Proposals may focus on specific texts or theoretical issues,
including the contexts in which the literature was introduced, the
techniques used, the overall success and/or failure of the endeavor, and
suggestions for approaching Caribbean literature.

Brief proposals (1-2 pages) for complete panels and/or discussion groups
and paper abstracts (1 page) are due to the conference chair by May 15.
Proposals may be submitted via regular mail, e-mail (in the body of the
e-mail and not as an attachment), or fax.

Chair: Dr. Sandra Pouchet Paquet
Associate Professor
University of Miami
Department of English
P.O. Box 248145
Coral Gables, FL 33124
phone: (305) 284-2182
fax: (305) 284-5635
e-mail: spaquet[at]miami.edu

Conference coordinators: Kathryn Morris (kmorris[at]umsis.miami.edu) and
Lynn Ink (lcink[at]miami.edu)

From Patrick O'Sullivan

We have not paid overmuch attention here, in Bradford, to collecting material that might
be of use to those teaching on the experiences of the Irish in the United States - we have
tended to concentrate on more neglected areas, where we might make a difference. In any
case, the Web is still very much a North American thing - though this is changing. And
many North American organisations and scholars have placed their book lists and lecture
notes on the Web. Here are some examples that tumbled into my net.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/irish/


http://aihs.org/bibliogimmig.htm


http://www.cis.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1990/5/90.05.07.x.html


I am sure that other people can give advice about the best ways to exploit Web resources.

Also, the bibliographic notes and general essays in Michael Glazier, ed., The Encyclopedia
of the Irish in America, University of Notre Dame Press, 199 - ISBN 0 268 02755 2 - are up
to date and helpful. The volume itself has its critics - of course, it is really the
Encyclopedia of the Irish in the United States of America. It is strongest on Catholics
and politicians, and Catholic politicians. And you look in vain for some discussion of
General Philip Henry Sheridan's most famous utterance...

P.O'S.


- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England