From: oliver[at]doyle-marshall.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D O Brasil 2

Pat,

_Many_ thanks for the help concerning the Southey passage. You've given me
just what I need! I should have thought of looking at Peter O'Neill's
survey - just the kind of little snippit that one would expect to find
there. I definately expect to put to bed the "New Ireland in South America"
thing (a work that's too long to submit to a journal for consideration, too
short - and obscure! - to stand as a monograph) that has been hanging over
me for far too long. I look forward to be able to send you a copy.

Once again, thanks for your explanation.

Best regards,

Oliver

-----------

>From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>Oliver,
>
>I will assume you know about Southey, and about Brazil.
>
>Charles Vallencey, 1721-1812, was an English military engineer who became
an
>enthusiast for Irish antiquities, including the language. There is an
entry
>in the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, and Vallencey is discussed in
>Joep Leersson, Mere Irish and Fior Ghael, 1986.
>
>Peter O'Neill in Rio , in his booklet on Links
between
>Ireland & Brazil, notes the appearance of the name 'Brasil' on a map of
>1324, the Celtic origins of the word (apparently the root, bres, means
>noble, lucky, happy), and Irish legends about O'Brasil, Hy Brasil, an
island
>to the west of the Aran Islands. His immediate source for this is a
popular
>book, Peadar O'Dowd & Brendan Lawlor, Galway, Heart of the West.
>
>P.O'S.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>
>
>From: oliver[at]doyle-marshall.demon.co.uk
>Subject: Query: Robert Southey and Brazil
>
>Robert Southey, in volume one of his _History of Brazil_ (London, 1810),
>wrote:
>
>"The Irish believe that they can see an enchanted Island called _O
>Breasil_, or _O Brasil_, from the isles of Arran; - which General
>Vallency, in his usual wild way, identifies with the Paradise of Irem."
>
>Can any people explain anything in the passage?
>
>Thanks, in advance, for any ideas.
>
>Oliver Marshall
>
>Institute of Latin American Studies
>University of London
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan


This new book will interest those many Ir-D members who study the history of
medicine and disease, and the origins of those social policies whose
consequences are still with us...

P.O'S.

From the Cork University Press web site...


Medicine, Disease and the State in Ireland 1650-1940

Edited by Greta Joyce Jones and Elizabeth Malcolm

This book represents a pioneering attempt to open up a previously neglected
area of Irish social history. It covers the impact of disease on Irish
society, alternative healing, the growth of the medical institutions -
hospitals, learned societies - and of the professions of medicine and
nursing. It also explores the relationship between politics and medicine.

Four of the essays deal with respectively, typhus, smallpox, tuberculosis
and mental illness. There are histories of the founding of Irish medical and
learned scientific societies and schools in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the role of William Wilde in the Dublin School of Medicine in the
early nineteenth century, and the growth of medical schools. The
relationship between religion and medicine in Ireland is discussed in
chapters on the influence of female religious orders in nursing, the church,
state and hospitals in inter-war Ireland. The part played by the state in
the development of poor law services in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries is examined and, in particular, the attempt made by the newly
formed Irish state after 1922 to regulate sexuality. The physical and
architectural environment of the public lunatic asylum created in early
nineteenth-century Ireland is described.

This book is a collection of essays by established scholars in the field and
informed by recent developments in the social history of medicine. Its
objective is to link up with work done in other countries and bring the
history of Irish medicine into contact with intellectual developments
occurring elsewhere.

Cork University Press
ISBN 1 85918 110 4 £40.00 Hardback
ISBN 1 85918 230 5 £15.95 Paperback
234 x 156 mm, 32Opp
March 1999

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Cork University Press has a Web site at
http://corkuniversitypress.com

and has just issued a new printed catalogue.

The printed catalogue is worth sending for and looking at.

Not least because it includes a thoughtful essay, by John A. Murphy, on
'Cork University Press in Context', looking back at the 75 year history of
the Press. The essay is of general interest - the College, the Press, the
history of the state. And also of interest to anyone needing to know
something about the academic press systems, and how they work. And
sometimes don't work.

Under its committed fulltime publisher, Sara Wilburne, Cork University Press
does work, and works hard - I understand that they have just taken over, or
rescued, Attic Press.

P.O'S.

From: "PAUL GARRETT"
Subject: Re: Ir-D 1930s Plans to deport Irish 1

As Wendy Wheeler, in her book Imagining Home: Gender, 'Race'
and National identity 1945-64, comments 'the hierarchy of
belonging' developed in Britain during the period of post-war
reconstruction 'was not only raced but gendered'. In this sense,
'Irish girls' were often a specific focal concern and thousands of
migrant unmarried mothers were 'repatriated' back to Ireland.

This is an area I have briefly examined in 'The Abnormal flight: The
migration and repatriation of Irish unmarried mothers' Social
History
25 (3), Oct 2000.

Although not specifically concerned with 'repatriation', Bronwen
Walter's recent 'Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, place and Irish
Women' provides, I feel, a useful conceptual framework for
understanding how gender relates to Irishness, racialisation and
exclusionary processes.


Paul Michael Garrett

From: Alexander Peach
Subject: RE: Ir-D Repatriation of Irish unmarried mothers

In a previous post I explained how pregnant Irish women in Britain were
"repatriated" to Ireland under the Poor Law in the nineteenth century. The
law stated that one's parish of birth should shoulder any claims on poor
relief. There is no specific reference to these mothers being single, but
certainly they were unsupported and therefore in need of relief. So there
is an historical pre-cursor to the post-war formation of the "hierarchy of
belonging" in relation to women. However, should it not read "was not only
raced and gendered but also classed." The point is that it is the economic
relation of the claimant to the state rather than their gender that
determined the policy. Were single parents of independent means deported? I
suspect not.

Best wishes,

Alex Peach

DeMontfort University
Leicester UK

- -----Original Message-----
From: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk [SMTP:irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk]
Sent: 27 November 2000 12:00
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Ir-D Repatriation of Irish unmarried mothers


From: "PAUL GARRETT"
Subject: Re: Ir-D 1930s Plans to deport Irish 1

As Wendy Wheeler, in her book Imagining Home: Gender, 'Race'
and National identity 1945-64, comments 'the hierarchy of
belonging' developed in Britain during the period of post-war
reconstruction 'was not only raced but gendered'. In this sense,
'Irish girls' were often a specific focal concern and thousands of
migrant unmarried mothers were 'repatriated' back to Ireland.

This is an area I have briefly examined in 'The Abnormal flight: The
migration and repatriation of Irish unmarried mothers' Social
History
25 (3), Oct 2000.

Although not specifically concerned with 'repatriation', Bronwen
Walter's recent 'Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, place and Irish
Women' provides, I feel, a useful conceptual framework for
understanding how gender relates to Irishness, racialisation and
exclusionary processes.


Paul Michael Garrett

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

There is a brief window of opportunity for web scourers, as the Journal of
Modern History, Chicago, develops its Web presence. 'Access Control' begins
in January 2001 - until then we can browse and collect freely.

Here are some of the items that fell into our nets...

But have a look yourselves...

Journal of Modern History, Chicago...

1.
Previously discussed on the Ir-D list...

The Transforming Power of the Nuns: Women, Religion, and Cultural Change in
Ireland, 1750-1900. By Mary Peckham Magray. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998. Pp. xiii+182. $45.00.
reviewed ELIZABETH STEINER-SCOTT
University College, Cork

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JMH/journal/issues/v72n2/002215/002215.html

2.
Previously discussed on the Ir-D list...

The Age of Mass Migration: Causes and Economic Impact. By Timothy J. Hatton
and Jeffrey G. Williamson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp.
ix+301. $49.95. reviewed in the Journal of Modern History by DOUGLAS MASSEY
University of Pennsylvania at
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JMH/journal/issues/v72n2/002206/002206.html

3.
Review Article
From Ghetto to Ghetto: The Place of German Catholic Society in Recent
Historiography*

Oded Heilbronner
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

"Catholic history professors are and remain a monstrosity."1
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JMH/journal/issues/v72n2/002205/002205.html

We may quibble with the use of the word 'ghetto' - but this Review Article
makes explicit comparison with that other Europe based empire with a
Protestant identity and a Catholic minority. Yes, the Irish in Victorian
England are mentioned. Heilbronner also looks at the renegotiation of Weber
and the Protestant ethic thesis now taking place within German scholarship.
And he looks at David Blackbourn, The Marpingen Visions: Rationalism,
Religion and the Rise of Modern Germany (London: Fontana Press,
HarperCollins, 1995) which I have discuissed with colleagues interested in
the history of C19th Catholicism.

4.
Previously discussed on the Ir-D list...

Linen, Family, and Community in Tullylish, County Down, 1690-1914. By
Marilyn Cohen. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997. Pp. 287. $65.00.JANE GRAY
National University of Ireland, Maynooth
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JMH/journal/issues/v72n1/002110/002110.html

P.O'S.

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

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

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded On Behalf Of Claire Connolly
Subject: Conference Announcement

Conference Announcement / Call for Papers

'Facts and Fictions:Ireland and the Novel in
the Nineteenth Century', Centre for Editorial and Intertextual
Research, Cardiff University, UK, 14-16 September. Inquiries to Dr
Jacqueline Belanger, School of English, Communication, and
Philosophy, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3XB, Wales, UK.
Tel: +44 (0) 29 2087 6339. Fax:+44 (0)29 2087 4502.
Email:belangerj[at]cardiff.ac.uk.
Conference web page: www.cf.ac.uk/encap/ceir/facts

From: Cymru66[at]aol.com
Subject: Re: Ir-D Cork University Press

I would like to support Paddy's notice re the Cork University Press. The
catalogue is excellent and for me it was a great pleasure to renew
acquaintance, if only in print, with John Murphy.
JohnHickey

Forwarded through the courtesy of Enda Delaney
Enda Delaney

This review will appear in Immigrants and Minorities in the near
future....

Kevin Kenny, Making sense of the Molly Maguires (New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Pp xii + 336.

ISBN 0 19 510664 4 (hbk) £31.50 0 19 511631 3 (pbk) £14.99


The Molly Maguires, a loosely organised group which was held
responsible for a series of murders in the anthracite mining
areas of Pennsylvania in the 1860s and 1870s, have attracted the
attention of a number of American historians, not least because
of the widespread publicity devoted to their activities at the
time. In some analyses, the Molly Maguires represent an
embattled group of mine workers seeking to combat the worst
excesses of corporate capitalism in the form of the attempts of
Franklin B. Gowen, president of a railroad company, to control
coal production in Schuylkill region of Pennsylvania. On the
other hand, for others the Molly Maguires were no more than a
band of Irish 'thugs' and 'terrorists' who murdered people in
pursuit of their own selfish aims. Unravelling the complex and
conflicting accounts of the activities of the Molly Maguires
requires skilful handling of the available source materials and,
in this respect, Professor Kenny's task in this book is
therefore an unenviable one. The result, however, is a
fascinating and compelling study which not alone contains a
vivid account of the Molly Maguires, but also incorporates a
sustained interpretation of the origins, ideology and broader
importance of this shadowy grouping.

For historians of migration and ethnicity, this book constitutes
a significant advance in terms of methodology. First, Kenny
combines the approaches of cultural, social and labour history,
using detailed reconstructions of the difficulties faced by
Irish mine workers in this area to shed light on the wider
issues of adaptation, migrant labour activism and the use of
violence to achieve admittedly misguided objectives. Secondly,
Kenny's panorama is transatlantic and he traces the pattern of
'retributive justice' back to the Irish rural countryside, in
particular parts of west Donegal. According to Kenny, the ethic
of the Molly Maguires was 'direct retributive action against
those who transgressed a specific vision of what was just and
moral' (p. 179). The sixteen victims who transgressed the
unstated moral code were mine superintendents, foremen and, in
one case, an owner of a mine.

Across the Atlantic back in Ireland, it was mostly land agents
together with some landlords as well as local officials who bore
the brunt of 'retributive justice' in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. But the transatlantic pattern was the same,
even if it was slightly modified to suit the particular
circumstances: threats, coffins notices, arson, intimidation
and, in some cases, murder. These activities involved Irish
migrants deploying established techniques from home or, as Kenny
cogently argues, it was the 'adaptation to local American
conditions of a strategy that had long marked social relations
in the Irish countryside' (p. 100).

The justification for murder, arson and other forms of violence
was alleged discrimination against Irish mine workers, fuelled
in part by ethnic tensions with Welsh and English migrants since
it usually these ethnic groups who occupied the supervisory
roles in the mining companies. Although, as Kenny observes, more
visceral motives could emerge for violence directed against
individuals such as simply settling old scores. The links
between the Molly Maguires and the Ancient Order of Hibernians
(AOH) seem mostly to have stemmed from an overlap in terms of
personnel and networks, even if propagandists at the time
claimed that they were one of the same thing involved in a
well-planned conspiracy which by its very nature was treasonous
and 'un-American'. This period was a tense one in terms of
labour relations with protracted disputes including the 'long
strike' of 1875 when the Workingmen's Benevolent Association
(WBA) was defeated by the mine owners. Kenny demonstrates that
notwithstanding sustained attempts on the part of the mine
owners and their mouthpieces to assert that the WBA and the AOH
were part of an overall Molly Maguire organised conspiracy, this
was simply a smear campaign that aimed to discredit legitimate
trade union activity. By the late 1870s through infiltration by
a private detective, the infamous James McParlan, and the
dubious evidence of informers, many of the alleged members of
this secret society were convicted of murder in what appeared to
be, in some cases at least, highly irregular circumstances,
including the packing of the juries with people who did not
understand English. In 1877 and the following year twenty men
were executed for murder and some of these convictions were
questionable. Nevertheless, as Kenny remarks, 'a particular
tradition of retributive justice died on the scaffold with the
Molly Maguires' (p. 287).


Throughout this book Kenny reconstructs the sense of ethnic
tension and violent intrigue which characterised this region of
Pennsylvania in the 1860s and 1870s. The overriding conclusion to
emerge is that the elite, in particular the new corporate
capitalists, set out to ensure that the form of retributive
violence which developed in parts of rural Ireland was forcibly
suppressed. There is much in this story of interest for those who
study migration and labour and the intersections between these
spheres, and the sustained analysis which underpins this study
makes it a genuine pleasure to read.

ENDA DELANEY
Queen's University Belfast

We do not usually think of Irish handball as one of Ireland's cultural
exports - indeed handball is rarely listed amongst the designated Irish
sports. But the handball folk themselves seem to be in no doubt.

P.O'S.

See...

The United States Handball Association

http://ushandball.org/html/history.html

http://ushandball.org/html/completehistory.html

and

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- ----
Hands Across the Irish Sea
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- ----

by Tom O'Connor

'It is the perceived notion that handball, exported so successfully to
America, made little impact in Britain. In truth, the game did take off in
Britain and very successfully too but little contact was kept with the sport
in Ireland.'

http://ushandball.org/html/irish.html


- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

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

From: C McCaffrey
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish Handball

Thanks Paddy for this but at the risk of starting something let me add that
since the 'invention' of Irish sports was to a large extent just that why
not
add handball to the list? Whatshisname Cusack and the GAA of the 1890s were
not
shy of taking anything on board.

Carmel

irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:

> We do not usually think of Irish handball as one of Ireland's cultural
> exports - indeed handball is rarely listed amongst the designated Irish
> sports. But the handball folk themselves seem to be in no doubt.
>
> P.O'S.
>
> See...
>
> The United States Handball Association
>
> http://ushandball.org/html/history.html
>
> http://ushandball.org/html/completehistory.html
>
> and
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
- --
> ----
> Hands Across the Irish Sea
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
- --
> ----
>
> by Tom O'Connor
>
> 'It is the perceived notion that handball, exported so successfully to
> America, made little impact in Britain. In truth, the game did take off in
> Britain and very successfully too but little contact was kept with the
sport
> in Ireland.'
>
> http://ushandball.org/html/irish.html
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

There are a number of polemics, floating around the world, of interest to
Irish Diaspora scholars - eg Ruth Dudley Edwards is threatening to sue Tim
Pat Coogan over remarks made in his Where Green is Worn book...

And a number of polemic items have been brought to our attention - usually
people have left to us the decision as to whether or not we should
distribute these items to the Ir-D list.

I think we should distribute such items - if only as a service to gossip.
But we have had problems with polemic items in the past - people becoming
disturbed when they see intemperate words distributed via the Irish-Diaspora
list. Yes, not our style at all.

Can I ask Ir-D members to be aware, as we redistribute polemic items, that
such items were not written with the Ir-D list in mind. We cannot ask for
such items to be re-written, because they were not written for us. We can
only make a quick decision - to distribute them or not...

P.O'S.

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

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

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The following item has been brought to our attention...


>
> Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 12:10:06 GMT
> From: jcoughln[at]tcd.ie (Anthony Coulghlan)
>
> Subject: Re: TEXTS FOR HISTORY OF IRELAND COURSE - A RESPONSE TO SOME
> CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE LATE C.DESMOND GREAVES
>
> FOR THE ATTENTION OF SUBSCRIBERS TO THE H-ALBION DISCUSSION LIST ON
BRITISH
> AND IRISH HISTORY
>
> FROM: ANTHONY COUGHLAN, SENIOR LECTURER IN SOCIAL POLICY,TRINITY COLLEGE
> DUBLIN
>
>
> Monday 27 November 2000
>
>
> I write as literary executor of the late C.Desmond Greaves, author of
"The
> Life and Times of James Connolly", "Liam Mellows and the Irish
Revolution",
> "Sean O'Casey, Politics and Art", "History of the Irish Transport and
> General Workers Union", "The Irish Crisis", and other works.
>
> It has been brought to my attention that Dr Marc Mulholland of St
> Catherine's College, Oxford, stated recently in comments on reading list
> suggestions for modern Irish history, that books such as Desmond
Greaves's
> "would give a very skewed picture", that they were "not academic" and
> expressed "a very left-nationalist perspective".
>
> Dr Mulholland writes: "As an indication of the pitfalls, Greaves
admitted
> that he consciously misrepresented part of Connolly's life to meet the
> dictates of Communist Party strategy at the time."
>
> As someone who knew Desmond Greaves intimately for some 30 years prior to
> his death and who is well familar with his work and its background, I am
> quite certain that this remark of Dr Mulholland's is false and
> without foundation. It is indeed a rather unworthy comment by one
> historian to make of another, academic or otherwise. I challenge Dr
> Mulholland to state where Desmond Greaves admitted that he "consciously
> misrepresented" anything, least of all in his definitive biography on
> Connolly, on which Greaves spent well over a decade of careful research.
If
> Dr Mulholland cannot substantiate his statement,I think that he should
in
> decency withdraw it, with a metaphorical apology to the shade of one of
> Ireland's most distinguished 20th century historians.
>
> Desmond Greaves was a person of the utmost intellectual integrity, a
> remarkably independent spirit, and quite incapable of submitting his
> judgement to the dictates of a political party or to anyone or anything
> else, apart from the demands of what he regarded as objective truth. As
> an historian he did not subscribe to the illusion that it is possible to
> have value-free history, or that the historian, in particular the
historian
> of one's own times, or times near one's own,can interpret events
> uninfluenced by his or her own values. He believed that the important
> things for the good historian was to be aware of what those values were
and
> the
> partisanship they inevitably implied, and indeed to be frank about such
> partisanship - a view which I personally heard him express on several
> occasions. Otherwise the historian is only deceiving himself or herself,
as
> well as readers of history.
>
> Dr Mulholland's comments seem to indicate that he regards history written
> by university academics as in some way intrinsically superior to that
> written
> by non-academics, and Irish history written from a left-nationalist
> perspective as inferior in some way to that written from a
> right-nationalist or anti-nationalist position. But surely these are
value
> judgements and political preferences that are quite as "ideological" as
any
> that one may find in Desmond Greaves's work? Is not written history
> invariably an attempt to grasp the truth about the past in narratives
that
> are necessarily always mediated through the personality, temperament and
> ideology of historians?
>
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded for information...

Announcing the

REDISCOVERING NEW YORK HISTORY AND CULTURE WEBSITE

The New York State Archives has recently developed a new website as part of
its mission to ensure that all the diverse communities, peoples, and events
in New York history are fully documented and that documentary evidence is
easily accessible for research and learning. The Rediscovering New York
History and Culture website serves as a pathway directing users to
historical records and resources around the state.

To access the website, log on to the State Archives web site at
http://www.archives.nysed.gov/ and select Rediscovering New York.

A variety of tools have been developed to tell the stories of New York's
communities and people including:

· A statewide "catalog" of archival/historical collections and finding aids
found in the statewide Historic Documents Inventory.

· A directory of historical records repositories in New York State.

· A wealth of information on special topics and areas of interest. Arranged
topically, each page provides listings of projects, links to finding aids,
digitized images, on-line exhibits and publications, and links to other
resources. Underdocumented topics include: African Americans, Latinos,
Mental Health, and Environmental Affairs. Special Areas of Interest
include: genealogy, military, transportation, and community history.


If you have on-line finding aids, digitized images, exhibits, publications,
or a project report which relate to historical records in New York please
let us know, dhs[at]mail.nysed.gov, so we can include your link.

If you have any questions about the site or recommendations for improving
its look or content feel free to contact me.


Prudence K. Backman
Archives and Records Management Specialist 3
Documentary Heritage Services
New York State Archives
9C71 Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12230
518-474-6926
FAX: 518-402-5372
pbackman[at]mail.nysed.gov
***************************************************************
Bonita L. Weddle
Archives and Records Management Specialist 1
Documentary Heritage Services
New York State Archives
9C71 Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12210
(518)473-4258
bweddle[at]mail.nysed.gov

Piaras Mac Einri
Director
Irish Centre for Migration Studies
National University of Ireland, Cork

has brought to our attention the following article by Ruth Dudley Edwards
(Sunday Independent 19 Nov)...

[Piaras Mac Einri's letter to the Newspaper follows as a separate email.]

Ruth Dudley Edwards
The many colours of the future

[PREAMBLE In 30 years, Ireland will be a truly multi-ethnic society.
Historian Ruth Dudley Edwards has lived happily in a multi-ethnic community
for 21 years. She has seen the future. But does it work? Painting two
scenarios, she says that a benign outcome here depends on treating
immigrants decently, with respect and appreciation. Enjoy what they bring us
but above all, nip the race-relations industry in the bud]

IMAGINE the following. You are Seán Citizen. It is 2030. The major Irish
cities and towns are multi-racial, and though there are many vibrant
cultures and religions about, immigrants are well integrated into society
and enjoy being Afro-Irish, Asian-Irish or whatever. The country boasts
businessmen, writers, broadcasters, churchmen, civil servants, politicians,
lawyers, doctors, professors, gardaí, actors and singers from the ethnic
minorities. Irish blacks waving tricolours have helped win an unprecedented
number of Olympic medals.

You're on friendly terms with the Indian in the corner shop; indeed you're
delighted that the wave of Asian immigrants who arrived 15 years ago have
throughout the length and breadth of Ireland challenged the supermarket
monopoly by keeping local shops open from early morning to night.
You're also pleased that all manner of newcomers have revitalised large
sections of the economy, even though you're occasionally envious that such a
disproportionate number of Asians are millionaires.
You're relaxed about the array of colours, cultures and religions whom your
children bring home from school and university and you hope that Dara's
romance with that second-generation Vietnamese doctor will work out.

You were a bit worried when Gareth acquired dreadlocks and joined that
Rastafarian group who go on about some long-dead bloke called Bob Marley,
but the lads are nice enough and they mostly keep the sound down.

Your wife wonders what sense there is in young Siobhán studying Romanian at
Trinity when she might have done genetics, but since she went to eastern
Europe with her best friend Magda a few years ago and fell in love with the
culture, there was no stopping her.

The last wedding you attended had a great mixture of people, and your mother
remarked that it was grand that nowadays you had such a variety of music
that no one sang Men Behind The Wire. She was dead pleased that Geoffrey
Odinga, that young TD whose parents escaped from Nigeria in the nick of time
all those years ago, turned up and asked her to dance. He's a gas fellow,
for all that he's Fine Gael.

You have some grumpy mostly elderly friends and relations who mourn for the
days when Ireland was white, Catholic and Gaelic in aspiration and the few
Protestants and the Jews knew to keep their heads down, but you've no
patience with that. The economy, the culture and the general quality of life
of Ireland has been hugely enriched by immigration, and although there were
some ugly episodes along the way (the race riots during the 2003 recession
were bad), you're proud that the Irish showed that despite their initial
qualms, remembering their own diaspora, they were prepared to welcome
generously not just asylum seekers but economic immigrants and give them a
chance to show how they could benefit the country through hard work.

IN A recent survey, how far the country's come was shown when 95 per cent of
whites said they would
not mind their boss being black or Asian, 80 per cent would be happy to have
black or Asian neighbours and more than three-quarters are relaxed about a
relative marrying a person of another race.

"God, Máire, I won't deny I didn't like the look of them at first, but where
would we be without them?" is something you say ruminatively from time to
time. "Wouldn't it be bloody dull?" And both of you are proud that the Irish
treated decently the newcomers, who in turn are grateful to their hosts and
loyal to their new country.

That's the benign scenario. It is roughly where Britain is today because of
the tolerance of ordinary people.

Here's the malign. It is 2030, immigrants are still for the most part in
ghettoes, there is a war between different cultures and Seán Citizen is
filled with resentment because, as he often says to Máire, "Of course, it's
everything for them and nothing for us Irish. Gareth would have got that job
if he was black, Siobhán would have got into Trinity if all them foreigners
hadn't benefited from the quota system and I'll probably be out of work
myself when that cow Bazra takes her complaint to the tribunal. Sure, I
meant nothing; it was only a joke." Máire shrugs resignedly. "You'd have
thought they'd be a bit grateful to us for taking them in instead of
attacking us all the time for not doing enough. Of course, it's all down to
them Hindu TDs ... " "No," shouts Séamus, "the African Party's worse. And as
for that British shower that took the last seat in Cork off the Romanians
and got ethnic status and all those grants ..." Words fail him. "They should
all go back home if they don't like it here," says Máire.

Unlike in the UK, where the race-relations industry didn't really get into
its stride until the natives had got used to immigrants, the
politically-correct brigade are already out in force in Ireland. As I write,
they're poised for the best of all possible motives to ruin any chance of
natives and newcomers getting to know and respect each other at a manageable
pace by demanding that the natives admit they are all racist and promise to
undergo brainwashing. If they are let loose with their equality and
anti-discrimination agendas now, the result will be to sour race relations
before the immigrants have even had time to settle.

In West London, where I've lived since 1979, the 20 or so races and
innumerable religions and cultures have rubbed along well, but the excesses
of the race-relations industry are now damaging race relations steadily and
day by day. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, we were informed
recently, are to go on a racism awareness course in an effort to rid the
Church of England of "institutional racism".

Now you might think that since most Asians and blacks in Britain are Hindus,
Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day
Adventists and so on, the old C of E isn't doing badly to have one Asian and
two black bishops. But, no, it is lacerating itself over its "pitiful"
number of black clergy. This is a typical guilty response these days to the
twisted logic of the race-relations industry.

POLICE in London are now trained to be sensitive to 16 different cultures
and are under pressure to extend this much further. That it would be more
sensible to expect people from other cultures to understand the one they've
chosen to live in is, of course, not an option with the race-relations
industry.
The Parekh Report The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain is the latest piece of
lunacy: 417 pages of suggestions which have enraged Mr and Mrs John Citizen
and fuelled yet more unrealistic minority demands. Written by a gaggle of
race-relations industry activists, including our very own Seamus Taylor
('head of policy: equality and diversity, Haringey Borough Council'), it
worried that the word "English" conjured up the vision of a white person.
Now you might think that since something like 96 per cent of the population
of England is white (91 per cent, if you, as Seamus insisted, exclude the
Irish, whom he wants classified as an ethnic minority) that is hardly
surprising and not really something to worry about. But you'd be wrong. Even
British isn't an acceptable word now: preferred is "community of
communities".

For what it's worth, here's my advice. Welcome immigrants but in manageable
numbers. Let them work. Treat them decently, with respect and appreciation.
Enjoy what they bring us. Encourage them to join existing political parties
rather than form their own.

And above all, swiftly and ruthlessly, nip the race-relations industry in
the bud.

Ruth Dudley Edwards
19 November

Piaras Mac Einri
Director
Irish Centre for Migration Studies
National University of Ireland, Cork

has shared with us his reply to the following by Ruth Dudley Edwards (Sunday
Independent 19 Nov) - see earlier Ir-D email...

(REPLY FOLLOWS)

I found Dr Ruth Dudley Edwards? views (19 November) unhelpful and
irresponsible. She portrays a Britain which would be a haven of
understanding were it not for the influence of the race relations ?industry?
.

If there is a degree of harmony in Britain today (and all is not rosy) this
is due to forty years of hard work by people from immigrant and host
communities concerned with ?race relations?, as well as some courageous
politicians, on the right as well as the left, an openness to debate and
change, creative policy initiatives and tough legislation.

Dr Dudley Edwards seems to be out of touch with Ireland. Racism and
xenophobia in Ireland predate the race relations 'industry' and also predate
recent immigration. Anti-Traveller sentiment and anti-Semitism have been
present for decades There is now a rising level of racist attacks in cities
such as Dublin and Cork.

As a society we have done little to combat racism and discrimination until
the fairly recent past. It remains to be seen how effective the (very
welcome) new legislation, such as the Equal Status Act, will be. What is
very clear is that it will have no effect at all unless accompanied by clear
initiatives and people to promote, monitor and enforce them, as would be
required for any core national policy. The sneering term ?industry? is
inappropriate.

Contrary to what Dr. Dudley Edwards claims, anti-racist and
anti-discrimination programmes are not about getting the ?natives? to admit
they are 'all racist' and must undergo 'brainwashing'. They are about
equality and respect for diversity and inclusion, within a common framework
of civil values. This does involve admitting the reality of racism in
society and does require us to take a hard look at our own attitudes and
prejudices.

Dr Dudley Edwards reveals her own prejudices most clearly when she says that
?it would be more sensible to expect people from other cultures to
understand the one they've chosen to live in?. No society?s culture is based
on a fixed, unchanging ?us?; there is a process of constant addition, mixing
and change. The host society changes as well as the newcomers. If this is
done with goodwill and understanding by all, and recognition for everyone?s
cultural identity (including host society identities), it can work. If it is
not, we are on the road to exclusion, which in other places has led to
ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Yours sincerely

Piaras Mac Einri
Director
Irish Centre for Migration Studies
National University of Ireland, Cork

We have received the following update from our friend, Werner Sollors, at
the Longfellow Institute.
[Note: the Longfellow Institute is interested in the non-English language
literatures of the United States of America...]

P.O'S.



Dear Patrick,

I hope this finds you well. I am writing you today to thank you for your
interest in the past and to call your attention to new publications and
convention events in connection with the Longfellow Institute project.

New and forthcoming publications:

The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature: A Reader of Original
Texts with English Translations (published by New York University Press,
2000)
Long in the making, the books once planned as the Longfellow anthology is
now ready; and it looks beautiful. The official publication date is December
1, 2000.

Christoph Lohmann's edition of Ottilie Assing's writings, entitled Radical
Passion: Ottilie Assing's Reports from America and Letters to Frederick
Douglass (New York etc.: Peter Lang, 1999), ISBN0-8204-4526-6, presents
eighty essays and reports on the United States (1852-1865) by the
German-American journalist Ottilie Assing (1819-1884) along with
twenty-seven letters from Assing to Frederick Douglass during the years
1870-1879.


Chinese American Literature since the 1850s by Xiao-huang Yin (University of
Illinois Press) is the first
book on Chinese American Literature in English and Chinese. Yin's book
significantly enlarges the scope of Chinese and Asian American studies. This
body of literature, including works by immigrant writers such as Chen Ruoxi,
Yu Lihua, and Zhang Xiguo, reflects the high percentage of Chinese Americans
for whom the Chinese language remains an integral part of everyday life.

Orm Øverland's long-awaited book on home-making myths, Immigrant Minds,
American Identities: Making the United States Home, 1870-1930 has just been
published . His collection
Not English Only: Redefining "American" in American Studies is scheduled to
appear soon from Rob Kroes's series "European Contributions to American
Studies" at the VU Press in Amsterdam. It brings together Longfellow
Institute work from various conferences.

Steven G. Kellman's new book, The Translingual Imagination (University of
Nebraska Press)
is the first comprehensive study of authors around the
world who write in more than one language ("ambilinguals") or in a language
other than their primary one ("monolingual translinguals").

There is the good news that the Longfellow Series is finally getting ready
for production at Johns Hopkins University Press. The first volumes will be
the first English translations of Drude Krog Janson's novel A Saloonkeeper's
Daughter and Ludwig von Reizenstein's novel The Mysteries of New Orleans.
Both are now scheduled for a Spring 2001 publication date.

Convention news:

The business meeting of the Modern Language Association Discussion Group on
"Literature of the United States in Languages Other Than English" has been
scheduled for December 29, 2000, from 12 - 2 at the Washington Hilton, Room
TBA. We are also planning a panel at the 2001 MLA in New Orleans on the
topic of "Language Diversity and National Literatures" for which proposals
for papers are invited. If you would like to join the group, please mark
"L2" on your MLA membership renewal form for 2001.

The American Historical Association Convention in
Boston is scheduled to have a special luncheon on The Multilingual Anthology
of American Literature from 12:15 to 1:45 on January 6, 2001. Sponsored by
the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, it will be held in the Cape
Cod/Hyannis rooms of the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

Proposals for panels at the American Literature Association
meeting in Cambridge, May 24-27 2001,
can be submitted until January 30, 2001. There will be a special focus on
periodicals published in the U.S. written in languages other than English,
or intended for immigrant or expatriate communities
.

There is a January 26, 2001 deadline for proposals for panels at the
American Studies Association conference In Washington, D.C., November 8-11,
2001. See the ASA website
for
details.

Best,

Werner

From: C McCaffrey
Organization: Johns Hopkins University

Just wanted to let the list know and remember that it is 100 years ago
today that the great Irishman, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde,
died in Paris. Probably the most tragic member of the diaspora. He died
in poverty as he himself said 'I am dying as I have lived, beyond my
means' when he saw the doctor's bill. May his memory live forever.

Carmel

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The following email is being distributed to all 'Irish Diaspora' E of I
contributors...

P.O'S.


Illustrations for Encyclopaedia of Ireland

1.
The Gill & Macmillan Encyclopaedia of Ireland will be heavily illustrated.
Sample pages are now being mailed to all Encylopaedia contributors, to give
some idea of the effect the General Editor has in mind.

The 'Irish Diaspora' elements of the Encyclopaedia of Ireland can have about
45 illustrations, single-column material for simple images, double-column
for major images. We can have 5 or 10 major images.

I have resolutely taken the view that we should regard this as another
opportunity to make the Irish Diaspora visible. Encyclopaedia of Ireland
contributors should think of illustrations as a way of making their entries
more visible on the page. I have asked colleagues who are writing country,
region or theme entries to start thinking now about an appropriate
illustration that will really catch the eye.

As well as the classic illustrations the General Editor has also indicated
an interest in seeing 'ephemera'. So, I have also suggested, there is an
opportunity here for those of you who are trying to gather archives. Again,
as a way of making our work visible - for the archives will be credited.

Note that you do not have to be a contributor to the Encyclopaedia of
Ireland to suggest an illustration. It will be appreciated that the team in
Dublin can have little idea of the wealth of potential material.

2.
The Encyclopaedia of Ireland team, in Dublin, will see to all documentation
regarding the requesting of images, permissions, costs, etc.

We need to supply...

a. usable source details for each image - image title, who by (if artwork,
photography, sculpture), institution, current address & email, telephone and
fax numbers, name of archivist or other relevant contact person. As ever,
think about the team in Dublin - give them what they need to quickly contact
the source.

b. the suggested placing of the image in the Encylopaedia - which entry or
subject matter does this image illustrate?

c. PLUS, of course, an image of the image. A photocopy will do.

Decisions about what will be used remain with the General Editor, Brian
Lalor, in Dublin. And he says, 'The better the material, the more likely it
is that it will be used...'

3.
Send photocopies, with the above information, to

SARAH DURCAN
PICTURE EDITOR
THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF IRELAND
21 GREAT WESTERN SQUARE
PHIBSBOROUGH
DUBLIN 7
IRELAND

If you have the facility to send images as email attachments, you can send
them to

sarahdurcan[at]eircom.net

Sarah Durcan, the Picture Editor, tells me she is working in Adobe Photoshop
5 on an IMAC - and maybe even Photoshop 6 by now. Do think about
compatability - Photoshop can import/export GIF, JPEG, and PNG files. And
if the foregoing sentence makes no sense to you... maybe do not think about
email attachments at all - stick to photocopies.

Patrick O'Sullivan

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

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

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

A potentially very useful Web resource is...

http://www.findarticles.com/

'About FindArticles

'FindArticles.com is a vast archive of published articles that you can
search for free. Constantly updated, it contains articles dating back to
1998 from more than 300 magazines and journals.
You will find articles on a range of topics, including business, health,
society, entertainment, sports and more. Unlike other online collections,
each of the hundreds of thousands of articles in FindArticles can be read in
its entirety and printed at no cost. For detailed information on how to use
FindArticles, consult our Help tutorial.

'FindArticles is a content-distribution partnership between LookSmart, which
provides the search infrastructure, and the Gale Group, which provides the
published editorial content.'

The Gale Group, it turns out, controls many scholarly journals of interest
to us. And the FindArticles site is a source of many useful book reviews.
And articles.

But. The irritating thing about the site is that it is set up so that you
can only print out a review or an article - and the ways I have so far
worked out for doing anything else are cumbersome, especially for long
items. This is the FindArticles policy, of course - and there are fierce
warnings about copyright.

But there, for example, is the book review I was looking for - from English
Historical Review...

Joep Leerssen
Mere Irish and Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, its
Development and Literary Expression prior to the Nineteenth Century.(also
'Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary
Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century')(Review) / (book
reviews)
Author/s: R. F. Foster
Issue: Nov, 1999

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0293/459_114/58282533/p1/article.jhtml

And that Web address should get you to it.

I know that this might not be good enough for some Ir-D members, who have
somewhat limited Web access. Still thinking about that...

P.O'S.

- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580

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