From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

This new discussion list will be of interest to Ir-D members with an
'Atlantic World' approach to Irish history and Irish Diaspora history...

P.O'S.


ANNOUNCING H-ATLANTIC
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From: McCaffrey
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Subject: The Irish in Australia

Paddy,
FYI I just heard from Cork University Press that there is a delay in
publication of 'The Irish in Australia' and they will not now be publishing
the
new edition until 'sometime in the autumn'. No date has yet been decided
on.
Carmel

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

On a train of thought, following a recent question about police history...

There is a contact point and web site

PoliceHistory.com
Garda Síochána Historical Society - Irish Police History

http://www.esatclear.ie/~garda/index.html

Which might offer a way forward.

Policing in Britain is in crisis. We have recently been blessed with a
visit by John Timoney, offering sage advice...

Thank you, Philadelphia...

Background...

http://www.house.gov/reform/hearings/federalism/timoney.htm

http://www.ailf.org/notable/iaa/timoney.htm

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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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 folowing item is being distributed and has been brought to our
attention...

P.O'S.

From Dr Jason Mc Elligott
Subject: Re: Review of James Scott Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland

While reading the review of Scott-Wheeler's book on Cromwell in Ireland, I
[Dr Jason Mc Elligott] was concerned to find that my pamphlet Cromwell:
our chief of enemies (Dundalgan Publishers, Dundalk, 1994) was lumped
together
with Tom Reilly's recent book Cromwell: an honourable enemy. I have written
a
review of Reilly's book which demonstrates the serious methodological errors
and deliberate sleights of hand that he uses to support his ludicrous claim
that not one civilian was killed by Cromwell at Drogheda. This review will
be published in the forthcoming edition of an Irish Studies Journal
entitled Bullán. The full reference is Bullán, volume 5, no. 2
(Spring/Summer 2001), 132-36. Anyone interested in a subscription to the
journal can contact the subs manager at:

Bullán
1148 Flanner Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Telephone: (219) 631-6250
Fax: (219) 631-3620
Email: bullan.1[at]nd.edu

I am currently working on an article for the same journal entitled
'Cromwell, Drogheda and the falsification of history'. This will take issue
with both traditional nationalist accounts of Drogheda and the recent
attempts by revisionists to rewrite Cromwell's actions in the town in
September 1649.

Dr Jason Mc Elligott
Research Associate
Roger Morrice Entring Book Project
Faculty of History
University of Cambridge
CB3 9EF
gjm23[at]cam.ac.uk

[NOTE: See Martyn Bennett "Review of James Scott Wheeler, Cromwell
in Ireland," H-Albion, H-Net Reviews, August, 2000. URL:
http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=10442965145368.]

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

NORTH AMERICAN JAMES JOYCE CONFERENCE
The 2001 North American James Joyce Conference continues until
Friday, July 6. Presented by the Department of English at the
University of California, Berkeley, and the Irish Arts Foundation,
the conference features Joycean scholar Senator David Norris whose
one-man show, "Do You Hear What I Am Seeing?" is at the Julia Morgan
Theatre, Berkeley, July 5. For Further details see
http://www.iaf.org

- --
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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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

Oh...

Stop pestering me...

Here it is, the evil thing...

John Allcock does not suggest that Miles O'Brien was accidentally left
behind in an Away Team/Time Warp episode of Star Trek... But it is the only
rational explanation...

Those of you familiar with Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum, will be
familiar with the techniques... the lies, the half lies, the confident
assertions...

Do not circulate further. Read and eat. Wicked nonsense...

I blame myself...

P.O'S.



The Irish Origins of Independent Serbia

John B. Allcock
(Research Unit in South East European Studies,
University of Bradford)


Takovska zora (1)
(extract)


Came then the Pa?a, Kursid and his spahis;
Cut down the knez, put to the knife the raja;
Drove from the land the weeping wives, the orphans;
Hauled high, impaled, the bleeding hajduk heroes.
Then lowly fell the friendless Had?i Prodan;
Forth stretched his neck to Sulejman?s swift sabre.
Such was all ?umadija?s bitter springtime--
Of ash and stone, of iron, graves and silence.

Then from the North was heard the voice of vengeance;
From blood-soaked sod there rose again the flower (2)
Of Serbia?s sons, all armed with steel and fire
To Takovo, ?neath Suvobor?s stern ?scarpment.
There Milo? called the knezovi together;
Before the oaken altar drew his sabre.

?Here am I, and here are you, my brothers!
War to the Turk! Away the yoke, the goad!
No more the harac: dahija?s grim ire!?


In the wake of the recent fall of Slobodan Milo?evic, ?revisionist?
historians in Serbia have begun to unravel a hitherto unsuspected role for
the Irish diaspora. The founder of the Serbian independent state was an
Irishman.

Serb names (along with those of many other Slav peoples) commonly end in the
suffix ?-ic? (frequently ?-evic? or ?-ovic?, for reasons which need not
detain us here). This is simply the Slavonic equivalent of the Celtic prefix
?Mac-? or the northern European suffix ?-son? (or ?-sen?) and signifies ?son
of?. Hence Milo?evic is ?the son of Milo??, or Jovanovic ?the son of Jovan?.
Nobody suspected that Obrenovic might actually have originated, early in the
nineteenth century, as ?the son of O?Brien??nobody, that is, until
Professors ?alica and Zadirkavac published the results of their research in
the latest edition of the Glasnik Srpske Akedemije.

Towards the end of the fourteenth century the formerly independent Slav
princedoms (fragmented legatees of the Nemanjic Empire) fell under Ottoman
rule. Although the intervening centuries were punctuated by frequent
uprisings of the peasantry, and the Serb hajduk has even been recognised by
Hobsbawm as the archetype of the ?social bandit?, it was not until the end
of the eighteenth century that Ottoman hegemony began to be seriously
challenged in the Serb lands (the revolt of 1787-88). The effective
beginnings of the Serb national struggle are usually dated, however, from
the rising of 1804, led by ?Karadjorde? Petrovic. Although this dragged on
(with half-hearted aid from Austria and Russia) until 1813, Russian
preoccupation with Napoleon, and the conclusion of the Treaty of Bucharest
between Russia and Turkey, in 1812, effectively pulled the rug from under
the rebels, and the struggle collapsed.

The severity of Turkish reprisals resulted in the resurgence of armed
resistance against the returning Ottoman forces, in 1815. On this occasion
the leader of the uprising was one Milo? Obrenovic--as his name has passed
into history. Professors ?alica and Zadirkavac now affirm, convincingly,
that it was originally Miles O?Brien.

The origins of this ?Obrenovic? have always been obscure. Readers of Serbian
history in English will probably have assumed that his sudden arrival on the
stage of history could be illuminated if only one were to pursue the
original Serbian sources. Darby, the Jelaviches, Pavlowitch, Petrovitch,
Schevill, Singleton and Stavrianos, however, are all oddly reticent about
his origins. Indications are commonly given that he had participated in the
first rising, and it is accepted that he was no simple peasant.
Nevertheless, there are clear indications that the story of Milo? is heavily
mythologised in places. While acknowledging that the name Obrenovic was not
actually his familial name, Ranke plainly constrains his account to fit Serb
customary rules about adoptive kinship, without enquiring further. (4) The
religious overtones of the declaration of his intentions, in the village of
Takovo on Palm Sunday, are clearly intended to echo Prince Lazar?s
dedication of himself and his knights on the eve of the Battle of Kosovo,
celebrated in traditional epic song. (5)

This obscurity is not dispelled, however, even when one does penetrate to
the presumed foundations in Serbian documentation and historiography. The
entry on Milo? in the Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, for example, is evasive
even about the date of his birth. (6) Accounts of his life before 1814 are
inevitably stylised, rudimentary and repetitive. Milo? is a mystery. In the
light of recent research it is not surprising that historians frequently
refer to his deviousness, because it seems that the mystery was at least in
part deliberately fostered.

Two questions require an answer. Who was ?Milo? Obrenovic?? Why has his
identity escaped detection until now? There are still significant lacunae in
the record, but a consistent answer to both of these questions can at least
be suggested.

Milo? Obrenovic (or Miles O?Brien, as we shall now call him) came from an
ancient family of Irish aristocrats, staunchly Catholic in their religious
persuasion and consistently nationalist. O?Brien was, in fact, an uncle of
William Smith O?Brien, a leading figure in the Young Ireland movement. His
birth (baptised under the name of Michael) has been definitively established
in Drumoland, County Clare, in 1760. (7) The precise date at which he
finally left his native land is still contested, and estimates have been
offered between 1796 and 1802. (For a variety of reasons, which need not
concern us here, an earlier date seems probable.) In fact, O?Brien was one
of the celebrated ?Wild Geese?. Clearly he had acquired a measure of
military experience and ability, as his travels took him soon into the
service of the Habsburgs?initially to Naples, where he took the name
?Milo??before moving to Vienna. ?alica and Zadirkavac uncovered the trail
by accident during their research into Austrian documentary sources relating
to Habsburg support for the Serbian uprisings. Indeed, O?Brien did play a
part in the first Serb uprising (although not joining the rebels until
1807?he was wounded at the siege of U?ice) holding a commission from the
Ballplatz as what we would today call a ?military advisor?.

Correspondence with his masters in Vienna ceased with the failure of the
rising, and here the links in the story become more speculative. It seems
most probable that, on account of his involvement with the Serb struggle for
independence, he ?went native? and remained in Serbia. (8) The rest, as
they say, is history.

It remains necessary to address our second question. Why has the story
remained so well-hidden until its recent accidental discovery? As with most
historical false trails, the answer lies in a mixture of deliberate
obfuscation and accidental misunderstanding.

It is not hard to surmise why O?Brien should have found it desirable to
conceal his true origins in Serbia. He stood in a long line of romantic
western European adventurers who adopted the cause of small nations, of whom
Lord Byron is the archetype. In the case of O?Brien, however, his
identification with Serbia was given the added spur of its adoption as a
substitute for the failing cause of Irish national independence. Given the
entrenched parochialism of the ?umadijan peasant, however, rendered
chronically paranoid by decades of harassment by ill-disciplined Ottoman
dahija and krd?ali, the minimisation of signs of his difference would have
been necessary to his securing their trust and recognition of his authority.
Given the intermittent need of the infant Serb state to flatter Russian
pretensions as the protector of the Orthodox, discovery of the Catholic
origins of the Serbian prince would have raised unhelpful suspicions of
complicity with the rival Habsburg Empire. (9)

What is in a sense more interesting, however, is the way in which the
intellectual agendas of others have constantly worked to overlook the
evidence which confronted them. Generations of European historians have been
led off course in this respect by the first great historian of the Serbian
independence struggle, Leopold von Ranke. Ranke set out, influenced by
Herder, in writing his history of the Serbian ?revolution? to match his
earlier studies of ?teutonic? history as the realisation of the authentic
spirit of a distinctive culture. The Irish origins of its leader can hardly
have been welcome in the context of this thesis. Despite his acknowledged
commitment to the ideal of historical objectivity, neither can Ranke?s
immersion in Lutheranism have found much use for O?Brien?s Catholicism.

Contemporary indigenous observers also would have found it convenient to
ignore any information they may have possessed about O?Brien?s background.
The great systematiser of the Serbian language, Vuk Stefanovic Karad?ic took
as his goal the purification of the Serbian tongue from all traces of its
?corruption? under various foreign influences?especially Turkish, but also
(in view of Vuk?s tendency to assimilate Croats to Serb ethnicity) German
and Magyar. The prophet of the purity of Serb culture might well have found
it embarrassing, especially in the light of his personal dependence upon at
least the tolerance of the Court, to draw attention to the foreign origins
of the new ruler of Serbia. (Perhaps it is his sensitivity on this point
which motivated the chronic ambivalence of ?Milo?? towards Vuk, on which
Wilson has commented.) (10)

At this period, when as a consequence of Ottoman rule so few Serbs were
literate, it is not surprising that the records which are left to us by
contemporaries are generally composed by members of the Orthodox clergy,
such as Dositej Obradovic and Prota Matija Nenadovic. (11) They too will
have had little reason to draw attention to the Catholic origins of such a
central figure in the story of Orthodox Serbia.

Despite these pressures towards the falsification of history, occasional
clues have been there for the observant to have seen?had they not been
primed to ignore them by historiographic orthodoxy. Vuk?s own collection of
folk-song bears witness to this. Contrary to widespread belief, what Vuk
recorded was not folk ?tradition? handed down unaltered from time
immemorial, but a living genre of expression in which contemporary events
were recorded. His Takovska zora, which celebrates the events of 1815,
clearly refers to Milo? as coming from the North?which can only have
signified from across the river Sava, in Habsburg territory. (12)

Of equal significance in enabling O?Brien to cover his tracks has been the
indifference of Serbian historians towards the potential utility of Ottoman
archives (indeed, their technical inability to use them until very
recently). It is now known, however, that in his report of the negotiations
between himself and the Serbian rebels, at the conclusion of hostilities in
1813, Marasli Ali Pasa refers to the Serb leader as a frenk?a term normally
reserved for western Europeans. (13)

Because he invested the spoils of dispossessed sipahija in estates in what
is now Romania, many of the personal effects of ?Milo?? have ended up in
Romanian museums?though not always recognised for what they are. A pair of
miniatures recently discovered in the municipal museum of Cráiova, apart
from being evidently commissioned to suit a taste which is neither Ottoman
nor Serb, clearly are domestic scenes from the life of ?Milo??. (14) The
fabric of his cloak is, without question, not of any design familiar to
Balkan weavers, but unmistakably of Irish origin. Although his flamboyant
preferences for dressing at Court like an Ottoman Pasha were the regular
object of the mockery of his opponents (likewise the fate of a much later
Yugoslav leader!) it seems that at home, and out of the public gaze, he
reverted to a less formal, Celtic domesticity.

Among the evidence which ?alica and Zadirkavac regard as the most decisive
in pointing to the Irish descent of ?Miloë? is that which refers to his
character and behaviour. Reports of his irascible and violent character are
commonplace in the literature?summarised succinctly by Fred Singleton:
?Miloë ?. was not an attractive personality ?. cruel, greedy, corrupt,
devious ?.? (15) On a more positive note, he had unquestionably made his own
way by virtue of his exceptional energies. Ranke tells us that ?Milosch
might be classed in the number of chiefs who have created their own power?.
(16) Michael B. Petrovich, however, gives a rather more pointed indication
of his character. Present at the ?submission? of the Serbs in 1813, Süleyman
Skopljak Pasa recognised Milo? as somebody with whom he had tangled on the
field of battle. ?This (said the Pasa, exhibiting the scar on his arm) is
the man who bit me!? It is hard to imagine a finer example of ?Blarney? than
Milo??s response. ?I will cover it with gold, honourable Pasa?. (17)
Accounts of his violence as ?Supreme Knez? after independence are frequent,
regularly beating members of the Court who displeased him. (18)

There was another side to his character, however, commented upon frequently
by contemporaries, which the revisionists now interpret as evidence of Irish
origins, namely his success as a ?ladies? man?. Castellan records the
occasion upon which (following a sharp exchange with his wife):

Le princesse se leva et s?en alla. Milos resta tout seul, pensif. A ce
moment, Petria passa devant Milos et l?illumina comme le soleil du matin
avec ses yeux, grands et beaux. Milos tressaillit et se dit soudain:
?Comme elle est belle, que Dieu la sauvegard! Pourquoi Ljubica se
fache-t-elle? Sans cette femme, toute la maison serait sourde!? (19)

His authoritarianism within the confines of traditionally democratic Serb
culture, and his open displays of libido in the context of a society in
which the honour of women was valued, have been remarked upon precisely
because they were both unusual and scandalous. Surely, such a man was no
Serb!

This dramatic revision of Serbian history has already caused a sensation in
Belgrade?as it will undoubtedly do when it is assimilated more generally by
historians of the Balkans. The discovery that the first ruler of an
independent Serbia was no more nor less than a representative of the Irish
diaspora, violent, smooth-talking and lecherous, is in itself almost less
remarkable than the derivative controversy which it has already ignited.
Does the hostile reception which as greeted the discovery that ?Milo
Obrenovic? was really ?Miles O?Brien? tell us more about public stereotypes
of the Irish, or of the Serbs? In the present state of the debate, it is
hard to tell.

JBA

NOTES

1 The poem was part of the collection of material gathered by Vuk
Stefanovic Karad?ic, for his projected Life of Milo?. It is believed that it
was collected from one of his major sources, Te?an Podrugovic of Sremski
Karlovci, who was probably a participant in the events described. (See
Wilson, op. cit., p.107.) As Vuk?s published collection of ?popular songs?
was guided by a vision of the great antiquity of Serb culture, more
contemporary material was omitted. It might well have been intended for
inclusion, however, in the pamphlet Poem on the Rising of the Serbs against
the Dahijas (1832) but following Vuk?s disastrous break with Milo? of that
year, was omitted--its lauding of the prince?s heroism evidently too much
for Vuk to stomach. The version here is taken from Vojislav Djuric, Narodne
junacke pesme. Belgrade: Prosveta, 1960. (Trans. JBA.)

2 This is a verbal play on the Serbian name for Palm Sunday, the day of the
declaration of the uprising. Cveti is from the root cvet, meaning ?flower?.

3 ?Altar? is metaphorical here. The event took place under a tree, but is
intended here as a direct reference to the Eucharist celebrated by Prince
Lazar and his knights before the Battle of Kosovo?a widely known image in
Serbian epic poetry.

4 Leopold Ranke, The History of Servia and the Servian Revolution. London:
Henry G. Bohn, 1853, p. 196. According to Ranke, ?having entered the service
of Milan? the two men became ?so closely united that Milosch called himself
Obrenovitsch, after Milan?s father?. Castellan notes that his ?brothers?
actually took the name of Tesanovic. Georges Castellan, La Vie quotidienne
en Serbie au seuil de l?indépendance, 1815-1839. Paris: Hachette, 1967, p.
30. The frequency with which Castellan?s description of Milo?? early life is
framed by ?sans doute? suggests that he might be guessing!

5 See Milorad Djuric (ed.), Boj na Kosovo, Beograd: Vuk Karad?ic, 1989.
There are several occasions also in which what purports to be a historical
account of the actions of Milo? Obrenovic seems to have been modified to
echo those of the other Milo?--Obilic, a central character in the Kosovo
cycle.

6 Encikloedija Jugoslavije, Zagreb: Jugoslovenski Leksikografski Zavod,
1965, Vol. 6, pp. 362-364. The primary source for all of these accounts
appears to be Ami Boué, who did not visit the area until after 1835, when
Milo? had already established himself as ?Prince?, and the process of
adapting his ?life? to standard hagiographical forms was already well under
way. Ami Boué, La Turquie d?Europe, Paris, 1840, 4 Vols.

7 It is not difficult to see how this has been rationalised in Serb
sources to Dobrinja, usually given as his birthplace.

8 Sources agree that he steered well clear of the abortive uprising of
Had?i-Prodan, in the early months of 1815.

9 The hallmark of Obrenovic foreign policy, in contrast to that of their
rivals the Karadjordjevices, was always willingness to accommodate to the
guidance of Vienna. Whereas the depravity of the last Obrenovic (Aleksandar)
is generally fastened onto as providing the explanation of his brutal murder
(together with his consort Draga) in 1903, a more sober historical appraisal
would probably give greater weight to the impatience of the Serb military
with what was perceived as his disgraceful acquiescence to Austrian demands.

10 Duncan Wilson, The Life and Times of Vuk Stefanovic Karad?ic:
1787-1864. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1986.

11 See esp. Prota Matija Nenadovic, The Memoirs of Prota Matija Nenadovic.
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969. See also my remarks above, in note 3.

12 Vojslav Djuric, Narodne junacke pesme. Belgrade: Prosveta, 1960.

13 Fadir Banguoglu, Tarih Sirbistanin. Ankara: Osmanlia, 1989, p. 476. The
term derives from the earlier ?Frank?.

14 Catalog de museul municipal. Cráiova: Liber, n.d.

15 Fred Singleton, A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples. Cambridge
University Press, 1985, p. 83.

16 Ranke, op. cit., p. 196.

17 Michael B. Petrovich, A History of Serbia. New York and London:
Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1976, Vol. 1, p. 84.

18 The title Knez (or knjaz) is often translated erroneously as ?Duke?.
This is an anachronistic reading of the title based upon mediaeval sources.
In Ottoman terms it signified no more than ?standing with respect?, and was
used to refer to local Christian headmen. It was definitely not a title of
nobility, and not hereditary.

19 Castellan, op. cit., p. 45. This dimension of his character is
illuminated more fully by the chapter on his relations with women included
in M.D. Milicevic, Knez Milo? u pricama, Belgrade, n.d.

John B. Allcock
(Research Unit in South East European Studies,
University of Bradford)

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: Re: Ir-D O'Farrell, The Irish in Australia

Dear Carmel,

The O'Farrell book is available here and is around in a number of
major bookshops. It came out in May from the University of NSW Press
in Sydney - with the odd cover described by Paddy in a previous
email. But the Melbourne University bookshop told me they had been
expecting it since December, and had had a number of queries and
complaints about the delay. I don't know why there has been such a
delay - and obviously the delay continues in Ireland.

Do you want a copy speedily? I'd be happy to buy one here and send it
to you. That should hopefully arrive before 'sometime in the the
autumn'. When I need a US-published book that is difficult to get
here, you could reciprocate.

Doesn't solve the general problem of getting books of course, but if
it would help in this particular case, please let me know.

Elizabeth Malcolm
Melbourne


>From: McCaffrey
>Organization: Johns Hopkins University
>Subject: The Irish in Australia
>
>Paddy,
>FYI I just heard from Cork University Press that there is a delay in
>publication of 'The Irish in Australia' and they will not now be publishing
>the
>new edition until 'sometime in the autumn'. No date has yet been decided
>on.
>Carmel

Professor Elizabeth Malcolm Tel: +61-3-8344 3924
Chair of Irish Studies FAX: +61-3-8344 7894
Department of History Email: e.malcolm[at]unimelb.edu.au
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria, 3010
AUSTRALIA

From: "Anne-Maree Whitaker"
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D Competition Report

Paddy

If only I'd known I would have been the only entrant I might have put more
effort into my theory that Tolstoy's 'What is Art?' was a carefully
disguised critique of the first season of the Abbey Theatre! Curses....

Anne-Maree


>From: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>Reply-To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>Subject: Ir-D Competition Report
>Date: Wed 4 Jul 2001 06:00:00 +0000
>
>From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>Subject: Ir-D Stage Irish 2
>
>
>From: "Anne-Maree Whitaker"
>To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Ir-D Stage Irish
>
>Which reminds me, Paddy, what ever happened to the Easter competition??
>
>Anne-Maree Whitaker
>
>
>Anne-Maree,
>
>Sorry to have ignored your message...
>
>I think secretly maybe I was hoping this matter would quietly drop.
>
>We have quite a few new members, who do not know about our annual St.
>Patrick's Day Irish-Diaspora list Competition...
>
>The nature of the Competition is easier to demonstrate than explain...
>
>Last year, 2000, the theme of the Competition was 'Unlikely Monuments of
>the
>Irish-Diaspora'. And the Competition was a success in that... we had a
>number of entries, which abided by the rules, a winner (Sarah Morgan,
>London), and a distinguished runner-up (Marion Casey, New York).
>
>This year, 2001, the theme of the competition was 'HOMAGE TO MACKMORRICE...
>'Who talkes of my Nation?'
>
>For new members I have distributed, as a separate email, the original
>rules...
>
>This competiotion was a (mitigated) disaster. We had many declarations of
>interest, but no entries. So we delayed, and made it an Easter
>Competition.
>
>By the closing date we had received only one entry that actually met the
>requirements of the Competition.
>
>Unfortunately that one entry was submitted by one of the judges, my friend
>and colleague, John Allcock - an expert on Balkan history and politics.
>
>After a lot of humming and hawing we decided that entries from judges must
>be inadmissable.
>
>But this one entry does show that the rules were NOT entirely
>incomprehensible...
>
>Also, John's entry is an evil thing...
>
>It will be seen that marks would be given for...
>
>'1. misdirected erudition,
>2. linguistic ingenuity,
>3. ghastly plausibility,
>4. and sheer bloodymindedness.'
>
>His entry has them all, but especially it has the ghastly plausibility...
>
>I am genuinely worried about allowing this wicked piece of nonsense out
>into
>the public domain...
>
>P.O'S.
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded for information...

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Albion[at]h-net.msu.edu (July, 2001)

Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards, and Elizabeth Fitzpatrick.
_Gaelic Ireland: Land, Lordship and Settlement, c. 1250-c.
1650_. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001. 454 pp. Tables, maps
and index. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 1-85182-547-9.

Reviewed for H-Albion by Thomas Finan ,
Departments of History and Religious Studies, Webster
University, St. Louis

The Lost Gaelic Middle Ages Re-found

Gaelic Ireland is one of the most under-studied fields of all
medieval history. To be precise, though, Gaelic Ireland refers
to that period after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans at the end
of the twelfth century. There is no lack of scholarship
concerning the period before the Anglo-Normans, but the history,
archaeology, and literary history of Gaelic Ireland have been
remarkably neglected. The editors and authors of this volume
concerning settlement and geography in Gaelic Ireland attempt to
respond to this state of affairs with a variety of approaches
meant to fill in blanks left by years of neglect, and in the
process have produced an exceptional volume that should attract
more scholars to such a fertile field waiting to be harvested.

The introduction of the volume, written by Duffy, Edwards, and
Fitzpatrick, is valuable if only because of the extensive
references found in the footnotes. No book on Gaelic Ireland
provides such information. Often other monographs concerning
Gaelic Ireland (particularly _Gaelic Ireland_ by Kenneth
Nicholls) attempt to inform a general audience and hence have
not provided any references; few books on Gaelic Ireland lead
new scholars into the discipline by showing the reader where to
turn for sources. Nor do many books provide the level of
interpretation that explains why the subject of medieval Gaelic
Ireland is in the state that it is in. Irish historians have
generally blamed the catastrophic fire in the Public Record
House in Dublin during the Irish Civil War for the supposed lack
of documents comparable to those of Ireland's nearest neighbor,
England. But Duffy, et al., rightly point out that the records
held in the Public Record Office (while valuable) rarely dealt
with Gaelic Ireland, and that most of the materials of Gaelic
Ireland had been deposited at the libraries of Trinity College,
the Royal Irish Academy, and other learned societies in Ireland.
As well, the linguistic difficulties of Middle and Early Modern
Irish (which still has no usable grammar) have led some scholars
to declare that until more documents are translated by the
linguists, we will not be able to piece together medieval Gaelic
society. Again, Duffy, et al., show that large bodies of
material (including massive collections of bardic poetry)
already exist in translation, but few have considered these
materials as historic source material. And, finally, following
a recent work by Kieran O'Conor, the editors posit that Gaelic
Ireland is so understudied because the nation that evolved from
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw itself in
terms of a non-English identity.[1] As a result, the greater
part of the twentieth century was spent investigating the
archaeology and history of Early Christian or Early Medieval
period in Ireland, as this period was seen as somehow "purely"
Irish.

The seventeen essays in the volume address these supposed
limitations and do so successfully. I must point out that I
would like to summarize all of the essays for this review, as
all are vital studies, but I will instead discuss several
notable essays as exemplary of the volume itself.

Kenneth Nicholls treats the question of the extent to which
Ireland was wooded in the late medieval period, and does so with
his usual style, clarity and ability to draw the most out of
seemingly disparate sources. Rather than accepting either the
commonly held idea that the primeval forests of Ireland lasted
the Anglo-Normans and were only destroyed in the Early Modern
period as a result of the growing need for wood in the
production of iron, or the newer position that Ireland's
primeval forests were already consumed by the arrival of the
Anglo-Normans, Nicholls describes a complicated system of
destruction and re-growth over time, in which the size of the
forests was at least modestly related to the stability within
Irish society. As a result, for instance, reforestation
occurred during the fourteenth century, while by the time of the
Tudor reconquest, the forests were exploited in an unsustainable
way.

Valerie Hall and Lynda Bunting have successfully used the study
of Icelandic volcanic ash in the peat bogs of Northern Ireland
to date layers within the bogs with great accuracy. As a
result, the pollen found in the layers can also be dated with
the same accuracy, such that Hall and Bunting can show what
species of plants, grains and trees existed around the bog.
Their conclusion, that "...the rural landscape of medieval
Ireland was at least as diverse as its modern counterpart...,"
(pp. 221-2) of course leads to more questions than answers, but
hopefully this method can give us a much better picture of the
landscape of historic Ireland that has too often been described
as simply a wild forested land.

Katharine Simms has spent the better part of three decades
describing Gaelic Ireland by analyzing the massive corpus of
bardic poetry that is still relatively underutilized by
historians. The use of bardic poetry has its difficulties, to
be sure, as does the use of any type of literature as historic
source. But Simms has a unique gift for extracting meanings
from these poems that are often more concerned with flattering a
patron than with providing the modern scholar with information.
In her article on "the House Poems," she analyzes the vocabulary
used by the bardic poets in describing the houses, forts, and
"castles" of Gaelic lords. Simms reminds the reader that taking
the descriptions of houses at face value is dangerous indeed;
the houses are often compared to supernatural places, in which
case the analogy is clearly symbolic, while in other cases the
vocabulary is simply ambiguous. On the other hand, she surmises
that the language used by the bards suggests rather complicated
structures within the forts of the Gaelic lords. Her list of
bardic vocabulary words analyzed in the article is a very useful
tool for archaeologists and historians not acquainted with the
intricacies of bardic poetry.

By using a variety of different sources, Elizabeth Fitzpatrick
has identified the inauguration sites of two Anglo-Norman
lordships, the two factions of the Connacht Burkes, who, during
the course of the fourteenth century, adopted Gaelic titles,
culture, and language. In frontier regions Anglo-Norman lords
adopted Gaelic ways despite the attempts of the Anglo-Norman
colonial government to legislate otherwise (as with the Statutes
of Kilkenny in 1366). In her article Fitzpatrick argues that
the inaugurations of the Mayo Burkes took place at "Ratsecer,"
and that this site is also identified as the ringfort of
Raheenagooagh. While Gaelic lords were prone to using hilltops
for their inauguration, it seems that Gaelicized Anglo-Norman
lords may have favored ringforts that had gone into disuse. As
she admits, Fitzpatrick is on shakier ground when she argues
that the inauguration of the Clanrickard Burkes took place at
Dunkellin, since in the main the source for this theory is
place-name analysis and eighteenth and nineteenth century
folklore. Nevertheless, her argument is strong, and leads the
reader to question the whole process of associating particular
settlement types with particular ethnic identities, or, for that
matter, the use of those ethnic identities to begin with!

Kieran O'Conor examines the morphology of Gaelic high-status
habitation sites in north Roscommon, a region that was
controlled by the MacDermot and O'Conor Gaelic lords of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. These lords used a wide
variety of types of fortification and settlement, including
crannogs, moated enclosures, and natural islands. No one type
of site was used more than the other, but in some cases, such as
the MacDermot island fortress at Lough Key and the possible
moated site on the shore at Lough Key, these settlement types
are often found in very close proximity. Ultimately, his
article is a prelude and call for future work; the geographic
area that he has researched should yield important information
about medieval Gaelic Ireland. The strength of O'Conor's work
lies in his ability to weave a narrative between archaeological
survey and in-depth analysis of literary sources.
Cross-disciplinary analysis can fill gaps in both fields, as
O'Conor has shown in this article.

Aidan O'Sullivan surveys the evidence for later medieval
occupation of crannogs, or defensive island lake settlements, in
Gaelic Ireland. If one considers crannogs from the perspective
of the Irish Annals, they seem to be described uniquely as royal
residences or defensive refuges. However, based upon recent
survey and archaeological analysis, O'Sullivan argues that the
crannog is even more enigmatic than we have presumed. Some
crannogs were clearly used in manners described in the Annals,
but others were used by peasants, or for holding cattle, or as
seasonal settlements. He concludes by stating that the most
extensive occupation periods of crannogs lie in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, and again in the sixteenth centuries.
Both were periods of stress and social disorder in Ireland, so
perhaps these is more to consider in terms of the crannog's use
as a defensive refuge than normative settlement feature.

This volume is a vital contribution to the study of Gaelic
Ireland, and must be considered by any scholar of medieval
history in the British Isles. It is not without a noticeable
fault, however. While the title suggests that the essays cover
the period 1250-1650, only four of the essays are even
moderately concerned with the thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries. Robin Frame and Sean Duffy have considered the
history of medieval Ireland in the thirteenth century in several
monographs and articles, but their perspectives generally result
from using the administrative records of the Anglo-Norman
colony. Both of these scholars have contributed greatly to our
understanding of the political history of thirteenth century
Ireland, but, as shown in this volume, thirteenth century Gaelic
Ireland is often forgotten in terms of culture history or in
terms of settlement. One nevertheless gets the feeling from the
present volume that "real" Gaelic Ireland began in the late
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. While Ireland was
technically divided into English lordships by the end of the
thirteenth century, the West and North were never inhabited to
the extent of regions like Leinster, eastern Ulster and Munster.
Certainly the Gaelic lords in the West and North were not simply
dormant from the late twelfth century until the late fourteenth
century? Or could there be a tacit assumption that in the
thirteenth century the Gaelic lords who employed Anglo-Norman
mercenaries and formed political alliances with Anglo-Normans
were somehow not Gaelic? Such a question is outside the purview
of a book on settlement; but it is nevertheless a question that
needs to be answered in light of the fine introduction of Duffy,
et al., in this volume.

Four Courts Press has been producing a large number of important
new and reprint volumes in Irish medieval history over the last
few years, and the Press is to be commended for such a fine
book. The editors and authors of this volume, as well, are to
be commended for providing starving scholars of medieval Ireland
with plenty of food for thought.

[1]. Kieran O'Connor, _The Archaeology Medieval Rural Settlement
in Ireland_ (Dublin, Discovery Programme Monographs: 1998); 10.

Copyright 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the
redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit,
educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the
author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses
contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks[at]mail.h-net.msu.edu.

From: McCaffrey
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Subject: Re: Ir-D Competition Entry Number 1

Very funny. I enjoyed it. However, some little references to actual
history
need attention. The O'Briens were never 'staunchly Catholic' the main stem
gave
up on that hopeless track early on. Red Mary O'Brien saw to that. Also,
the
Wilde Geese had flown before our hero's birth. They flew the coop in the
1690s.

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

> >From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
> Oh...
>
> Stop pestering me...
>
> Here it is, the evil thing...
>
> John Allcock does not suggest that Miles O'Brien was accidentally left
> behind in an Away Team/Time Warp episode of Star Trek... But it is the
only
> rational explanation...
>
> Those of you familiar with Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum, will be
> familiar with the techniques... the lies, the half lies, the confident
> assertions...
>
> Do not circulate further. Read and eat. Wicked nonsense...
>
> I blame myself...
>
> P.O'S.
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

I have been talking to
Don Mabry
whose HISTORICAL TEXT ARCHIVE
http://historicaltextarchive.com

will be familiar to some Ir-D members.

Don is one of the pioneers of history on the Internet - he started a FTP
site for historians in 1990, converted to a Web site in 1994.

The site continues, making actual texts available to historians. Don also
searches the Web for quality material, offering links and assessments. So
that there is a bit of quality control.

Don mostly classifies and lists material geographically - which led to our
discussion, about how he should list Irish Diaspora material. Should it be
under 'Ireland', because it deals with Irish people, or under the name of
the country of destination? The only sensible answer I can offer is...
Both. Because searchers will come to the material from both directions.
But, from Don's point of view, it is an answer that promotes untidiness.

http://historicaltextarchive.com
is always worth a visit. The 'Ireland' section is now quite substantial.
And there is an increasing amount of Irish Diaspora material, though you may
have to search for it.

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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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

On a train of thought...

There was a query a little while ago on the H-Albion list about the origins
of 'The Wild Geese'.

The original query came from
Susannah U. Bruce
Sam Houston State University

whose work on the Irish in the American Civil War will be familiar to some
Ir-D list members
Web: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_sub

I have pasted in below my own contribution. I don't think anyone has been
able to track the PHRASE 'The Wild Geese' earlier than the early eighteenth
century, and always in Jacobite contexts. I do not have my notes to hand.

P.O'S.


To: H-Net List for British and Irish History
Subject: RE: The Wild Geese


Susannah,

I think it might be helpful to make a distinction between the origins of the
practice - of Irish men serving in the armies of other countries - and the
origins of the phrase, 'The Wild Geese', with the subsequent valorisation of
the phrase and the practice.

There is some discussion of both in my own Introductions to my series,
Patrick O'Sullivan, ed., The Irish World Wide, Leicester University Press, 6
volumes, 1992-1997, paperback 1996-2000.

There is full information about this series at my subsidiary web site
www.irishdiaspora.com

Note that as well as the Introductions Volume 1 contains a chapter on The
Wild Geese by John McGurk and Volume 4 a chapter on Women Wild Geese by
Grainne Henry. Both chapters will take the discussion further.

Also at that web site I have placed Paul Walsh's Bibliographic Guide to the
Military History of Ireland - outlining themes, and full of suggestions for
further reading.

As to the practice...

This is not in itself unusual. In the wars of the 16th, 17th and 18th
centuries countries with military ambitions, particularly those with small
populations, would use mercenaries. See, for example, the discussion in
Mary Elizabeth Ailes, 'British Officers in Seventeenth-Century Sweden',
Scandinavian Studies, Sum/1999,(ISSN: 0036-5637), Vol. 71 No. 2 Pg. 221.

Defeated and displaced elites would become a part of this pattern, as the
Irish did in in this periood - and as the Anglo-Saxons did after the Norman
Conquest of England. It is in part a way of keeping alive ambitions in the
homeland. with a hope of return. And, of course, in England and Ireland the
Penal Laws meant that many 'gentlemanly' careers were not open to Catholics.
There was a constant English government fear of Jacobite invasion, either
through Ireland or with Irish assistance. (A fear confirmed in 1745 - with
the events that are at the core of Colley's book Britons, and the creation
of the 'British' identity.)

The origins of the phrase 'The Wild Geese' seem to be in the early C18th
century - I refer you to the discussion in my Introduction to Volume 1 of
The Irish World Wide. There does seem to be sometimes something pejorative
in its use, which might explain the subsequent valorisation - compare 'The
Old Contemptibles...'

Discussion of the causes of the valorisation of the practice - of military
service - can take us in a number of directions. One might be into
theology, and the belief, very strong in the C17th, in God's will as
revealed on the battlefield. Another might be the belief that sacrifice
legitimates a cause or an endeavour - what I have called 'the argument from
Fredericksburg...' I guess you will be familiar with that strand of the
tradition, and the argument.

Certainly Irish tradition began to attach immense importance to the battle
of Fontenoy, 1745, where the Irish regiments in the service of France played
a crucial role in the French victory. (Volunteers from those regiments then
went to Scotland - to arrive just in time for the debacle at Culloden...)
Irish recruiting posters in New York at the beginning of the American Civil
War said 'Remember Fontenoy' and 'You are training to defeat the enemy of
your country'.

Another direction might be through Cynthia Enloe's notion of 'Ethnic
Soldiers', and categorisation of the Irish in that fashion - this is much
discussed in A Military History of Ireland., edited by Thomas Bartlett and
Keith Jeffery (Cambridge: Univ. of Cambridge Press, 1996). See the
excellent introduction by the editors on whether or not the Irish have a
special relationship with military service, ?An Irish Military Tradition??
pp.1-25. Also connecting with Enloe, and especially around in the
nineteenth century, is the categorisation of 'races' and racial typologies -
in ways that will be familiar to scholars of colonialism. Note, for
example, the categorisation by Renan of 'the Celts' as an 'essentially
feminine race'. Leading, perhaps, to a stress within Ireland on stereotyped
maleness in, for example, sport and political action.

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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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











- -----Original Message-----
From: H-Net List for British and Irish History
[mailto:H-ALBION[at]H-NET.MSU.EDU]On Behalf Of Richard Gorrie
Sent: 14 June 2001 18:18
To: H-ALBION[at]H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: The Wild Geese


Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 15:24:58 -0500
From: "Susannah U. Bruce"

As part of my work on Irish military service in the American Civil War I am
addressing the tradition of the Wild Geese. During my research I have come
across varying accounts, some of which place the origins of the Wild Geese
with Irish General Patrick Sarsfield's and his defeated forces departure
for France in 1691. Other works, however, indicate that the Wild Geese
originated in 1688 when James the II exchanged 5000 Irish recruits for
veteran French Regulars to aid his military efforts in Britain. The Irish
recruits then made up the core of the Irish Brigade within the French Army,
according to this account, and sparked the tradition of the Wild
Geese. The first account is the more common and appears to be the more
accurate of the two. Regardless, I would like to study this tradition more
closely. Could some of you recommend scholarly works that address the
subject? Any additional discussion on how the tradition of the Wild Geese
expanded to include Irish military service in other foreign armies,
including the United States, would be helpful as well.

Thank you,
Susannah Bruce

Susannah U. Bruce
Lecturer of History
Department of History
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, Texas 77341
Office: #936-294-3659
Fax: #936-294-3938
Email: sbruce[at]shsu.edu
Web: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_sub

From: McCaffrey
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Subject: Re: Ir-D Wild Geese

Yes, this is true. The phrase is likely eighteenth century but it refers to
the
1690s Wild Geese of James II's disaster following the Boyne. First reference
seems to have been made in the 1720s to those who left because of James'
defeat. Like so much of Irish history it does refer back. The Shamrock
also
was an eighteenth century invention vis-a-vis Patrick but it referred to
Patrick's 'conversion' of the Irish. Another myth.
Carmel

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

> >From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
> On a train of thought...
>
> There was a query a little while ago on the H-Albion list about the
origins
> of 'The Wild Geese'.
>
> The original query came from
> Susannah U. Bruce
> Sam Houston State University
>
> whose work on the Irish in the American Civil War will be familiar to some
> Ir-D list members
> Web: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_sub
>
> I have pasted in below my own contribution. I don't think anyone has been
> able to track the PHRASE 'The Wild Geese' earlier than the early
eighteenth
> century, and always in Jacobite contexts. I do not have my notes to hand.
>
> P.O'S.
>
>

From: Professor John Belchem
J.C.Belchem[at]liverpool.ac.uk
Subject: St Patrick's Burial Society


Dear Paddy

As an intriguing tangent to my current research on
Liverpool Fenianism I have been following up references to
the St Patrick's Burial Society which provided -- in
somewhat controversial manner -- cheap funeral cover for
what we would now call the 'at risk' Irish. There were
frequent changes of rules and of name (finally the United
Assurance Society) and much litigation. At first glance it
all looks fascinating. However, I am reluctant to dig
deeper if it has been studied already. I have read Gosden's
secondary stuff on friendly societes and am working through
the Royal Commission of the 1870s.

Does anybody on the Ir-D list know of anything else of relevance?

One other thing. I seem to have lost touch with Klaus
Tenfelde in Bochum, Germany, in recent weeks. I know he was ill some months
back but I had hoped he was now fully recovered. Does
anybody have any news? Thanks, John B

----------------------
ah14[at]liverpool.ac.uk
Professor John Belchem, Head of School
School of History, University of Liverpool
9 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7WZ
Phone: (0)151-794-2394 Fax (0)151-794-2366

From: McCaffrey
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Subject: Re: Ir-D Wild Geese

Paddy,
After I sent my [just recent] post my curiosity got really piqued and I
looked
up some references. Hiram Morgan claims that the earliest reference to
'Wild
Geese' was in an official letter of 1726 but suggests that it was already a
common phrase at this time for the Irish who left after the Boyne defeat.
Grainne Henry in her 'The Irish Military' says that the term refers to the
16.000 who left immediately following the Boyne for what became the Irish
Brigade in the French Army. But I am curious - did the term hang around
later?
Carmel

For information...

P.O'S.

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Albion[at]h-net.msu.edu (July, 2001)

David Armitage. _The Ideological Origins of the British Empire_.
Ideas in Context. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000. xii + 239 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index.
$54.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-59081-7; $19.95 (paper), ISBN
0-521-78978-8.

Reviewed for H-Albion by Eliga H. Gould ,
Department of History, University of New Hampshire

An Empire Imagined

Considered as an intellectual construct, the so-called First
British Empire possessed an impressive pedigree. Its
progenitors included historians from classical antiquity,
medieval scholastics, Renaissance humanists, and theologians on
both sides of the Reformation's schism. Cicero, Geoffrey of
Monmouth, and Richard Hakluyt the younger each played a part in
its conception, as did both Cromwells (Thomas and Oliver) and
James VI and I. Yet, despite this lineage, the fully
articulated concept of the British Empire that Pitt embraced,
Hume criticized, and Jefferson repudiated lasted barely half a
century. For a brief period during the eighteenth century's
middle decades, it was the normative community with which
Britons throughout the Atlantic identified, in London no less
than Glasgow, Dublin, Kingston, or Philadelphia. Even at its
apogee, however, the British Empire meant different things to
different people. Buffeted from the 1760s onward by the twin
forces of American independence and Britain's "swing to the
East," the empire shed many (though hardly all) of the
characteristics that had originally defined it. When most
people speak of the British Empire today, it is usually the
nineteenth-century successor empire in Asia and Africa that they
have in mind.

So David Armitage depicts the early modern formation of
Britain's imperial identity in his fascinating new book, _The
Ideological Origins of the British Empire_. Following a path
blazed by J.G.A. Pocock, P.J. Marshall, Colin Kidd, Kathleen
Wilson, Sir John Elliott, Richard Koebner, Jack P. Greene,
Steven Pincus, Nicholas Canny, and many others, Armitage
achieves a remarkable synthesis. The British Empire's
ideological origins, Armitage maintains, lay in its
self-conception as an extensive polity at once "Protestant,
commercial, maritime and free" (p. 195). In tracing the origins
of this concept, Armitage emphasizes three crucially important
points: that the "concept of the British Empire" originated
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a means to
describe "the Three Kingdoms of Britain and Ireland," that a
more extensive definition that included the Caribbean and North
America was largely the work of "creole elites and imperial
officials" during the later seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, and that, even after "an integrated concept of the
British Empire ... became dominant" during the 1730s, the
concept did not go "unchallenged," either in Britain proper or
in Ireland and the colonies (pp. 7-8).

The most impressive feature of the _Ideological Origins_ is its
temporal and spatial reach. In addition to considerable
archival research, the book draws on scholarship covering nearly
two centuries of British and Atlantic history, including all of
England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as North America and the
Caribbean. Given Armitage's propensity for making unexpected
connections--an article published several years ago paid
simultaneous homage to the high Victorian imperialist J. R.
Seeley and Joan Wallach Scott[1]--this scope is hardly
surprising. Still, the aplomb with which Armitage spins a
coherent narrative from such widely dispersed material is
striking.

Of Armitage's various intellectual debts, none is more
intriguing than the one suggested by his book's title. Despite
its extraordinary influence, Bernard Bailyn's _Ideological
Origins of the American Revolution_ (1967) has spawned few
imitative titles. The most likely explanation for this relative
absence is the United States's peculiar claim to be a nation
founded on an ideal (or set of ideals). By arguing that the
British Empire also had an ideological origin (or origins),
Armitage implicitly opens the possibility that the ideas
discussed in his book played the same sort of instrumental role
that they do in Bailyn's account. However, Armitage is careful
not to push this analogy too far. In the introduction, he
writes that his purpose is "not to claim that the origins of the
British Empire can be found only in ideology" (p. 5). Likewise,
the book's final chapter, which delineates the British Empire's
transformation during the late 1730s from contested ideology to
widely accepted "identity," comes close to making ideas of
empire the causal agent but again stops short. As Armitage
explains in the introduction, "an origin can be either a
beginning or a cause" (p. 5). Although clearly tempted to
attribute the latter meaning to the British Empire's ideological
origins, he ultimately settles for the former, adding as a
further qualification that by ideology he simply means "the
transferability and the contestability" of Britain's imperial
self-conception (p. 195). For Bailyn, ideology produced
"rebellion," "transformation," and an irresistible "contagion
of liberty."[2] By contrast, Armitage concludes that, because
Britain's understanding of itself as an empire was never
universally accepted (either in Britain or in Ireland and the
colonies), the most one can say is that it is "a classic example
of an identity that was originally an ideology" (p. 198).

In the main, Armitage is wise to hedge his conclusions in this
manner. For a brief period between the late 1740s and the onset
of the American Revolution, the imperial ideology (or identity)
whose origins Armitage so deftly narrates did assume a
transformative, programmatic quality in Britain. Although this
greater British ideology/identity was entirely consistent with
Parliament's successive attempts to tax the American colonists,
its underlying dynamism was not unlike that which Bailyn
attributed to American revolutionary ideology in the years
before the Declaration of Independence.[3] Perhaps the most
striking part of the British Empire's conceptual ascendancy in
Britain, however, was the rapidity with which metropolitan
Britons abandoned it. Following France's recognition of the
United States, Parliament enacted a new Declaratory Act (1778),
renouncing forever its right to tax Britain's colonies for
revenue and effectively ending any possibility that the
extra-European territories of the British Empire might become
part of an integrated national community in the manner
envisioned by Armitage's projectors. Although the American
Revolution lies beyond the scope of Armitage's book, this
transformation ultimately confirms his argument. Even at the
height of late Victorian and Edwardian imperialism, the British
Empire was at best a "virtual nation"--a global community that,
despite its commercial and strategic integration, retained many
features of the early modern composite state (or empire) from
which it had evolved.[4]

In places, Armitage's references to the secondary literature are
less extensive than one might wish. No doubt, related
considerations of length and cost are partly to blame. Had
Armitage cited every source from the enormous literature to
which his book relates, the result would have been a volume far
too expensive for course adoption or--in some cases--library
acquisition. Still, several omissions are surprising. Foremost
among these is the absence of any discussion of J.G.A. Pocock's
_Machiavellian Moment_ (1975), despite a lengthy section on the
English/British reception of Machiavelli's corpus, especially
the _Discorsi_ (pp. 125-45, _passim_, and 155-6). Although not
all of Pocock's admirers (or critics) have read--let alone
understood--his famously difficult magnum opus, it would have
been helpful for Armitage to clarify how his own interpretation
differs.

All in all, however, _The Ideological Origins of the British
Empire_ makes a contribution of the first importance to the
ongoing attempt to write the history (or histories) of the early
modern British Empire and the British Atlantic world. By
bridging two centuries, three dynasties, and four geographically
distinct subdisciplines, each of which has all too often been
studied in isolation from the others, it lays down markers that
British historians will henceforth need to address. By its very
contentiousness, Armitage's book is certain to stir debate;
because of its geographical and chronological reach, that
discussion is likely to be widespread. These are all
considerable accomplishments and make this latest addition to
British and Atlantic history welcome indeed.

Notes

[1]. David Armitage, "Greater Britain: A Useful Category of
Historical Analysis?," _American Historical Review_, CIV (Apr.
1999): 427-45.

[2]. Bernard Bailyn, _The Ideological Origins of the American
Revolution_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), chs. 4-6.

[3]. Eliga H. Gould, _The Persistence of Empire: British
Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution_ (Chapel
Hill, 2000), intro. and ch. 4 (esp. pp. 146-7); see also H.T.
Dickinson, "Britain's Imperial Sovereignty: The Ideological
Case against the American Colonists," in _Britain and the
American Revolution_, ed. Dickinson (London, 1999).

[4]. Eliga H. Gould, "A Virtual Nation: Greater Britain and the
Imperial Legacy of the American Revolution," _American
Historical Review_, CIV (1999): 485-9. Obviously, abandoning
the right to tax colonies of settlement for revenue did not mean
that the British Empire ceased to be an authoritarian
polity--quite the contrary, especially in India and Britain's
other non-European territories: see P.J. Marshall, "Empire and
Authority in the Later Eighteenth Century," _Journal of Imperial
and Commonwealth History_, XV (1987): 105-22.

Copyright 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the
redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit,
educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the
author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses
contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks[at]mail.h-net.msu.edu.

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

I was tempted to call this item 'Céide Fields' - but that would mean that no
one in Boston would get to see it...

Our attention has been drawn to an interesting item in the New York Times a
few days ago...

http://www.nytimes.com/

Date: July 8, 2001
A Pompeii in Slow Motion
By MEGAN HARLAN
The Neolithic village at Ceide Fields in County Mayo has been well
preserved, thanks to a bog that began to overwhelm it 5,000 years ago.
Source: The New York Times
Section: Travel

Annoyingly the NY Times now seems to want you to sign in and be known in
order to get at their archive. Anyway it's there.

There are a number of other Ceide Fields web sites - for example...

http://www.ucd.ie/~ucdnews/feb96/feature.html

But I have not come across anything really substantial and scholarly.

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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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


Our attention has been drawn to this new Web research resource...

Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System

http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/

It seems that it will soon be possible to track individual participants and
units through the archives left by the American Civil War...

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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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 Nottingham Irish Studies Group works to promote Irish culture within the
county of Nottinghamshire, in the English Midlands.

The Group has produced an exhibition - which can be hired - and a
nicely-produced accompanying booklet, 'Making it Home: Experiences of Being
Irish'. The booklet is based on interviews with 18 Irish people in
Nottingham, or with people of Irish heritage, and is illustrated with family
photographs. The interviews, though brief, are very thoughful and
revealing...

'De Valera wanted the women at the sink and the men in the fields...'

'I still see stuff about Ireland on the television and remember why I had to
escape...'

In 1948 Boston (England), in a bar, 'I saw a sign which said "No Irishmen
Served Here"... I decided to stand my ground...'

'My mother, although very homesick, was very liberated by England...'

Indeed the interviews reveal thought...

The booklet costs £4.99.

Contact
Nottingham Irish Studies Group
PO Box 6720
Nottingham NG2 6TR
England

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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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

Most Irish Diaspora scholars know of Western Australia only through the
linked stories of the Hougoumont (the last convict ship, the Fenian ark),
the escape of John Boyle O'Reilly, and the Catalpa rescue. And, of course,
O'Reilly's subsequent career in Boston, USA, is now well studied.

Studies in Western Australian History is a series emanating from the Centre
for Australian History at the University of Western Australia. The latest
in the series, No. 20, is a special issue, The Irish in Western Australia,
edited by Bob Reece, of the Centre for Irish Studies, Murdoch University.

I have pasted in below the full Contents. There is a contact point
http://wwwsoc.murdoch.edu.au/cfis

Much of interest. With 16 contributors, this is an opportunity to plug into
recent research and thinking about the history of the Irish in Western
Australia, and put some background to the well known events. And on the
cover - a little nod in our direction - is the inevitable picture of the
Catalpa.

The volume opens with a typically energetic piece of writing from Gil
Hardwick, on the life of John Molloy - from near death at Waterloo to
frontier magistrate - which had me wanting to negotiate the film rights.
There are a number of other life stories - including Bob Reece's own
contribution, on the Rev. George King's mission to the aborigines.

Gillian O'Mara on Joseph Noonan (sometimes Nunan, depending on the whim of
clerks) will interest our Bostonians. All we knew about him heretofore came
from complaints that Thomas Hassett, one of the Catalpa rescued, made to
John Boyle O'Reilly - who duly printed them in Boston. But it seems that
Noonan had refused to subsidise Hassett's boozing... Noonan made a career
in Australia as a builder and an architect - efforts are now underway to
identify all his surviving buildings and his contribution to Austrlia's
built heritage.

There is a section of tributes to Mary Durack, who died in 1994 - including
one tribute by her sister, the sculptor Elizabeth Durack. Mary Durack's
best known book is the classic _Kings in Grass Castles_ (1959), an account
of her cattleman grandfather's epic journey across the top of Ausdtrlia, in
search of grass. (On a train of thought... My own copy of _Grass Castles_
is a 1981 reprint, which includes an undated Introduction in which Mary
Durack makes that Australia/USA contrast and recalls her father's visit to
the Rockies in 1906...)

The whole of this Bob Reece volume is, of course, of interest to Irish
Diaspora Studies. But of special interest, perhaps, is Anne Partlon's
mediation on 'Writing about the Irish in WA' - which places that writing
within wider Irish Diaspora debates and (bravely) dares to question Patrick
O'Farrell's vision of the Irish as 'a constant liberalising creative
irritant' in Australian culture.

I think I should try to negotiate with Anne Partlon and Bob Reece about
maybe getting this essay on to one of our Web sites...

P.O'S.


http://wwwsoc.murdoch.edu.au/cfis
Bob Reece, ed.
The Irish in Western Australia,
Studies in Western Australian History No. 20
2000.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ARTICLES

The Irish R.M. Capt. John Molloy of the Vasse
by Gil Hardwick

George Fletcher Moore
by James Cameron

The Revd George King
by Bob Reece

Friends and Neighbours, The Irish of Toodyay
by Rica Erickson

Joseph Noonan Fenian Success Story
by Gillian O?Mara

A Trinity Man Abroad, Sir Winthrop Hackett
by Geoffrey Bolton

Mulcahy Bros.
by Clement M. Mulcahy

Champion of the Goldfields, John Waters Kirwan
by Anne Partlon

?I?m an Australian and speak as such?, The Perth Irish community?s responses
to events in Ireland, 1900-1914
by Ian Chambers

Ronan Country, Jim and Tom Ronan in the North-West
by Don Grant

Not For Economic Gain, Elsie Butler in Western Australia
by Jean Chetkovich

Mary Durack: A Tribute
by Elizabeth Durack, Margaret O?Doherty, Joe O?Sullivan, Joan Walsh-Smith,
Sr Veronica Brady

?Singers Standing on the Outer Rim? Writing About the Irish in WA
by Anne Partlon


BOOK REVIEWS

Steve Mickler, The Myth of Privilege: Aboriginal Status, Media Visions,
Public Ideas
Reviewed by Malcolm Allbrook

Katharine Massam, Sacred Threads
Reviewed by Veronica Brady

Bart Srhoy, Journey Beyond Origin
Reviewed by Jean Chetkovich

Ruth Marchant James, Fields of Gold: a History of the Dominican Sisters in
Western Australia;
Ruth Marchant James, Cork to Capricorn: a History of the Presentation
Sisters in Western Australia 1891-1991
Reviewed by Toby Burrows

Neville Green and Susan Moon, Far From Home: Aboriginal Prisoners of
Rottnest Island 1838-1931
Reviewed by Mary Anne Jebb

William J. Lines, False Economy: Australia in the Twentieth Century
Reviewed by Tom Griffiths

Geoffrey Bolton and Jenny Gregory, Claremont: A History
Reviewed by Alan Mayne

Catherine Kovesi Killerby, Ursula Frayne: A Biography
Reviewed by Rita Farrell

Harry Phillips, David Black, Bruce Bott, Tamara Fischer: Representing the
People: Parliamentary Government in Western Australia
Reviewed by Allan Peachment


- --
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/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

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