From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Further to my earlier note on latest issue of Irish Studies Review, Volume 9
Number 2, Aug 2001...
Lance Pettitt's special issue on Film and Television

Contact points...
http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/school-of-historical-and-cultural-studies/irish-stu
dies-review/
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/frameloader.html?http://www.tandf.co.uk/jour
nals/carfax/09670882.html

(As always, note that your own email line breaks might fracture those long
web addresses...)

I have pasted in below the text of Lance Pettitt's Introduction to that
special issue - kindly made available to us by Lance Pettitt
Our thanks to Lance.

This is Lance's own original text which will differ in some small detail
from the text as published.

P.O'S.



Introduction
Irish Studies Review, Volume 9 Number 2, Aug 2001.

LANCE PETTITT, St Mary?s College, Strawberry Hill
Lance Pettitt

Cinema and television criticism in and about Ireland has a chequered history
. Despite the critical activity that has accompanied increased film
production, major changes in broadcasting and the continued expansion of
media studies over the last decade, Irish media criticism is only now
finding its feet. Like the films, programmes and their different contexts
that are the object of its study, a body of diverse critical work has come
into being out of the uneven and makeshift conditions that have
characterised the economic, social and cultural changes experienced in
Ireland since the late-1950s. A longer, comparative historical view would
see that, even before this oft-cited ?watershed?, film criticism in
Ireland ? as elsewhere ? was largely constituted by the efforts of small
groups or individual enthusiasts. Between the 1920s and the 1960s, a nascent
film culture existed on the edges of other more ?respectable? cultural
activities. The Irish Film Society (established in 1936), the advent of the
Cork Film Festival (1956- ), short-lived journals such as Irish Film
Quarterly (1957-59) and Vision (1965-68), and the efforts of individuals
like Liam O?Leary exemplify the limited critical space for the medium.

The indigenous Irish film wave of the 1970s and early 1980s was provided
with a variety of exhibition opportunities and critical evaluation. These
included the Irish Film Theatre in Dublin (1977) and the Queen?s Film
Theatre in Belfast (1968), the establishment of the Education Officer of the
Irish Film Institute in Dublin and the Film Directions magazine. A loose
grouping of critics emerged in the late-1970s that began the process of
forming a contemporary Irish media criticism in the 1980s. Between them,
Kevin Rockett, Martin McLoone, Luke Gibbons, John Hill wrote articles,
festival programme notes, co-authored and co-edited seminal books like
Television and Irish Society (1984) and Cinema and Ireland (1987). In this
period, the Media Association of Ireland also held meetings in Dublin and
produced a series of occasional pamphlets on the press, television and media
culture, edited by figures like Desmond Bell and Tony Fahy. In North
America, the late-1980s saw the production of three books that indicated
critical interest in evaluating Irish film culture from without. Irish
Cinema: Illustrated History (1988) by Brian McIlroy, Anthony Slide?s The
Cinema and Ireland (1988) and James Curran?s Hibernian Green on the Silver
Screen: The Irish and American Movies (1989) demonstrated the importance of
Irish emigration in the histories of US and British cinemas. The
documenting, cataloguing and broadening of the category of ?Irish? film was
carried forward into Rockett?s encyclopedic, The Irish Filmography (1996)
and an expanded notion of ?Irishness? underpins Pettitt?s Screening Ireland:
Film and Television Representation (2000).

In terms of media education at third level, Rathmines College (now part of
Dublin Institute of Technology) and National Institute for Higher Education
or NIHE in Glasnevin (now Dublin City University) were pioneers in the
1980s. Here, the professional practice and production techniques of print
and broadcast journalism were taught, but these colleges were also provided
opportunities for film-makers and critics interested in film as a cultural
form. At the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) and Dun Laoghaire
College of Art and Design (DLCAD) film was studied as an art form and
graduation pieces formed the backbone of much short film and experimental
video practice. The University of Ulster?s strong pedigree in media studies
and film (with Hill and McLoone) is well established and the 1990s saw the
consolidation of these fields at universities on the island of Ireland. This
has included the inauguration of a Center for Film Studies at UCD (although
Paddy Marsh had taught film in the French Department in the 1980s), as well
as moves to develop film courses at Trinity College, UCG and UCC and Queen?s
University, Belfast. The funding by the Irish Humanities Research Council of
doctoral and postdoctoral research projects by emerging scholars, two of
whom contribute to this special issue, is indicative of the level of
commitment to exploring new knowledge in Ireland?s moving image culture.
More recently, film has been included in DLCAD?s Cultural Studies degree
syllabus and at secondary school level, 2000 saw the inclusion of film on
the national Irish Leaving Certificate English syllabus.

Outside of Ireland, analysis of Irish film and broadcast images now form
part of the syllabuses of Irish Studies MA programs at the University of
Liverpool, St Mary?s College, Strawberry Hill and Bath Spa University
College. In the USA institutions associated with Irish Studies ? notably
Boston College and New York University - offer cinema and/or literature
courses that incorporate the study of film representations of Ireland. In
recent years, the American Conference for Irish Studies and the
International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures has organised
panels on film and media, confirming that there is a growing level of
research into and teaching of Irish media in US, Canadian and some European
universities.

It is in this context, then, that this special issue of Irish Studies Review
aims to contribute a growing critical literature within and without Ireland,
focusing on cinema and television. In these specific areas, the last two
years has seen the publication of Contemporary Irish Cinema, a series of
essays edited by James MacKillop (Syracuse UP, 1999) and the appearance of
two special issues of journals dedicated to Irish film. Cineaste 24: 2, 1999
(edited by Gary Crowdus in New York) looked at ?Contemporary Irish Cinema?,
whilst the Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television 20: 3 (edited by
Nicholas Cull in Leicester) focused on topics within Irish cinema in its
August 2000 issue. Stills, Reels and Rushes, by Michael Gray - a quirky but
nonetheless intriguing read - adopted a chronological trawl through noted
Irish films of the twentieth century to catch the popular end of the
Christmas market in 1999. June 2000 saw the publication of Lance Pettitt?s
Screening Ireland (Manchester University Press), the first comparative
historical study of Irish film and television cultural representation. In
October the same year, Martin McLoone?s Irish Film: The Emergence of a
Contemporary Irish Cinema (British Film Institute) appeared, offering a
pithy, forthright and sophisticated evaluation of Irish film since the
late-1960s. This year (2001) has seen the launch of a new initiative by Cork
University Press and the Film Institute of Ireland, co-publishing a series
called ?Ireland into Film? (edited by Keith Hopper). It examines film
adaptations of Irish literary works, past and present, kicking off with
Kevin Barry?s study of John Huston?s 1989 re-working of Joyce?s short story,
The Dead.

Recent and future publications include Kevin Rockett?s historical study of
censorship, film and Irish society, John Horgan Irish Media: A Critical
History since 1922. (Routledge, 2001) and Lance Pettitt?s Media and Popular
Culture in Ireland (Routledge, forthcoming 2003). Published research on
radio remains under-developed within Irish media studies, with perhaps the
annual Irish Communications Review (1991- ) providing most contemporary
analysis. This dearth is a serious deficiency given the place of radio in
Irish popular culture. Robert Savage?s monograph, Irish Television (1996),
focused on the emergence of television from the radio-bound 1950s, whilst
the current research of Eileen Morgan (University of Michigan), presented in
a paper at the ACIS (2000) in Limerick, seeks to re-evaluate radio in this
neglected decade. Based at RTÉ, in the belly of the beast, Richard Pine is
currently working on a history of Radio Éireann. However, books by Gorham
(1967), Fisher (1978), Cathcart (1984), Mulryan (1998) and collections
edited by McLoone (in 1991 and 1996) remain the most useful of a meagre
bibliography of broadcasting in Ireland.

This issue presents work in buoyant area from a selection of contributors,
including those who are widely published, Irish-based critics as well as
emerging doctoral and post-doctoral talents in Ireland and abroad. Readers
will naturally form their own connections between the essays gathered here,
but some themes may be editorially identified here by way of introduction.
The selection of essays does not claim to convey anything like a
comprehensive spread of all the different kinds of work taking place within
Irish media studies, but this issue seeks to offer stimulating research,
survey and debate about how Ireland?s moving image culture is currently
configured.

Rockett?s essay brings to light documentation and debate from a still
under-researched period of cinema history in Ireland. By examining policy at
an ?official? level amongst the decision-makers of Irish public life, this
essay affords us a rich and detailed sense of the troublesome location of
film and the pastime of cinema-going during a particular epoch. In this,
Rockett?s essay focuses attention on perplexed social attitudes to the
cinema particularly in the political and religious elites of the Free State
and the key role that the press played in mediating public discourse about
cinema. Whilst Rockett is careful to delineate the particularities of the
Irish case, he is equally adamant to make comparisons with other European
cinemas and their social engagement.

There are few ?auteur? studies Irish film within the existing critical
literature [ ] and indeed, tackling a single director?s oeuvre is perceived
by some to be a passé critical approach. The absence of such studies in an
Irish context probably has more to with the vicissitudes of funding and
gapped production opportunities than it has with critical antipathy to such
an approach. Put simply, the number of Irish directors who can record a
substantial enough filmography is actually quite limited. Neil Jordan and
John T. Davis are pertinent exceptions, each having produced a creditable
corpus, though wholly different in nature. Jordan - a much written-about
director - still lacks a book-length analysis. Hopper here offers an
analysis of Jordan?s first original screenplay, Traveller, (1981), a
?mongrel fusion of The Playboy with Bonnie and Clyde?, directed by Joe
Comerford. Jordan is presented as a postmodern artist whose creative work
inhabits an interstitial ?third space?, and Hopper sees the fraught genesis
of Traveller as emblematic of the nascent Irish national cinema that McLoone
has examined in detail in Irish Film.

Taking on the work of John T. Davis, the film documentarist historian,
Harvey O?Brien, set himself a different task. Outside of Ireland, and even
within it, Davis?s beautifully crafted often idiosyncratic and intensely
personal films (he does not like them called ?documentaries?) are not well
known and little secondary criticism exists. O?Brien seeks to convey the
range and method of Davis?s earlier work, but his essay rightly makes The
Uncle Jack (1996) the centre-piece of his analysis, illustrating
autobiographical, reflexive art practice at its best. Dealing with a
middle-class Belfast Art College student of the sixties, a lapsed Protestant
fascinated by religion, O?Brien?s essay recognises that Davis is an elusive,
difficult-to-quantify figure in Irish film. O?Brien argues that The Uncle
Jack is ?a utopian Irish documentary? and in this sense the best work of
Davis and Jordan share the capacity to invoke other worlds or states of
being that have yet to come into existence.

At the heart of Ruth Barton?s essay is a concern to explore how the
iconography of kitsch figures in contemporary Irish cinema. In the absence
of a cinematic avant-garde, she argues that celebrating ?bad taste? has
allowed some Irish directors to adopt a visual style to counter the
pervasive romanticisation of both rural and urban Irish settings. In recent
years Irish films has achieved a niche presence in international markets by
carefully re-deploying the recognisable look of kitsch to create a cinema
that retains a set of meanings that resonate for Irish audiences. A
postmodern application of kitsch allows such films to produce ?an ironic
authenticity which problematises notions of essentialism and originality?.
With reference Australian new wave film, Barton?s uses Snakes and Ladders, I
Went Down and The Butcher Boy to explore the parodic representation of
rural/urban landscape, to question the gendered nature of classic US film
genres when re-situated in Irish contexts, and to demonstrate the strategic
deployment of kitsch imagery (including music forms) in contemporary Irish
film.

Fidelma Farley?s essay is centrally concerned with the gendered nature of
film representation and in particular the relative dearth of material on
Irish masculinities. She focuses on male characters with contemporary films
about Northern Ireland. Having set out historical precedents in cinematic
representation, she examines a selection of four films made with ?cautious
optimism? in the period of the Peace Process (1993- ). She argues that
whilst most of these films envisage a possible political future in which men
can express a non-violent masculine authority through ?good? fatherhood.
However, this is at the expense of re-asserting conventional gender roles
whereby men inhabit a public ?political? sphere, separated from a ?private?,
family and ?feminine? sphere associated with women. Farley also shows that
while these popular films about Northern Ireland are conventionally seen to
draw on the gangster genre, a film like Resurrection Man also pathologise
its central character in ways akin to the horror ?slasher? genre.

In the final two essays of this issue, the category of Irishness in
television is expanded and examined, comparing the different ways that Irish
characters, situations and narratives are worked through primetime serial
drama and sitcom in British and US television. Marcus Free?s essay offers
readings of the Liverpool-set soap, Brookside and the surrealistic sitcom,
Father Ted in the context of public controversy over stereotyped
characterisation of the Irish on British mainstream television. Using a
theoretical, psychological framework, Free argues that ?the Irish child-man
is alive and well in the imagination of both Britain and Ireland'.? Free
rightly insists that stereotypes are ?not essentially ?positive? or
?negative?, but acquire values only in narrative and cultural contexts?. He
goes on to offer close textual readings of the programmes that are sensitive
to gendered representation and to the specific audiences engaged in viewing
them, highlighting the ambivalent possibilities contained therein.

Diane Negra?s essay offers a fascinating counter-point to Free?s analysis,
though she is specifically concerned with Irish-American characters in five
networked series produced in 1998-99. Her analysis of the programmes is
skilfully located in a broader argument about the function of ?Irishness? in
contemporary US culture, looking at advertising discourse for example. She
observes that televisual representation of Irish-American identity,
particular as it focuses on ?family?, how it figures as ?white ethnicity?,
and how it mobilises an identity of nostalgia, serves a ?therapeutic?
function. If, formerly, television and film drama tended to show
America/Americans solving Irish political problems, now, asserts Negra,
Irish-American ethnicity is called upon fictionally to answer deep cultural
and political anxieties about demographic and social change perceived to be
caused by demands by the African-American and Latino population. Both Negra
and Free?s work signal how Irish media criticism has been expanded and
complicated over the last decade to put diasporic representation and
reception on a par with how these concerns have developed ?back home? in
Ireland itself.

New York, December 2000

From: "Anthony McNicholas"
To:
Subject: RE: Ir-D Ballads

My thanks to all who have replied to my query. Some very interesting
references to follow up and comments to ponder on. I was interested to see
that Patrick Maume thought the ballads were not in fact as pessimistic as
they had been painted. The writer I quoted was, I think, making the
evidence, in the shape of partial selections from the songs, fit his theory.
My own reading of Fenian poetry from the 1860s, of which JF O'Donnell would
have been one of the major exponents, (he was certainly thought so at the
time) similarly does not bear out this pessimistic interpretation. This kind
of poetry is invariably exhortatory, calling people to action, and while
there is plenty of gloom, there is always a ray of hope. There would have to
be for it to work.

First of all Davis and then Yeats, Synge & co have burned so bright in the
literary sky that they have tended to eclipse everyone else. I would argue
that there is a much greater continuity in what is called cultural
nationalism between the 1840s and the 1890s than is often credited. As far
as the political uses of culture goes, could it not be that literary worth
may not be an indication of political effectiveness? Poetry which may be
judged inferior according to strictly literary standards, could be just as,
or even more effective than supposedly superior work at galvanising people
into action. The literature I have been reading, both poetry and prose, was
published in newspapers-written in haste and then thrown away afterwards. It
did not have to be, nor could it be, given the constraints of time the
writers were under, of a particularly high standard. What most of the poems,
stories etc., did though, was to serve the general political objectives of
the papers in which they appeared. If the writers of the 1860s and 70s did
not produce a Yeats, it does not mean that no one was writing. Posterity can
be very blinkered. Which I suppose is very fortunate for us, it gives us
dusty corners to investigate.

Anthony McNicholas

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
[mailto:owner-irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Sent: 04 August 2001 07:00
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Ir-D Ballads


From: Patrick Maume
Subject: Re: Ir-D pessimistic ballads


On Thu 02 Aug 2001 16:00:00 +0000 irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:

> Subject: Ir-D pessimistic ballads
> To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>
>
> >From: "Anthony McNicholas"

> >To:
> >Subject: pessimistic ballads
> >
> >
> >Dear list
> >I wonder could anyone tell me from which ballads the following
lines come.


> >4 But the gold sun of freedom grew darkened at Ross,
> >And it set by the Slaney's red waves;
> >And poor Wexford, stripped naked, hung high on a cross,
> >And her heart pierced by traitors and slaves.

This is the first half of the last verse of KELLY THE BOY FROM
KILLANN by P.J. McCall, a Wexford-born member of Dublin Corporation
who kept a fruit shop and died in the 1918 flu epidemic. He wrote
many popular ballads on 1798, mostly in the 1890s and early 1900s.
The use of the quotation as an example of unrelieved gloom is
slomewhat misleading - most of the ballad is taken upo with the high
hopes of the Wexford rebels - the quoted lines acknowledge their
defeat but the last lines celebrate their bravery.

What's the news, what's the news, o my brave Shelmalier
With your long-barreled gun of the sea?
Say what wind from the sun blows his messenger here
With a hymn of the dawn for the free?
Goodly news, goodly news do I bring, youth of Forth,
Goodly news shall you hear, Bargy man!
For the boys march at dawn from the south to the north
Led by Kelly, the boy from Killann!

O who is that giant with gold curling hair
He who rides a the head of your band?
Seven feet he in height, with some inches to spare,
And he looks like a king in command!
Ah, my lads, that's the pride of the bold Shelmalier
'Mongst our bravest of heroes, a Man!
Fling your beavers [hats] aloft and give three ringing cheers
For John Kelly, the boy from Killann!

Enniscorthy's in flames, and old Wexford is won,
And the Barrow tomorrow we cross!
On a hill o'er the town we have planted a gun
That will batter the gateways of Ross!
All the Forth men and Bargy men will march o'er the heath,
With brave Harvey to lead on the van,
And formeost of all in the grim Gap of Death
Will be Kelly, the boy from Killann!

But the gold sun of freedom grew darkened at Ross,
And it set 'neath the Slaney's red waves,
And pooor Wexford, stripped naked, hung high on a cross
And her heart pierced by traitors and slaves!
Glory O, Glory O to the brave sons who died
For the cause of long downtrodden Man!
Glory O to Mount Leinster's own darling and pride
Dauntless Kelly, the Boy from Killann!

The speaker is imagined as exhorting his audience to join the
rebel army, nominally commanded by the radical Protestant landowner
Bagenal Harvey, which was marching to attack New Ross, a major
crossing-point on the Barrow River between Wexford and Kilkenny. The
rebels had already won several victories over government forces within
Wexford and taken most of the county's major towns - now they
needed to break out of the county by defeating one of the
garrisons along the Wexford boundaries so that they could march on
Dublin "from the south to the north". The 1890s audience for whom
McCall wrote is assumed to know, as the speaker does not, that the
rebels were in fact defeated at New Ross with great slaughter.

John Kelly of Killann was a popular local United Irish leader from
the area of western Wexford around Mount Leinster (on the
Wexford-Carlow border); he was severely wounded at New Ross and
executed by the victorious government forces after the defeat of the
Wexford rebellion. Forth and Bargy are baronies in south-eastern
Wexford where the population strongly supported the rebels. Shelmalier
is a district on the southern shore of Wexford harbour which has large
populations of migratory wildfowl during the winter months - the
inhabitants were skilled wildfowlers with their "long-barreled gun[s]
of the sea" and provided the rebels with skilled marksmen. The gold
sun of freedom was darkened at Ross because of the rebel defeat and
set neath the Slaney's red waves when the last major rebel camp at
Vinegar Hill (located above Enniscorthy, which is on the River Slaney)
was dispersed by government forces.

McCall I think consciously tries to echo French Revolutionary
language ("the cause of long down-trodden Man") and the comparison of
the female personification of Wexford to the crucified Christ was
quite daring. I don't think it is fair to call this a misery-fest -
it is a conscious call on future nationalists to admire the 1798
rebels and renew their efforts in the near future, and as such a
fairly typical product of the 1898 centenary. It was also very
successful - a lot of people's image of 1798 derives from McCall
ballads or others in the same strain.



> >5 My curse upon all drinking! It made our hearts full sore;
> >For bravery won each battle, but drink lost ever more,
> >And if, for want of leaders, we lost at Vinegar Hill,
> >We're ready for another fight, and love our country still.
>
>
This I think is part of THE BOYS OF WEXFORD, a Young Ireland song
from the 1840s. The rest of the verse goes something like this -
In comes the captain's daughter, the captain of the Yeos
Saying - Brave United Irishman, we'll ne'er again be foes.
A thousand pounds I'll bring if you will fly from home with me
And clothe me in a man's attire to fight for liberty

CHORUS
We are the boys of Wexford, who fought with heart and hand
To burst in twain the galling chain and free our native land.

I want no gold, my maiden fair, to fly from home with thee
Thy shining eyes shall be my prize, more dear than gold to me
I want no gold to steel my arm to play a true man's part
To free my land I'd gladly give the red blood from my heart
CHORUS

And when we left our cabins, boys we went with right good will
To meet the friends and neighbours we found at Vinegar Hill
The same young man from out our ranks a cannon he let go
He slapped it into Lord Mountjoy [killed at New Ross]- a tyrant he
laid low.
CHORUS

We boldly fought and conquered at Ross and Wexford town
And if we failed to win the day 'twas drink that brought us down
We had no drink beside us on Tubberneering's day
Depending on the long bright pike, and with it carved our way.
CHORUS
- last verse as given above.

Again I think this is not so much pesimistic as moralistic- a typical
Young Ireland insistence on the link between personal
self-command/virtue and successful rebellion. What is really
significant is that the speaker openly identifies with the 1798 rebels
and hopes to follow in their footsteps.

Oddly enough, the Young Irelanders themselves complained about
pessimistic ballads - they accused writers like Thomas Moore of
romanticising and wallowing in defeat instead of calling for renewed
action. Some of the advanced-nationalist criticisms of Yeats are very
similar to those made of Moore by Young Irelanders and later exponents
of the Young Ireland tradition.

Patrick Maume

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Please circulate widely...

Forwarded on behalf of...

Wendy Dodgson, Conference Administrator, European Studies Research
Institute,
University of Salford, Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT UK
Telephone: + 44 (0) 161 295 4862 Fax: + 44 (0) 161 295 5223 Email:
w.a.dodgson[at]salford.ac.uk

EUROPEAN STUDIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Centre for Irish Studies
University of Salford, Salford, Greater Manchester UK

CONSTRUCTIONS OF IRISHNESS:
THE IRISH IN IRELAND, BRITAIN AND BEYOND

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

FRIDAY 22 - SUNDAY 24 MARCH 2002
Keynote Speakers: Paul Arthur (University of Ulster)
George Boyce (University of Wales, Swansea)
David Fitzpatrick (Trinity College, Dublin)
Cormac O?Grada (University College, Dublin)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The economic transformation of the Republic of Ireland and the peace process
in Northern Ireland have raised many questions concerning the future form
and character of Irish society, both in the North and South. For the first
time in 180 years, Ireland has experienced net inward migration, not all of
it Irish born, the result of an economic boom, giving rise to the label
?Celtic Tiger?. Alongside this economic boom and the growth of consumerism,
threats to traditional Irish life have emerged. Simultaneously, the
authority of the Catholic Church is challenged. In Northern Ireland, the
peace process has brought about significant changes in political
arrangements and the balance of power between Nationalists and Unionists.
These changes have raised fears among some Protestants that their culture
and identity are under threat. Outside Ireland, large numbers of Irish have
settled in Britain, America, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, where
different kinds of ?Irishness? have evolved, reflecting local conditions.
The conference seeks to explore a range of issues arising from economic,
political, religious and social changes in Irish society. Papers from all
disciplines will be welcomed and will be organised under three themes.
These are:

Emigration: Papers on the scale and nature of Irish emigration, the places
of settlement, the reception of the migrants in the host country, emigration
since 1921 and the economic impact of emigration on Ireland, will be
particularly welcome

The Anglo-Irish Relationship: The conference aims to examine the nature of
the Anglo-Irish relationship, both in terms of the political nexus and
cultural exchanges. Papers on the progress in the Northern Ireland peace
process are encouraged, especially those setting the Northern Ireland
situation into a wider context of devolution within Britain. Also welcome
are papers dealing with ethnic conflicts in general and the application to
Ireland of solutions and ideas tried elsewhere.

Varieties of Irishness: Papers exploring perceptions and representations of
the different kinds of Irishness, which exist side by side within Ireland
and without will be particularly welcome. Possible themes include Irish
Protestants in Ireland and the Protestant sense of identity in Northern
Ireland, Irish migrant identities including the Irish-Americans and the
Scots? Irish of America; views of the Irish found in literature and the
theatre; the Orange Order outside of Ireland; Irish Nationalism; Unionism;
the secularisation of Irish society, both North and South; questions of
identity based on gender and region and the Roman Catholic Church in
Ireland.

Postgraduate students are particularly encouraged to submit papers and are
asked to indicate their student status on their abstracts.

Conference Co-Convenors

Frank Neal (Salford), Mervyn Busteed (Manchester) and Roger Swift (Chester)


Please send abstracts of papers (maximum 300 words) in Word format by Friday
30 November 2001 to:
Wendy Dodgson Email: w.a.dodgson[at]salford.ac.uk


Further information is available from:

Wendy Dodgson, Conference Administrator, European Studies Research
Institute,
University of Salford, Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT UK
Telephone: + 44 (0) 161 295 4862 Fax: + 44 (0) 161 295 5223 Email:
w.a.dodgson[at]salford.ac.uk

- --
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
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Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
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England

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

From time to time we are asked for financial advice by researchers and
students in our field - or would-be researchers. We have no funding
resources of our own, of course - I wish we had but we don't.

And it is quite impossible for us to give advice in individual cases. The
funding situation changes rapidly, all the time, and we do not have the
resources to keep track.

Sometimes it does seem worth passing on a request for advice and information
to the Irish-Diaspora list, really just so that we feel we have left no
stone unturned... An example, below...

If anyone feels they have specific advice to give to Tom Rota you can
contact him directly. And obviously general comments, advice or
erxperiences can be shared with the Irish-Diaspora list.

P.O'S.


From Tom Rota
Subject: Financial Advise

I am an uilleann piper (Irish bagpipe) from Portland, Maine. I have been
playing
over 6 years (3 in and around Portland) and have been active in producing
Irish music concerts in the Portland area for the last 2 years. Previous to
that I worked at several Irish music
record labels and distributors.

I have recently been accepted in to the
graduate program in Traditional Irish Music Performance at the University of
Limerick
in the fall. I am currently looking for scholarships, grants or funding of
any type to help me finance my studies. Do you have any funding available
for this sort of thing, or any advice to give. Any help at all
would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Thomas Rota
Center for Cultural Exchange
One Longfellow Square
Portland, ME 04101
(207) 761-0591 x109





- --
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

Forwarded for information...

A little summary of Irish history here, though the authors don't know
that...

P.O'S.


- ----------------- EH.NEWS POSTING -----------------

Stanley Engerman and Jacob Metzer will organize a session in the 13th
World Congress of the International Economic History Association,
Buenos Aires, July 22 - July 26, 2002, on the subject of:

Ethno-Nationality, Property Rights in Land and Territorial Sovereignty
in Historical Perspective

Land, a primary factor of production, has not only been a major
component of economic, political, and social aspects of human life
across time and space, but it has also played an important cultural
and religious role. The different mechanisms that have been utilized
to distribute land among people (by custom, authoritative discretion,
sheer force, laws and regulations, and/or market forces) have been
instrumental in shaping human territoriality, and have been important
in the formation of collective identities and the nature of
ethno-national entities.

The close relations between ethno-nationality and territory in
history involve, quite naturally, the nexus between property rights
in land and the exclusiveness of ownership imposed by the state - the
notion of territorial sovereignty. A number of issues are of
interest, among them: the structure and functioning of land markets
in which the participation of "others" (ethno-nationally,
religiously, or otherwise identified) has been effectively restricted
(or barred altogether); the political and economic underpinning of
such constraints and their variety and change over time; and the
implications of ethno-nationally restricted land markets for the
allocation of resources, income distribution, and growth, in the
societies concerned.

The history of colonialism and of many of the ethno-nationally
(and/or religiously) divided "old" and "new" states provides a rich
"laboratory" for illuminating these and related issues concerning the
formation, modi operandi, and consequences of ethno-natinally
affected land regimes in history and their relationship to the
concept of territorial sovereignty. These issues will be explored in
our session which is intended to be a forum for the presentation and
critical discussion of case studies, as well as of comparative
investigations, based on a broad range of experiences.

We have already secured a number of commitments to present papers on
Aborigines' landed property rights and sovereignty in North America;
land ownership issues in South Africa, Russia, Fiji and Hawaii; the
land question in Palestine-Israel; and the attempts to change the
ethno-national mix of land ownership and settlement in late 19th
century Prussian Poland.

We are still looking for additional proposals, particularly on Europe
(Yugoslavia for instance), the Dutch empire, Latin America,
Australia, and the Middle East.

Those interested should send an abstract of their proposed paper no
later than by Sept.1st, 2001.
to:
Stanley Engerman
Department of Economics
PO Box 270156
Harkness Hall, Room 238
University of Rochester
Rochester NY 14627-0156
USA.
E-mail: enge[at]troi.cc.rochester.edu
Fax.: 1-716-2562309

or to:
Jacob Metzer
Department of Economics
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905
Israel
E-mail: msmetzer[at]mscc.huji.ac.il
Fax.: 972-2-5816071

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded for information...

On behalf of Margaret McAllister
m.a.mcallister[at]durham.ac.uk
Research & Outreach Officer for the AHRB Centre for North-East England
History.

Conference

FRIDAY 14 - SUNDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2001

"Peoples and Migrations: England, Ireland,
Scotland and Wales in Comparative Perspective"

offers the opportunity for lively academic papers and debate on the
experiences of
migrants to the North East of England both through direct study and by
comparative studies. Further details are available on the web site at
www.durham.ac.uk/neehi.history/homepage.htm


AHRB CENTRE FOR NORTH EAST ENGLAND HISTORY
ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2001

Hosted by The University of Sunderland

PEOPLES AND MIGRATIONS
England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales in Comparative Perspective

PROGRAMME

FRIDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2001

3 pm Registration and Tea

4.00-5.30 SESSION 1: ASPECTS OF POPULATION MOVEMENT

Prof. A.C.Hepburn (University of Sunderland)
The Impact of Population Movement on Contested Cities

Dr Malcolm Smith (University of Durham)
Local Population Movement on the North Yorkshire Coast in the 19th Century

Discussion

6.30-8.00 pm Dinner

8 pm KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Prof. Colin Holmes (University of Northumbria)
Reflections on Recent Immigration to Britain

SATURDAY 15 SEPTEMBER

9.00-10.45 SESSION 2: IRISH AND SCOTS MIGRANTS

Dr John A. Burnett (University of Sunderland)
Scots Migration to North East England, c.1881-1951

Dr Jeanette Brock (University of Strathclyde)
Scottish Migration to England and Wales in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries

Dr D.M. MacRaild (University of Northumbria)
Irish Protestant Immigrants in Late 19th Century England

10.45-11.15 TEA/COFFEE

11.15 -12.45 SESSION 3: THE IMMIGRANT PRESS

Dr Anthony McNicholas (University of Westminster)
Brother Journalists: the National Brotherhood of Saint Patrick and the Irish
Press in mid-Victorian Britain

Dr Joan Hugman (University of Newcastle upon Tyne)
Clash of the Titans: The Irish Tribune and the Cowen Press, 1884-1898

Dr Alexander Peach (De Montfort University)
William Murphy and the Birmingham riots of 1867

12.45-1.30 Lunch

1.30 pm EVENT 1

Depart by coach for visit to St Peter?s Church (674 AD, associations with
Bede), The National Glass Centre, and a display of the Sidney Pollard
Collection (1924-98) followed by tea.

5.00-6.45 SESSION 4: ITINERANT MINORITIES IN BRITAIN

Dr Colin Clark (University of Newcastle upon Tyne)
(Re)constructing Romani History: a Response to Recent Debates on the Origins
of the Roma

Helen Carter (University of Northumbria)
"The Time is Ripe for an Attempt at Economic Absorption": Conflicting
Attitudes to the Assimilation of Itinerant Minorities in Early 20th
Century Britain

Dr David Mayall (Sheffield Hallam University)
The Rom Reconsidered: constructing the ethnic Gypsy.

7 pm Dinner

SUNDAY 16 SEPTEMBER

9.00-11.00 SESSION 5: IRISH WOMEN AND MIGRATION

Dr Lyndon Fraser (University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand)
"No one but Black Strangers to Spake to, God Help me": Irish Women's
Migration to the West Coast, New Zealand, 1864-1922

Dr Louise Ryan (University of North London)
Aliens, Migrants and Maids: An Analysis of the Inter-Departmental
Committee on Migration to Britain from the Irish Free State, 1937

Prof. Frank Neal (University of Salford)
A demographic and socio-economic profile of Irish-born women in the
North East and North West of England: the evidence of the 1851 census.

11.00-11.30 TEA/COFFEE

11.00-5.00 EVENT 2

Guided tour of Hadrian's Wall (subject to sufficient participants).
Those attending this tour will miss Session 6

11.30-1.00 SESSION 6: COMPARATIVE DIMENSIONS

Dr Richard Allen (University of Northumbria)
In Search of a New Jerusalem: the Welsh Quaker Emigrés to America,
c1660-1750

Dr Per-Olof Gronberg (Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden)
International Migration and Return Migration of Swedish Engineers, 1890-1940

Dr Nigel Copsey (University of Teesside)
Anti-Semitism and the Jewish Community in Newcastle upon Tyne

1.00-2.00 Lunch/Conference Ends

2.00 EVENT 3

Guided tour of the peninsula at Durham.

5.30 Sunday EVENT 4

5.30 Opening Reception of the NEHRN Conference :
REGIONS AND BORDERS OF NORTHERN EUROPE

An introduction to the work of the International Boundaries Research Unit
(IBRU)
Buffet Dinner with wine, followed by:
8.00: Dr Andrew Wilson (University College, London):
LECTURE ON UKRAINE


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

The Irish Times - IRELAND

Wednesday, July 25, 2001

Long memories of forgotten Irish diaspora


The Taoiseach gave heart to the Spanish speaking Irish community of
Argentina, reports Mark Brennock, Political Correspondent, from Buenos
Aires
The hall in Monsignor Dillon College in the Plaza Irlanda in Buenos
Aires
was packed to the doors with more than 600 people who came to hear the
Taoiseach. The majority were more comfortable hearing speeches in
Spanish.
Yet so many faces looked as if they belonged in an Irish club in
Kilburn.
And when they spoke broken English, the accents of many were
unmistakably
Irish.
These are Argentina's Irish community, the often forgotten members of
the
Irish diaspora. Some 400,000 Argentinians are of Irish descent, with
many
retaining strong attachments to the land of their ancestors.
Many Irish came here in the 18th and 19th centuries, seeking
opportunities
in a land that held promise, in particular, for those with
agricultural
skills. It was a destination not only for the unskilled emigrant but
also
for merchants and professionals who saw better opportunities in the
region
newly opening up around Buenos Aires.
The fact that their descendants are Spanish speakers and that ties
between
Ireland and Argentina are so limited serves to isolate them from
Ireland.
But when you ask you will be told that their grandparents were Irish,
and
that they, too, are Irish. The Irish have risen to the highest levels
in
Argentina's civic and business life. The Taoiseach yesterday met five
members of the board of the Banco de la Nacion: one was called
McDonagh,
another O'Donnell. He also met the acting president of the Argentine
Supreme Court, Dr Eduardo Moliné O'Connor.
The Irish have their place in Argentine history. Admiral William Brown
from Foxford, Co Mayo, founded the Argentine navy. The first recorded
Irishman in Argentina was a Father Thomas Fehily, who died in Paraguay
in
1625. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many Irish crossed the Atlantic
and
the equator to settle in Argentina.
President Mary Robinson's visit here in the mid-1990s marked a huge
moment
in the lives of the Argentinian Irish, who had felt isolated for so
long;
likewise Mr Ahern's visit. While some at Monsignor Dillon College on
Sunday looked Latin, one of the Taoiseach's retinue remarked that many
would not look out of place at a Fianna Fáil ardfheis.
Many were eager to tell of their Irishness. A young lawyer, Mr Luis
Barry,
told me of his grandparents who came from Wexford. Ms Clara Furlong's
grandfather came to Argentina from Duncormick, Co Wexford, in 1847.
Asked
if the family's sense of Irishness waned with time, she said her
father
called Argentinians "bloody natives". A newspaper for the Irish
community,
the Southern Cross, was founded by Mgr Patrick Dillon in 1975, while
schools for the Irish community have healthy enrolment figures.
Yet some feel a sense of threat to the survival of the Irish identity.
Mr
Jorge Mackey, president of the Federation of Argentine-Irish
Societies,
warn ed of "an unequal struggle to keep our traditions and
institutions,
and sometimes we are afraid of losing them. Unfortunately our members
are
being assimilated among other cultures". He insisted this was not
chauvinism.
Ireland has long had an embassy here, not only in recognition of the
large
Irish community but also because of the country's economic importance.
Mr
Ahern struck an optimistic note regarding the strengthening of links
that
would ensure the Irish strand in Argentinian culture prospered.
"With not an awful lot of effort," he told reporters, "this can be
kept
up. The world is a smaller place, and the opportunities here are
immense
for trade. There is no doubt that the interest is there to do it."


© 2001 ireland.com


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


Subject: NDA research officer post

I attach a notice regarding a vacancy for a Research Officer here at the
NDA in Dublin.

The National Disability Authority (NDA) is an independent agency established
under the aegis of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

I would be grateful if you would display this and/or bring it to
the attention of others who might be interested.

Very many thanks,

Yours sincerely

Anne Good
Senior Research Officer
NDA Research and Standards Development

NDA
25 Clyde Road
Ballsbridge
Dublin 4
Republic of Ireland

Visit our website at www.nda.ie

Email : research[at]nda.ie
Tel : 353+1+6080400
Fax: 353+1+6609935
>

The National Disability Authority (NDA) is a new independent agency
established under the aegis of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law
Reform.

The NDA came into operation on 12 June 2000
· to act as a central, national body to assist in the co-ordination and
development of disability policy
· to undertake research and develop statistical information for the
planning, delivery and monitoring of disability programmes and services
· to advise the Minister on standards for programmes and services and to
prepare codes of practice
· to monitor the implementation of standards and codes of practic
· to encourage and recognise the promotion of equality for people with
disabilities.

Applications are invited for the post of

Research Officer (Temporary)

to replace a staff member currently on a Career Break. The appointment will
be on the basis of a Specified Purpose Contract and the current expectation
is that it will be for a period to Friday, 12 July 2002.

The person appointed will assist and support the Senior Research Officer in
undertaking research and evaluation projects.

For the successful implementation of this role, there are a number of key
relationships to be fostered and developed. These will be with colleagues
and personnel from a range of other agencies. A high degree of flexibility
and creativity will be required. As a staff member, the holder of the post
will be expected to actively contribute to and participate in the overall
development of the NDA and to promote its policies at all times.

Candidates should have a post-graduate degree in the social sciences and a
proven track record in research design, delivery and analysis, good
organisational, report writing and communication skills and an ability to
work to deadlines.

The salary for the post will be on the scale IR£19,314 ? IR£30,150.

Letter of application and full CV to reach Head of Corporate Services,
National Disability Authority, 25 Clyde Road, Dublin 4 not later than 12
noon on Friday, 31 August 2001.

The National Disability Authority is an equal opportunities employer.
Applications would be particularly welcome from persons with disabilities
who meet the job requirements.

From: Jim McAuley
Subject: The Piper try ACIS

Dear Paddy,

You could direct those approaching you to the ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship
in Irish Studies. Details below. Hope it helps.

best as always, Jim


In commemoration of the holding of the 38th Annual Meeting of the American
Conference for Irish Studies in Limerick in June 2000, the University of
Limerick, in association with ACIS, is instituting an annual postgraduate
scholarship in Irish Studies open to American-based students and tenable at
the University of Limerick.
Applications are invited under two categories:

1. Graduates or graduating students who would wish to enrol for a
postgraduate degree by research at the University of Limerick; and
2. Students already registered on graduate programmes in the United
States wishing to undertake research in Ireland.

Preference will be given to suitable applications in category (1), but
graduate students in category (2) are also encouraged to apply.
The scholarship will include fees and other charges at the University of
Limerick, where applicable, and an annual award of IR£5,000 (EURO 6,348) for
living expenses. In the case of a student in category (1), enrolling for
graduate studies at the University of Limerick, the scholarship may be
renewable for a further two years, subject to satisfactory progress in the
relevant course of studies.
For the first award (academic year 2001-2002), research proposals are
invited from students with interests in the following areas:

* Contemporary Irish language studies
* Irish traditional culture (including traditional song)

Potential research topics in these areas may be discussed respectively with
Dr Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin (e-mail: tadhg.ohifearnain[at]ul.ie) or Dr Lillis Ó
Laoire (e-mail: lillis.olaoire[at]ul.ie) of the Irish Language Section,
Department of Languages & Cultural Studies, University of Limerick.
In future years this scholarship will be offered in other areas in Irish
Studies (e.g. history, literature, social sciences, women's studies, etc.)
Applications for this scholarship should be accompanied by letters of
recommendation from two faculty members in the applicant's home college or
university in the US; at least one of the faculty members concerned should
be a member of the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS).
Application materials are available from:

Professor Dermot Walsh,
Assistant Dean Research,
College of Humanities,
University of Limerick,
Limerick, Ireland
(e-mail: breda.tuohy[at]ul.ie).

The closing date for the receipt of completed applications for academic year
20001/2002 is: 15 February 2001

The ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship in Irish Studies is sponsored by the Study
Abroad Programme, UL


------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ACIS web site is located at  http://www.acisweb.com

From: "Richard Jensen"
Subject: NY TIMES Lesson Plan



THE NEW YORK TIMES LEARNING NETWORK LESSON PLAN
URL:http://www.nytimes.com/learning/

Developed in Partnership with
The Bank Street College of Education in New York City

TODAY'S LESSON PLAN:
IRE LAND: Exploring the History of the Conflict in Ireland

BASED ON THE ARTICLE:
Ulster Protestants' Leader Rejects I.R.A. Plan on Arms, By WARREN
HOGE,August
8, 2001
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20010808wednesday
.
html

AUTHOR(S):
Clayton DeKorne, The New York Times Learning Network
Tanya Yasmin Chin, The Bank Street College of Education in New York City

GRADES:
6-8
9-12


SUBJECTS:
Current Events
Geography
Global History
Language Arts
Social Studies


OVERVIEW OF LESSON PLAN:
In this lesson, students imagine themselves as "witnesses" to historical
events in different time periods in the Irish conflict. They then write "day
in the life" accounts of their "place" in Irish history.

SUGGESTED TIME ALLOWANCE:
1 hour

OBJECTIVES:
Students will:
1. Share their prior knowledge of the Irish people; reflect on how words can
convey bias.
2. Learn about the latest disarmament plan announced by the Irish Republican
Army and its rejection by Ulster Protestant leader David Trimble by reading
and discussing "Ulster Protestants' Leader Rejects I.R.A. Plan on Arms."
3. Investigate historical periods in the Northern Ireland conflict;
speculate
on what it would be like to witness events in the Northern Ireland conflict
by writing "day in the life" journal entries from the perspectives of people
living during this time period.
4. Relate these events to events in their lives.


RESOURCES / MATERIALS:
- -student journals
- -pens/pencils
- -paper
- -classroom board
- -copies of "Ulster Protestants' Leader Rejects I.R.A. Plan on Arms"(one per
student)
- -copies of each of the ten chronology pieces in "Peace in Northern Ireland?"
located under the map on the homepage (http://www.megast
o
ries.com/ireland/derryindex.shtml) (two or three copies of each story)
- -resources about Ireland's history and politics (global history and
geography
textbooks, encyclopedias, periodicals, computers with Internet access)

ACTIVITIES / PROCEDURES:
1. WARM-UP/DO-NOW: Students respond to the following questions in their
journals (written on the board prior to class): "What images and phrases
come
to mind when you hear the word 'Irish'? Do any of these words reflect a bias
or stereotype? Why or why not?" Ask students to share their responses, and
record their ideas on the board. Then, as a class, discuss the following
questions: What do these words tell us about the people of Ireland? What can
words tell us about the culture and history of a people? How can we get
beyond single words and simple understandings to get to know what life is
really like for people from other countries?

2. As a class, read and discuss "Ulster Protestants' Leader Rejects I.R.A
Plan on Arms," focusing on the following questions:
a. What new plan did the Irish Republican Army announce on August 6, 2001?
b. How did Protestant leader David Trimble respond to the announcement?
c. What retort did Martin McGuiness fire back?
d. What is the timeline for these negotiations? Why is it considered so
crucial?
e. What two choices faced Britain and Ireland before the weekend? Why were
they reluctant to vote on these decisions?
f. What new decision emerged when Mr. Trimble rejected the I.R.A. plan?
g. According to the article, how many people have been killed in the last
three decades of violence in Northern Ireland?
h. What package proposal did Britain and Ireland present the previous week?
Which party's interests, according to the article, did this proposal serve
best?
i. Who are the Unionists and who are the Republicans? Of these groups, who
represents the Protestants and who represents the Nationalists?
j. What was the goal of the 1998 peace agreement?

3. Divide the class into ten pairs or small groups of three, and assign each
group a period in the Irish conflict as described by the "Out There News"
Web
site, "Peace in Northern Ireland?" (http://www.megast
o
ries.com/ireland/derryindex.shtml) (The English Plantation, Catholic
Siege of Derry, Potato Famine, Partition, Protestant Ascendency, Civil
Rights
Movement, The Troubles in Full Flood, Bloody Sunday, Hunger Strikes,
Ceasefire). Give each group one article associated with a time period and
location in the city of Derry/Londonderry. Ask students to discuss, as they
read, what events are described in the article and what city features
represent the historical events described.

After students have had a chance to review their "place in history," ask
them
to imagine they are living in that time and place. Each group determines who
in the group will represent a Catholic perspective and who will represent a
Protestant perspective. Each student should then choose a persona, such as a
child, a shop keeper, a government representative, a paramilitary soldier,
or
another citizen who would be able to provide an "eyewitness account" of the
events. Then, each student writes a journal entry describing a day in the
life of their chosen person that reflects the events taking place. Students
should consider the following (written on the board for easier student
access):
- --Are you Protestant or Catholic?
- --Do you refer to the city as Derry or Londonderry?
- --What are you thinking?
- --How would you describe the events taking place?

Encourage students to write freely, as if they were describing the events to
their best friends. Students can write in whatever style they wish - a short
story, a poem, a dialogue, a letter, or some other creative expression that
allows them to "get inside" the person and the events taking place.

4. WRAP-UP/HOMEWORK: Students complete their historical journal writings,
and
then expand on them by relating the events to incidents in their lives. In a
future class, ask students to share their writing.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- --What is the difference between "decommissioning arms" and "disarmament"?
Why might one term be favored over another?
- --Why would it be questionable, as some I.R.A. critics have argued, to let a
political party remain active while it has a fully armed guerilla force
standing behind it?
- --Who are the different political players in the article, such David
Trimble,
Martin McGuiness, Tony Blair, and Bertie Ahern? What governments and
political parties do each of these people represent?
- --How does Northern Ireland differ politically from the Republic of Ireland?
- --Is the conflict in Ireland a dispute between the Irish and English that is
focused on Ireland securing independence as a nation, or is it a conflict
between religious groups within Ireland itself? Or is it both? How can these
different perspectives be sorted out?
- --Is the I.R.A. united in its resolve to carry out its disarmament plan? How
have they expressed its dissent?


EVALUATION / ASSESSMENT:
Students will be evaluated on written journal entries, participation in
class
discussions, participation in group research and discussion, and thoughtful
completion of historical journal entries.

VOCABULARY:
disarmament, clandestine, procedural, grievous, verifiable, crucial,
confided, extract, hard-line, assurances, decommissioning, disarmament,
coexistence

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES:
1. Using historic periodicals, Web sites, and other resources, explore the
long conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. What
was
the Ulster Plantation? What prompted the Catholic Siege of Derry in 1689?
What was the Easter Uprising of 1916? Who was Eammon De Valera? When was an
independent Irish government formed? What events took place on "Bloody
Sunday," January 30, 1972? When was the first "paramilitary cease fire"
declared? Create an illustrated timeline, complete with annotations and
quotes from historical figures, covering the significant events of this
conflict.

2. Explore the official Web sites of Irish political parties [the Ulster
Unionists (http://www.uup.org); the
Democratic
Unionists (http://www.dup.org.uk); the
Social Democratic and Labor Party (http://www.sdlp.ie); and Sinn Fein (http://www.sinnfein.ie). Create a campaign
poster for yourself as a political representative of one of these parties in
an upcoming election in Northern Ireland. Who are your constituents? What
message do you want to convey to those constituents?

3. Select a poem written by an Irish teenager from the Children's Friendship
Project of Northern Ireland (http://www.cfpni.org/INOWNWDS.HTM
)
. Examine the poem line by line. Based on what you have learned about the
conflict in Northern Ireland, write a description in your own words of what
you think the author is trying to say in each line of the poem.

4. Explore "Interface Kids: Life on the Peaceline"(http://www.mega
s
tories.com/ireland/belfast/kids.shtml). How do the authors of this site
define an "interface"? Read about one of the four children posted at this
site, listen to his or her statements, then write a letter to this child.
How
do you relate to the stories of what has happened to him or her? How is your
life different, and how is it the same?

5. If you were planning a vacation to Ireland, where would you go? Create an
Illustrated Guide to Traveling in Ireland. Where is the capital? How does
the
population in the north compare to the rest of Ireland? What cultural sites
would present a visited with a well-rounded view of Irish history?


INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS:
Civics- Research the political organization of Ireland. How do the 26
counties in the Republic of Ireland differ from the six counties of Northern
Ireland? Who is the President of Ireland? What is the Dail? Who represents
Northern Ireland? Write an illustrated report of your findings.

Economics- Research the Potato Famine in Ireland. What caused the famine?
What affect did this disaster have on the economy and population of Ireland?
How do Irish Nationalists explain the famine? Why would a seemingly natural
disaster be seen as a political controversy? Film a news segment about the
famine as if you were living at the time that it occurred.

Fine Arts- Design and paint a mural that expresses the friendship between
children from different cultural or religious backgrounds. What visual
symbols would represent the traditional conflict between the groups, and how
would you represent the dissolution of these conflicts?

Media Studies- Watch the movie "Michael Collins" and write a review. How
does
the movie portray the I.R.A.? Does the movie fairly represent all the
interests in the conflict in Northern Ireland? What perspectives might be
missing or under represented?


-------------------------

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
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author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and
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use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at
hbooks[at]mail.h-net.msu.edu.

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: Re: Ir-D Carleton bio

Eileen,

Thanks for this. Sorry to be slow to respond, but, unlike academics
in the Northern Hemisphere, we are still deep in work - and winter -
here, 2nd semester having recently begun.

I didn't know that Carleton's son had landed up in Melbourne. Give me
a bit of time and I'll see if I can uncover anything further about
him. I have a research assistant surveying Irish sources in
Australian libraries and I'll ask her to check. South Yarra is
certainly a classy address these days, but whether it was in the 19th
century I'm not sure.

As for my article in 'The Irish Sword': it's about military influence
on the Irish police up to 1850 and is in volume 21 (1998), pp 163-75.

Best wishes,

Elizabeth



> >Subject: Carleton bio
> >From: Eileen A Sullivan
> >
> >Dear Elizabeth,
> >
> >Thanx for the reminder; know Ken, of course. Several notes were
> >exchanged prior to my article. My mind is on 19th century!
> >
> >Carleton is being quoted as a reliable source of his times; faction
> >fights, famine, landlord/tenant, education, family relations, characters,
> >and clergy, More often than not, he is accurate AFTER the attempted
> >Otway make over. His son, William, emigrated to Australia. When
> >O'Donoghue's Bio in1896 was published (none since then, and I can tell
> >you why). His son, J.R. Carleton, wrote to O'D on 12/10/95
> >
> >J. R. said his father, William,Jr was still alive, recognized as the
> >"well known Australian poet. He lived at 34 York St, Melbourne .
> >
> >J R was a tradesman with elaborately designed stationery entitled, MEMO
> >FROM J. R. CARLETON (Late E. Keen). Business included painting,
> >paperhanging, house decorating et al . 139 Toorak Road, South Yarra
> >private address: 77 Osborne St, So Yarra
> >
> >Anything at all on son or grandson.
> >
> >Carletons from Australia have been at the Carleton Summer School, not
> >sure of relationship with Wm, Jr, but have the resource to make the
> >connection.
> >
> >Title of my bio, WILLIAM CARLETON: FATHER OF MODERN IRISH LITERATURE.
> >BEN KIELY, JOHN MONTAGUE, TOM FLANAGAN, AND MAURICE HARMON have voiced
> >no objection. I want to dispel any negative criticism about the title.
> >Hopefully, it will appear next year.
> >
> >Any data there about Wm.Jr and family?
> >
> >When was your article printed, volume, page numbers? I'd like to read
> >it'
> >
> >
> >Dr. Eileen A. Sullivan, Director
> >The Irish Educational Association, Inc. Tel # (352) 332
> >3690
> >6412 NW 128th Street E-Mail :
> >eolas1[at]juno.com
> >Gainesville, FL 32653

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 Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Some time ago I wrote and published, in 1991, a chapter about Patrick
MacGill - it's in Hutton & Stewart, Ireland's Histories. I am now in
discussion with Carolina Amador, who is based in Spain, at the University of
Extremadura, Department of English (Filologias Inglesa y Alemana) - she is
writing a PhD thesis on MacGill, 'from a linguistic point of view...'

This is an approach that is - in the manner of the PhD - both astounding and
obvious. Oddly enough, one of the themes I flagged in my own chapter was
MacGill's ear for language registers, and his interest in how they worked.

My own copies of MacGill are old ones, picked up over the years in
secondhand book shops - though I do have a little cluster of books from the
defunct Bradford Library and Literary Society. Where, I am told, there was
always a queue to read Children of the Dead End.

Finding copies of MacGill to read became easier for a while in the 1990s,
with the Brandon/Caliban reprints - but these are now, I think, illegal,
since the harmonisation of European copyright laws.

There is some MacGill material on the Web - for example at the Kansas WW1
site...

http://www.ukans.edu/~libsite/wwi-www/MacGill/push1.htm#TC

http://cla.calpoly.edu/~lcall/WWIsongs.html

Which, I suspect, may well be in breach of copyright too now...

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

Boston University International Programs has brought to our attention Boston
University's Global Internship Programs - which include a Dublin option, 'a
semester of study and work in one of Europe's most vibrant cities...'

Further information
www.bu.edu/abroad
Email abroad[at]bu.edu

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

Developments in Concordia University, Montreal, continue - with the creation
of the new Chair in Canadian Irish Studies. This development is potentially
of world significance for Irish Studies and Irish Diaspora Studies.

Information and contact point below...

Please circulate widely...

P.O'S.

From Web site
http://relish.concordia.ca/mrkcom/jobs/faculty.artssci.irish.html

Concordia University?s Faculty of Arts and Science invites applications for
its inaugural Chair in Canadian Irish Studies. The appointment, supported in
part by the Canadian Irish Studies Foundation, will be made at the Associate
or Full Professor level and will be based in Concordia?s recently created
Centre for Canadian Irish Studies. Once appointed, the successful candidate
may also serve as the Director of the Centre for Canadian Irish Studies.

The Chair will be expected to: 1) position Canadian Irish Studies as an
interdisciplinary component of the undergraduate curriculum; 2) create
connections between academic initiatives and existing and future cultural
activities of Montreal?s Irish community; 3) cooperate with the Canadian
Irish community to develop and support outreach projects; and 4) coordinate
relations with faculty and students in the growing international field of
Irish Studies.

Concordia?s Centre for Canadian Irish Studies was created in 2000 to
coordinate the University?s more than 25 courses in Irish and Irish-Canadian
subjects, covering 12 academic disciplines. The Centre also sponsors a
Visiting Irish Lecture Series, publishes the Canadian Journal of Irish
Studies and organizes a variety of community outreach projects. The Centre
is jointly funded by Concordia University and the Canadian Irish Studies
Foundation.

Candidates in all areas related to Canadian/Irish Studies are encouraged to
apply. The ideal candidate will have a distinguished academic record in
teaching and research, a demonstrated ability to promote Canadian Irish
Studies as an academic discipline nationally and internationally, and proven
experience with Irish organizations in developing and supporting cultural
and academic projects.

Applications should consist of a letter of intent, a curriculum vitae and
three letters of reference. Please forward applications to:

Dr. Martin Singer Dean, Faculty of Arts and Science 7141 Sherbrooke St.
West, suite AD-229 Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6

Review of applications will begin on October 31st, 2001 and continue until
the position is filled. The starting date can be as early as January 1, 2002
but not later than June 1, 2002. Hiring is subject to budgetary approval.

This advertisement is simultaneously directed to Canadian citizens and
permanent residents of Canada and to non-Canadians. Under current Canadian
immigration guidelines, the dossiers of Canadian citizens and permanent
residents must be examined in the first instance, after which the
applications of others will be considered. Concordia University is committed
to employment equity and encourages applications from women, aboriginal
peoples, visible minorities and disabled persons.


- --
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: "christine cusick"

Subject: Emigrant Letters from America

From: christine cusick

I am currently writing a doctoral dissertation that invokes an ecocritical
analysis of contemporary Irish poetry and photography as well as 19th/20th
century emigrant letters. Both Patrick O'Farrell's collection of letters
from Australia and Cecil Houston's study of Canadian letters have been very
useful. Moreover, Paddy has been so kind as to recommend David
Fitzpatrick's work, which continues to be helpful. However, other than a
few special collections here in the States, I'm having difficulty locating
letters from America. Have I made an enormous oversight? My primary
interest is in the emigrant's memory of the material landscape, and so, I am
also interested in journal and diary entries of the sort. I welcome any
comments and/or suggestions.


Many thanks, in advance.


christine cusick
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, PA
United States

From: "iee"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Taoiseach in Argentina

Dear Paddy,

Thank you for publishing the Irish Times ´article regarding the Taoiseach´s
visit to Argentina. It was a very exiting experience for all the
Irish-Argentineans.

Best regards,

Guillermo MacLoughlin

PD: The article has a mistake: our local newspaper, The Southern Cross, was
founded in 1875 (not 1975 has it was mentioned). Actually, is the world
oldest Irish newspaper printed outside Ireland.

- ----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 3:00 AM
Subject: Ir-D Taoiseach in Argentina


>
> From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
> The following item has been brought to our attention...
>
> The Irish Times - IRELAND
>
> Wednesday, July 25, 2001
>
> Long memories of forgotten Irish diaspora
>
>
> The Taoiseach gave heart to the Spanish speaking Irish community of
> Argentina, reports Mark Brennock, Political Correspondent, from
Buenos
> Aires
> The hall in Monsignor Dillon College in the Plaza Irlanda in Buenos
> Aires
> was packed to the doors with more than 600 people who came to hear
the
> Taoiseach. The majority were more comfortable hearing speeches in
> Spanish.
> Yet so many faces looked as if they belonged in an Irish club in
> Kilburn.
>

From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Dymphna=20Lonergan?=
Subject: Re: Irish in Scotland

Does anyone have information on the extent of Irish
migration to Scotland, both seasonal and permanent, in
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? I'm
looking for a short overview to include as background
in a piece I'm writing at the moment.

buíochas

Dymphna Lonergan
Flinders University of South Australia

The following item from the West Highland Free Press, 20 July 2001, has been
brought to our attention...

P.O'S.

http://www.whfp.com/1525/frameset.html

Centre for migration studies planned for Sabhal Mor Ostaig
photograph

A Scottish Centre for Migration Studies is to be established on Skye,
creating a focal point for the study of the population movements which have
created the Highland diaspora and helped shape the Scotland of today.

The decision to proceed with the centre comes just over a year after the
proposal for such a facility was made at a conference at Sabhal Mor Ostaig
in Sleat by Brian Wilson MP, then a Minister at the Scotland Office, who
said: "What I am proposing is an academic Centre for Highlands and Islands
Emigration Studies. I hope that out of this conference will come an
agreement to work towards such an entity. Sabhal Mor Ostaig is itself a
tribute to the incredible resilience of the culture which was driven to the
four corners of the earth. The work of such a centre could be heavily
devolved throughout the Highlands and Islands, in keeping with the
philosophy of UHI."

Since then, a working party has taken the proposal forward and Dr Hugh Dan
MacLennan has produced a consultant's report. The outcome is that a centre
is to be established in Skye to study migration movements, not simply for
the Highlands and Islands but for Scotland as a whole. It will examine
historical movements, but will also undertake research into current trends -
looking into why people are leaving, or settling in individual areas. This
will provide important information for policy-making bodies.

Ionad Naiseanta na h-Imrich - the National Centre for Migration Studies -
will be based at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college in Sleat. The college
is part of the developing University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium
Institute, and the move is being supported both by Sabhal Mor itself and by
Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

It is believed the centre could lead to the creation of up to five new
high-quality jobs within its first few years, with the potential for more
employment opportunities in future. There is no institution in Scotland
currently involved in the type of teaching and research which the new centre
intends to carry out.

Ionad Naiseanta na h-Imrich will enter a "start-up" period during the
remainder of this year and will begin work in earnest next year. The costs
for this "start-up" period have been set at £32,000. This investment is
being evenly split between Sabhal Mor and HIE, with the funding for
development in subsequent years to be identified during this time.

The centre will operate in two main areas - historical research and
contemporary studies. Its aims will include:

Promoting academic research in the field of migration studies through its
own activities, and in collaboration with other institutions
Making an effective contribution to the formation of policy initiatives
relating to human mobility
Contributing to the understanding of the causes and consequences of human
mobility in terms of origin and destination
Disseminating knowledge through teaching, publications and research
Meeting the needs of the Scottish emigrant community worldwide by enabling
people from other countries to learn about all aspects of the Scottish
emigrant experience
Providing a forum for debate on issues relating to migration studies through
seminars, lectures, broadcasting and electronic media.
It will also make an important contribution to the development of Sabhal Mor
Ostaig's academic reputation and development within UHI.

HIE chairman Jim Hunter, an authority on Highland history and the movement
of its peoples, welcomed the announcement. "To some this might seem a dry,
even dull topic," Dr Hunter said. "However, there is now a huge, and
still-growing interest worldwide in people's origins. Many people whose
ancestors left the Highlands and Islands are now keen to trace their roots
and to learn something about their background. It makes perfect sense that
this centre is to be located in the Highlands, an area which has seen the
departure of so many people. It will also play its own part in bringing in
new jobs and economic opportunity."

He added: "I also welcome the fact that this centre will not be wholly
rooted in studies of the past. People are still moving into and away from
the Highlands and Islands. I'm sure we could learn a great deal from an
examination of contemporary migrations, and if we had a better understanding
of the reasons for this it would help inform our thinking and
policy-making."

Mr Wilson, now Energy Minister at the Department for Trade and Industry,
said this week: "I am delighted both by the conclusion which has been
reached and by the pace at which progress is being made. This could grow
into a major asset for Skye and Lochalsh."

Arainn Chaluim Chille will provide the base for the new centre

Keep up with ALL the news - subscribe to the West Highland Free Press

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

On a train of thought - reading Lance Pettitt's Introduction to his special
film and television issue of Irish Studies Review... See earlier Ir-D
message. (And isn't it a bit outre to cram the words auteur, oeuvre and
passe into just one sentence?)

There is another essay by Lance Pettitt in the
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
Philip Donnellan, Ireland and Dissident Documentary.
Author/s: Lance Pettitt
Issue: August, 2000
This is available at

Philip Donnellan, Ireland and Dissident Documentary.
http://www.findarticles.com/m2584/3_20/65651967/p1/article.jhtml

In fact all of that special issue of
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
on the media history of Ireland is available...

See, for example, Introduction.(media history of Ireland)
Author/s: Nicholas J. Cull
Issue: August, 2000

Introduction.(media history of Ireland)
http://www.findarticles.com/m2584/3_20/65651962/p1/article.jhtml

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