From Patrick O'Sullivan

I have mentioned
Melosina Lenox-Conyngham
Diaries of Ireland
An Anthology 1590-1987
a number of times in talks, and have been asked for further information...

I have therefore tidied up my notes as a formal review...

P.O'S.


Melosina Lenox-Conyngham
Diaries of Ireland
An Anthology 1590-1987

The Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1998
ISBN 1 874675 88 0 (hardback), 1 874675 78 3 (paperback)

NOTES by Patrick O?Sullivan

Very readable - I much enjoyed reading this book. That is my starting
point, and maybe I should simply end there. But scholarly readers expect
more from a reviewer, and I should take time to explore some of the
expectations with which I approached this book, and some of the thoughts
that arose as I read it. Whilst recognising, further, that I may address
issues that did not interest the compiler of this collection.

The Irish poet, Brian Coffey, developed during his Missouri years, the habit
of making what he called ?Self Books? ? a mixture of diary, autobiography,
working notebook and scrapbook. Coffey?s coinage has suffered since ? for a
reader in Britain might think we are dealing here with books by or about
Will (him) Self. But Coffey?s practice inspired L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin,
the archivist at the University of Delaware, where Coffey?s papers are now
held ? and she acknowledges his influence in her exhibitions and in
subsequent discussion of what she calls ?Self Works?.

For ? as Rebecca Melvin has observed - in recent decades scholars in a
variety of disciplines have become interested in, and have begun to explore
and use, a variety of texts which in the past have been overlooked:
diaries, journals, personal scrapbooks, travel narratives, autobiographies,
memoirs and reminiscences, ship?s logs, and - of course - letters. Indeed,
within the study of migration and diaspora there is a long tradition of
using ?Self Works? ? we think of Thomas and Znaniecki?s Polish Peasant, and
its problematic use of letters and other texts. In Irish Diaspora Studies
we give special iconic status to the Emigrant Letter. But if there has been
new interest in studying and theorising about diaries and other ?Self Works?
, that theorising has not done what theory is supposed to do ? it has not
clarified the discussion, perhaps because the theorists have focussed so
much on literary autobiography. Rebecca Melvin, helpfully prosaic,
approaches the material from five perspectives: time, place, gender,
evidence of intention for the work's creation, and genre. Is this a travel
narrative or a diary? Is this a private diary or ? as in Elizabeth Podnieks
? analysis of the diaries of literary women - meant for publication?

Melosina Lenox-Conyngham?s Diaries of Ireland offers us 38 texts. She has
gone for a long chronology ? beginning with Ludolf von Munchhausen?s account
of his journey to Ireland in 1590 (a travel narrative), and ending with
Gemma Hussey on the rough and tumble of Irish politics in the 1980s (clearly
always meant for publication). The compiler?s interesting but too brief
Introduction gives some impression of, and anecdotes from, diaries that did
not make it into the anthology - but leaves many questions unanswered. She
has read ?hundreds of diaries? ? a check list would have been helpful. Of
the 38 chosen texts 26 have already appeared in print ? yes, some long ago,
or in obscure publications. But many of these texts will already be
familiar to the specialist ? Humphrey O?Sullivan, Asenath Nicolson, Augusta
Gregory, Joseph Holloway, and so on. Most of the compiler?s hard work in
the manuscript archives is lost to us - it is not clear how far the chosen
38 reflect patterns within the historical record. The reader is struck by
how few of the 38 diaries were written by people actually born in Ireland.
The specialist will be all too aware of this pattern within the research
record, and its social policy and historiographic consequences - Ireland as
a sort of perpetual Slough of Despond in which the Pilgrim gathers material
for a book. We note the compiler?s careful choice of preposition - Diaries
OF Ireland. Very few of the chosen 38 were written by Catholics ? and there
is a rumbling debate within English-speaking academia (a debate which tends
to ignore other language cultures) as to how far diary-keeping and
autobiography should be regarded as specifically Protestant practices.

This is not the route that Melosina Lenox-Conyngham has chosen in this
publication: ?The diaries that I have included in this anthology have been
chosen principally because I myself have enjoyed reading them?? And so did
I. Let me pick one favourite moment, from the diary of the English
adventurer, Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, with its careful note of
gifts received and given, oil on the wheels of patronage. In March 1638 he
received 44 young apple trees from ?Mr. Daniel O?Swillevant? ? and suddenly
you hear what the English ear in Ireland heard.

Patrick O?Sullivan


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

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Personal Fax 0044 (0) 709 236 9050

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of...

Bruce_Elliott[at]carleton.ca

Subject: Reading the Emigrant Letter: CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS

"Reading the Emigrant Letter: Innovation Approaches
and Interpretations".

An interdisciplinary conference to be held at Carleton
University, Ottawa, Canada, 7 - 9 August 2003.
Mostly used as mines for detail and narrative colour,
and to give voice to ordinary immigrants, more
recently emigrant letters have been subjected to
new forms of analysis. They are probed to explore
comparatively across cultures, to provide evidence of
linguistic evolution and usage, to investigate the
development and meaning of communications, and examine
questions of class, gender, and modernization. They
are being explored at present by historians, literary
and linguistic scholars, sociologists,
anthropologists.

This international, interdisciplinary conference aims
to draw together scholars who can bring new
perspectives to the study of this valuable
material. We welcome proposals from scholars of
various disciplinary backgrounds with especially
innovative approaches to the use of these
documents. We impose no topical, temporal, or
geographic limitations, recognizing that much of the
most theoretically useful work is being done
outside Canada.

In addition to proposals for 20-minute papers,
participation is invited for panel discussions on the
editing of emigrant letters, and for a panel
on the digitization of such letters for electronic and
web access. The Carleton University Art Gallery will
be mounting an exhibition of letters and books on
letters to complement the conference. The conference
is hosted by the Carleton Centre for the History of
Migration. A single page proposal, and a biographical
paragraph, are requested by 31 December 2002,
preferably by email.

Emigrant Letters Conference, Department of History,
Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa,
Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6. E-mail:
Bruce_Elliott[at]carleton.ca
Fax (613) 520-2819

From Patrick O'Sullivan

For information...

LEADING BELGIAN LITERARY MAGAZINE LAUNCHES
IRISH POETRY ISSUE

De Brakke Hond, one of Belgium?s leading literary magazines, will launch a
special Irish poetry issue of the magazine in Dublin later this month. The
issue aims to introduce Belgian readers to both established and emerging
Irish poets, and features work by 36 English and Irish languages poets, with
Dutch translations.

The issue includes work by Dennis O?Driscoll, Vona Groarke, Pat Boran, Harry
Clifton, Aifric Mac Aodha, Moya Cannon, Sinead Morrissey, Sara Berkeley,
Bill Tinley, Gerry Murphy, Tony Curtis, Mary O?Malley, Katie Donovan,
Siobhan Campbell and Joseph Woods, among others. It is edited and introduced
by poet Nessa O?Mahony.

The publication will be launched at 6pm on Friday 25th October at the Irish
Writers Centre, Parnell Square, Dublin 1. Some of the writers included in
the anthology will read from their work on the night.

For further details, contact Nessa O?Mahony on 00-44-1603-300237 /
00-44-7729 474809 or by email on nessa[at]indigo.ie






__________
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http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/unsubscribe.php?dublinwriters+p.osull
ivan[at]bradford.ac.uk
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From Patrick O'Sullivan


There was a version of a new essay by writer Hilary Mantel in the Guardian
at the weekend... It begins with Baudrillard, and mentions Beckett, and
makes you wonder what else she had been reading...

P.O'S.



No passport required

Hilary Mantel could never define herself as English - a condition which she
saw as southern, male and middle-class. When she became a writer, she began
to embrace a wider world and a broader identity

Saturday October 12, 2002
The Guardian

EXTRACT BEGINS>>>
grew up in a village in the north of England, a descendant of Irish
immigrants who had come over to work in the textile mills. My mother was a
textile worker, as was her mother before her. As a small child, I grew up in
what was essentially an Irish family, surrounded by Irish people who were
old. By the time I was 10 almost all of them were dead. My consciousness of
being Irish seemed to die with them.

Where have they gone, those old people? There is a place in my head, where I
sit down with them. But in what sense could I call myself English? I was
born on the northern tip of the Peak District, a country of mountains and
moorland, of few people and many sheep. It was not the town, so was it the
country? I had seen the English countryside in picture books. There were
trees, cottages of golden stone, cottage gardens bright with flowers. This
bleak and treeless terrain where I lived was - obviously - some other place.

Very often, at our church, we sang a hymn called "Faith of our Fathers",
which celebrated the Roman Catholic martyrs of the Reformation, and included
the ambitious prediction that "Mary's prayers/ Shall bring our country back
to thee".

Even when I was quite young I used to think how comical it would be if the
police marched in and arrested us; for, whereas Protestants pray for the
reigning monarch and the status quo, we appeared to sing along in hopes of
the mass destruction of the House of Windsor.

....

In the course of writing my last novel, The Giant, O'Brien , I was led back
to Ireland. My book was based on the true story of an Irish giant, a man
called Charles Byrne, who was a little under 8ft tall: who journeyed to
London, at the end of the 18th century, to exhibit himself as a monster, and
who died there, and who was dissected by the Scottish surgeon John Hunter.

His bones are hanging up even today in a London museum: an awful symbol to
remind us of how the body of Ireland is cut apart. In the course of my
writing I felt a great sadness about the loss, for me, of the Irish
language. I was aware my mouth was empty, but I was aware also that my brain
was crammed with newly minted myth.

If you are a member of the Irish diaspora - and perhaps most of all, if you
are an American or Australian of Irish origin - you are a victim of the
Celtic revival of the late 19th and early 20th century. This movement was an
attempt of a type familiar to us in Europe, an attempt to reach back to a
mythical time and place, where the world was perfect and whole, where the
Celts were a pure race, and the Irish language was a pure language. It was a
sham, but it was seductive.


EXTRACT ENDS>>>

From Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of...

Dr Anne Anderson, FMAS, Southampton Institute,
Southampton SO14 ORF, UK.
E-mail Anne.Anderson[at]solent.ac.uk.


There is an Irish session, which looks interesting. Plus a chance to hear
Regenia Gagnier...

P.O'S.

A symposium on
Women, Gender, Class and
Victorian Cultural Philanthropy


Saturday/Sunday 16/17 November 2002

Conference Centre
Sir James Matthews Building
Southampton Institute
Southampton UK

Southampton Institute will host an international symposium on 'moral
aesthetics' or the Victorian notion that the purpose of art was to improve
or civilize people. The topics covered are wide ranging, including the Arts
and Crafts Movement, the Home Arts Movement, Settlements, individual women
artists, women as patrons and consumers, education and the influence of
Wilde and Morris. It will also examine gender roles and boundaries.

Although there are exceptions, generally speaking women did not have the
financial resources to endow art galleries, museums or libraries. Similarly
they were constrained as benefactors in terms of collection giving. What
they did have was plenty of time and many felt morally impelled to find a
vocation. Indeed for many women philanthropy was literally a life-saver, a
relief from boredom and stagnation, and offered a means of extending their
physical and social boundaries. A mission in the East End of London was
exciting, simulating and rewarding. The role of women in social work is
well documented and accounts have centred on women and child welfare,
education, housing and sanitation. This symposium seeks to address the
complex notion of 'cultural equality' or how the working classes were to be
raised to appreciate the values of the middle classes. The upper and middle
classes enjoyed what we now think of as culture, the arts. Some believed
that the poor deserved the same 'riches' or privileges as the elite. How
such notions were argued, how culture was transmitted, and issues of
inclusion and resistance are the focus of this symposium.

The keynote speaker will be Prof. Regenia Gagnier, Exeter University, well
known for her work on Oscar Wilde, Aestheticism and Commodity Culture and
Individuality.

Other speakers include Dr Maggie Andrews, Prof Edward Bird, Jan Carder, Jim
Chesire, Elizabeth Crawford, Dr Meaghan Clarke, Fiona Darling-Glinski,
Richard Frith, Janet Floyd, Tony Garland, Heather Haskins, Prof Janice
Helland, Sara Lenaghan, Dr Ruth Livesey, Dr Diana Maltz, Joseph McBrinn,
Morna O_Neill, Elaine Cheasley Paterson, Dr Talia Schaffer, Hilary
Underwood, Jaya Venkatraman, Kim Wahl, and Shelagh Wilson.

Registration fee £70 or £60 for students and members of the WHN.

This includes tea, coffee and lunch. The symposium dinner is extra.
Accommodation is not included. For further details contact Dr Anne
Anderson, FMAS, Southampton Institute,
Southampton SO14 ORF, UK.
E-mail Anne.Anderson[at]solent.ac.uk.
Web-site www.solent.ac.uk/artandlife for a registration form.



Programme

Saturday 16th November

9.15 Welcome and introduction

from Anne Anderson



9.30-11.00 Earlier Traditions

Edward Bird

To Train or to Educate: The role of the schools of Art and Design in the
education of the industrial workforce during the nineteenth century.

Jim Cheshire

Women as patrons and producers of ecclesiastical art 1850-1870
Talia Schaffer
From Mending to William Morris: Women's Work in Margaret Oliphant's Phoebe
Junior.



11. 00-11.30 Coffee

11. 30- 1.00 The Home Arts Movement

Shelagh Wilson

The Origins and Intentions of the Home Arts and Industries Association
Hilary Underwood

'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it': oral evidence and Mary
Watts' Compton enterprises.

Elaine Cheasley Paterson

Homemade Industry: Mary Seton Watts and the Compton Potters' Art Guild.



1.00-2.00 Lunch



2.00-3.3.0 Rural Life

Anne Anderson

Lady Lovelace and Rural Regeneration

Janice Helland

Stitching Identity and Selling 'Irishness' in late nineteenth-century
embroidery.

Joseph McBrinn

Reviving Peasant Arts and Industries in the north of Ireland, 1894-1914:
Sophia Rosamond Praeger and the forgotten workshops of the Irish Decorative
Arts Association and the Irish Peasant Home Industries

3.30-4.00 Tea

4.00 - 5.30 London

Heather V. Haskins

Help or Hindrance? Cultural Philanthropy for Women from the Arts & Crafts
Exhibition Society

Morna O'Neill

"'Everyday Heroic Deeds': Walter Crane at the Red Cross Hall"

Diana Maltz

Aestheticism in the Slums: University Settlement and the Case of the Toynbee
Travellers Club.



6.00-7.00 Key Note : Regenia Gagnier



Followed by drinks and the conference dinner (dinner not included in the
registration fee)





SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 1



9.30-11.00 The Female Touch

Elizabeth Crawford

'Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, House Decorators, Cabinet Makers, and Designers of
all the Details of Household Furniture and Upholstery, No 2 Gower Street
(corner of Bedford Square), London, W.C.'

Fiona Darling-Glinski
The Privilege of Patronage: Mary Thornycroft and the Sculptural Aesthetic
Kim Wahl

Artistic Play or Sartorial Delimitation? The Changing Rhetoric of Health
and Beauty in 'at-home' British Tea Gowns.

11.00-11.15 Coffee

11.15-12.45- Into the new century

Janet Floyd

Florence White: from country crafts to domestic service

Maggie Andrews
Not just Jam and Jerusalem - The WI as a rural battleground over definitions
of 'craft' in the inter-war period
Jan Carder
Dream of an Independent Life: Painted Fabrics Ltd



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier

1.30-2.30 Lunch



SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 2

9.30-11.00 Social Missions

Meaghan Clarke
'East End Missions': The Art of Improvement in the Press 1880-1900

Ruth Livesey

Art for the People or the People as Artists? Aesthetics, Subjectivity and
Socialist Thought

Richard Frith

'The Worship of Courage': Moral Aesthetics and Aesthetic Morality in William
Morris's Sigurd the Volsung


11.00-11.15 Coffee



11.15-12.45 Wildean Influences

Tony Garland

Breaking the Gender Didactic: The Femme Fatale in English Decadence

Jaya L. Venkatraman

The Artist as Critic as Teacher: Wildean Eye-Openers
Sara Lenaghan
Art and the Aesthete: The feminizing influence of art in the fiction of
James and Wilde



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier



1.30-2.30 Lunch





















-----Original Message-----
From: A Anderson [mailto:A[at]anderson80694385.fsnet.co.uk]
Sent: 15 October 2002 14:33
To: pot[at]leicester.ac.uk
Subject: Conference


Would you please post this info. Thanks.

A symposium on

Women, Gender, Class and

Victorian Cultural Philanthropy



Saturday/Sunday 16/17 November 2002

Conference Centre
Sir James Matthews Building
Southampton Institute
Southampton UK
Southampton Institute will host an international symposium on 'moral
aesthetics' or the Victorian notion that the purpose of art was to improve
or civilize man. The topics covered are wide ranging, including the Arts
and Crafts Movement, the Home Arts Movement, Settlements, individual women
artists, women as patrons and consumers, education and the influence of
Wilde and Morris. It will also examine gender roles and boundaries.



Although there are exceptions, generally speaking women did not have the
financial resources to endow art galleries, museums or libraries. Similarly
they were constrained as benefactors in terms of collection giving. What
they did have was plenty of time and many felt morally impelled to find a
vocation. Indeed for many women philanthropy was literally a life-saver, a
relief from boredom and stagnation, and offered a means of extending their
physical and social boundaries. A mission in the East End of London was
exciting, simulating and rewarding. The role of women in social work is
well documented and accounts have centred on women and child welfare,
education, housing and sanitation. This symposium seeks to address the
complex notion of 'cultural equality' or how the working classes were to be
raised to appreciate the values of the middle classes. The upper and middle
classes enjoyed what we now think of as culture, the arts. Some believed
that the poor deserved the same 'riches' or privileges as the elite. How
such notions were argued , how culture was transmitted, and issues of
inclusion and resistance are the focus of this symposium.



The keynote speaker will be Prof. Regenia Gagnier, Exeter University, well
known for her work on Oscar Wilde, Aestheticism and Commodity Culture and
Individuality.



Other speakers include Dr Maggie Andrews, Prof Edward Bird, Jan Carder, Jim
Chesire, Elizabeth Crawford, Dr Meaghan Clarke, Fiona Darling-Glinski,
Richard Frith, Janet Floyd, Tony Garland, Heather Haskins, Prof Janice
Helland, Sara Lenaghan, Dr Ruth Livesey, Dr Diana Maltz, Joseph McBrinn,
Morna O_Neill, Elaine Cheasley Paterson, Dr Talia Schaffer, Hilary
Underwood, Jaya Venkatraman, Kim Wahl, and Shelagh Wilson.

Registration fee £70 or £60 for students and members of the WHN.

This includes tea, coffee and lunch. The symposium dinner is extra.
Accommodation is not included. For further details contact Dr Anne
Anderson, FMAS, Southampton Institute,

Southampton SO14 ORF, UK. E-mail Anne.Anderson[at]solent.ac.uk. Web-site
www.solent.ac.uk/artandlife for a registration form.



Programme

Saturday 16th November

9.15 Welcome and introduction

from Anne Anderson



9.30-11.00 Earlier Traditions

Edward Bird

To Train or to Educate: The role of the schools of Art and Design in the
education of the industrial workforce during the nineteenth century.

Jim Cheshire

Women as patrons and producers of ecclesiastical art 1850-1870
Talia Schaffer
From Mending to William Morris: Women's Work in Margaret Oliphant's Phoebe
Junior.



11. 00-11.30 Coffee

11. 30- 1.00 The Home Arts Movement

Shelagh Wilson

The Origins and Intentions of the Home Arts and Industries Association
Hilary Underwood

'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it': oral evidence and Mary
Watts's Compton enterprises.

Elaine Cheasley Paterson

Homemade Industry: Mary Seton Watts and the Compton Potters' Art Guild.



1.00-2.00 Lunch



2.00-3.3.0 Rural Life

Anne Anderson

Lady Lovelace and Rural Regeneration

Janice Helland

Stitching Identity and Selling 'Irishness' in late nineteenth-century
embroidery.

Joseph McBrinn

Reviving Peasant Arts and Industries in the north of Ireland, 1894-1914:
Sophia Rosamond Praeger and the forgotten workshops of the Irish Decorative
Arts Association and the Irish Peasant Home Industries

3.30-4.00 Tea

4.00 - 5.30 London

Heather V. Haskins

Help or Hindrance? Cultural Philanthropy for Women from the Arts & Crafts
Exhibition Society

Morna O'Neill

"'Everyday Heroic Deeds': Walter Crane at the Red Cross Hall"

Diana Maltz

Aestheticism in the Slums: University Settlement and the Case of the Toynbee
Travellers Club.



6.00-7.00 Key Note : Regenia Gagnier



Followed by drinks and the conference dinner (dinner not included in the
registration fee)





SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 1



9.30-11.00 The Female Touch

Elizabeth Crawford

'Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, House Decorators, Cabinet Makers, and Designers of
all the Details of Household Furniture and Upholstery, No 2 Gower Street
(corner of Bedford Square), London, W.C.'

Fiona Darling-Glinski
The Privilege of Patronage: Mary Thornycroft and the Sculptural Aesthetic
Kim Wahl

Artistic Play or Sartorial Delimitation? The Changing Rhetoric of Health
and Beauty in 'at-home' British Tea Gowns.

11.00-11.15 Coffee

11.15-12.45- Into the new century

Janet Floyd

Florence White: from country crafts to domestic service

Maggie Andrews
Not just Jam and Jerusalem - The WI as a rural battleground over definitions
of 'craft' in the inter-war period
Jan Carder
Dream of an Independent Life: Painted Fabrics Ltd



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier

1.30-2.30 Lunch



SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 2

9.30-11.00 Social Missions

Meaghan Clarke
'East End Missions': The Art of Improvement in the Press 1880-1900

Ruth Livesey

Art for the People or the People as Artists? Aesthetics, Subjectivity and
Socialist Thought

Richard Frith

'The Worship of Courage': Moral Aesthetics and Aesthetic Morality in William
Morris's Sigurd the Volsung


11.00-11.15 Coffee



11.15-12.45 Wildean Influences

Tony Garland

Breaking the Gender Didactic: The Femme Fatale in English Decadence

Jaya L. Venkatraman

The Artist as Critic as Teacher: Wildean Eye-Openers
Sara Lenaghan
Art and the Aesthete: The feminizing influence of art in the fiction of
James and Wilde



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier



1.30-2.30 Lunch





















-----Original Message-----
From: A Anderson [mailto:A[at]anderson80694385.fsnet.co.uk]
Sent: 15 October 2002 14:33
To: pot[at]leicester.ac.uk
Subject: Conference


Would you please post this info. Thanks.

A symposium on

Women, Gender, Class and

Victorian Cultural Philanthropy



Saturday/Sunday 16/17 November 2002

Conference Centre
Sir James Matthews Building
Southampton Institute
Southampton UK
Southampton Institute will host an international symposium on 'moral
aesthetics' or the Victorian notion that the purpose of art was to improve
or civilize man. The topics covered are wide ranging, including the Arts
and Crafts Movement, the Home Arts Movement, Settlements, individual women
artists, women as patrons and consumers, education and the influence of
Wilde and Morris. It will also examine gender roles and boundaries.



Although there are exceptions, generally speaking women did not have the
financial resources to endow art galleries, museums or libraries. Similarly
they were constrained as benefactors in terms of collection giving. What
they did have was plenty of time and many felt morally impelled to find a
vocation. Indeed for many women philanthropy was literally a life-saver, a
relief from boredom and stagnation, and offered a means of extending their
physical and social boundaries. A mission in the East End of London was
exciting, simulating and rewarding. The role of women in social work is
well documented and accounts have centred on women and child welfare,
education, housing and sanitation. This symposium seeks to address the
complex notion of 'cultural equality' or how the working classes were to be
raised to appreciate the values of the middle classes. The upper and middle
classes enjoyed what we now think of as culture, the arts. Some believed
that the poor deserved the same 'riches' or privileges as the elite. How
such notions were argued , how culture was transmitted, and issues of
inclusion and resistance are the focus of this symposium.



The keynote speaker will be Prof. Regenia Gagnier, Exeter University, well
known for her work on Oscar Wilde, Aestheticism and Commodity Culture and
Individuality.



Other speakers include Dr Maggie Andrews, Prof Edward Bird, Jan Carder, Jim
Chesire, Elizabeth Crawford, Dr Meaghan Clarke, Fiona Darling-Glinski,
Richard Frith, Janet Floyd, Tony Garland, Heather Haskins, Prof Janice
Helland, Sara Lenaghan, Dr Ruth Livesey, Dr Diana Maltz, Joseph McBrinn,
Morna O_Neill, Elaine Cheasley Paterson, Dr Talia Schaffer, Hilary
Underwood, Jaya Venkatraman, Kim Wahl, and Shelagh Wilson.

Registration fee £70 or £60 for students and members of the WHN.

This includes tea, coffee and lunch. The symposium dinner is extra.
Accommodation is not included. For further details contact Dr Anne
Anderson, FMAS, Southampton Institute,

Southampton SO14 ORF, UK. E-mail Anne.Anderson[at]solent.ac.uk. Web-site
www.solent.ac.uk/artandlife for a registration form.



Programme

Saturday 16th November

9.15 Welcome and introduction

from Anne Anderson



9.30-11.00 Earlier Traditions

Edward Bird

To Train or to Educate: The role of the schools of Art and Design in the
education of the industrial workforce during the nineteenth century.

Jim Cheshire

Women as patrons and producers of ecclesiastical art 1850-1870
Talia Schaffer
From Mending to William Morris: Women's Work in Margaret Oliphant's Phoebe
Junior.



11. 00-11.30 Coffee

11. 30- 1.00 The Home Arts Movement

Shelagh Wilson

The Origins and Intentions of the Home Arts and Industries Association
Hilary Underwood

'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it': oral evidence and Mary
Watts's Compton enterprises.

Elaine Cheasley Paterson

Homemade Industry: Mary Seton Watts and the Compton Potters' Art Guild.



1.00-2.00 Lunch



2.00-3.3.0 Rural Life

Anne Anderson

Lady Lovelace and Rural Regeneration

Janice Helland

Stitching Identity and Selling 'Irishness' in late nineteenth-century
embroidery.

Joseph McBrinn

Reviving Peasant Arts and Industries in the north of Ireland, 1894-1914:
Sophia Rosamond Praeger and the forgotten workshops of the Irish Decorative
Arts Association and the Irish Peasant Home Industries

3.30-4.00 Tea

4.00 - 5.30 London

Heather V. Haskins

Help or Hindrance? Cultural Philanthropy for Women from the Arts & Crafts
Exhibition Society

Morna O'Neill

"'Everyday Heroic Deeds': Walter Crane at the Red Cross Hall"

Diana Maltz

Aestheticism in the Slums: University Settlement and the Case of the Toynbee
Travellers Club.



6.00-7.00 Key Note : Regenia Gagnier



Followed by drinks and the conference dinner (dinner not included in the
registration fee)





SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 1



9.30-11.00 The Female Touch

Elizabeth Crawford

'Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, House Decorators, Cabinet Makers, and Designers of
all the Details of Household Furniture and Upholstery, No 2 Gower Street
(corner of Bedford Square), London, W.C.'

Fiona Darling-Glinski
The Privilege of Patronage: Mary Thornycroft and the Sculptural Aesthetic
Kim Wahl

Artistic Play or Sartorial Delimitation? The Changing Rhetoric of Health
and Beauty in 'at-home' British Tea Gowns.

11.00-11.15 Coffee

11.15-12.45- Into the new century

Janet Floyd

Florence White: from country crafts to domestic service

Maggie Andrews
Not just Jam and Jerusalem - The WI as a rural battleground over definitions
of 'craft' in the inter-war period
Jan Carder
Dream of an Independent Life: Painted Fabrics Ltd



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier

1.30-2.30 Lunch



SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 2

9.30-11.00 Social Missions

Meaghan Clarke
'East End Missions': The Art of Improvement in the Press 1880-1900

Ruth Livesey

Art for the People or the People as Artists? Aesthetics, Subjectivity and
Socialist Thought

Richard Frith

'The Worship of Courage': Moral Aesthetics and Aesthetic Morality in William
Morris's Sigurd the Volsung


11.00-11.15 Coffee



11.15-12.45 Wildean Influences

Tony Garland

Breaking the Gender Didactic: The Femme Fatale in English Decadence

Jaya L. Venkatraman

The Artist as Critic as Teacher: Wildean Eye-Openers
Sara Lenaghan
Art and the Aesthete: The feminizing influence of art in the fiction of
James and Wilde



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier



1.30-2.30 Lunch





















-----Original Message-----
From: A Anderson [mailto:A[at]anderson80694385.fsnet.co.uk]
Sent: 15 October 2002 14:33
To: pot[at]leicester.ac.uk
Subject: Conference


Would you please post this info. Thanks.

A symposium on

Women, Gender, Class and

Victorian Cultural Philanthropy



Saturday/Sunday 16/17 November 2002

Conference Centre
Sir James Matthews Building
Southampton Institute
Southampton UK
Southampton Institute will host an international symposium on 'moral
aesthetics' or the Victorian notion that the purpose of art was to improve
or civilize man. The topics covered are wide ranging, including the Arts
and Crafts Movement, the Home Arts Movement, Settlements, individual women
artists, women as patrons and consumers, education and the influence of
Wilde and Morris. It will also examine gender roles and boundaries.



Although there are exceptions, generally speaking women did not have the
financial resources to endow art galleries, museums or libraries. Similarly
they were constrained as benefactors in terms of collection giving. What
they did have was plenty of time and many felt morally impelled to find a
vocation. Indeed for many women philanthropy was literally a life-saver, a
relief from boredom and stagnation, and offered a means of extending their
physical and social boundaries. A mission in the East End of London was
exciting, simulating and rewarding. The role of women in social work is
well documented and accounts have centred on women and child welfare,
education, housing and sanitation. This symposium seeks to address the
complex notion of 'cultural equality' or how the working classes were to be
raised to appreciate the values of the middle classes. The upper and middle
classes enjoyed what we now think of as culture, the arts. Some believed
that the poor deserved the same 'riches' or privileges as the elite. How
such notions were argued , how culture was transmitted, and issues of
inclusion and resistance are the focus of this symposium.



The keynote speaker will be Prof. Regenia Gagnier, Exeter University, well
known for her work on Oscar Wilde, Aestheticism and Commodity Culture and
Individuality.



Other speakers include Dr Maggie Andrews, Prof Edward Bird, Jan Carder, Jim
Chesire, Elizabeth Crawford, Dr Meaghan Clarke, Fiona Darling-Glinski,
Richard Frith, Janet Floyd, Tony Garland, Heather Haskins, Prof Janice
Helland, Sara Lenaghan, Dr Ruth Livesey, Dr Diana Maltz, Joseph McBrinn,
Morna O_Neill, Elaine Cheasley Paterson, Dr Talia Schaffer, Hilary
Underwood, Jaya Venkatraman, Kim Wahl, and Shelagh Wilson.

Registration fee £70 or £60 for students and members of the WHN.

This includes tea, coffee and lunch. The symposium dinner is extra.
Accommodation is not included. For further details contact Dr Anne
Anderson, FMAS, Southampton Institute,

Southampton SO14 ORF, UK. E-mail Anne.Anderson[at]solent.ac.uk. Web-site
www.solent.ac.uk/artandlife for a registration form.



Programme

Saturday 16th November

9.15 Welcome and introduction

from Anne Anderson



9.30-11.00 Earlier Traditions

Edward Bird

To Train or to Educate: The role of the schools of Art and Design in the
education of the industrial workforce during the nineteenth century.

Jim Cheshire

Women as patrons and producers of ecclesiastical art 1850-1870
Talia Schaffer
From Mending to William Morris: Women's Work in Margaret Oliphant's Phoebe
Junior.



11. 00-11.30 Coffee

11. 30- 1.00 The Home Arts Movement

Shelagh Wilson

The Origins and Intentions of the Home Arts and Industries Association
Hilary Underwood

'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it': oral evidence and Mary
Watts's Compton enterprises.

Elaine Cheasley Paterson

Homemade Industry: Mary Seton Watts and the Compton Potters' Art Guild.



1.00-2.00 Lunch



2.00-3.3.0 Rural Life

Anne Anderson

Lady Lovelace and Rural Regeneration

Janice Helland

Stitching Identity and Selling 'Irishness' in late nineteenth-century
embroidery.

Joseph McBrinn

Reviving Peasant Arts and Industries in the north of Ireland, 1894-1914:
Sophia Rosamond Praeger and the forgotten workshops of the Irish Decorative
Arts Association and the Irish Peasant Home Industries

3.30-4.00 Tea

4.00 - 5.30 London

Heather V. Haskins

Help or Hindrance? Cultural Philanthropy for Women from the Arts & Crafts
Exhibition Society

Morna O'Neill

"'Everyday Heroic Deeds': Walter Crane at the Red Cross Hall"

Diana Maltz

Aestheticism in the Slums: University Settlement and the Case of the Toynbee
Travellers Club.



6.00-7.00 Key Note : Regenia Gagnier



Followed by drinks and the conference dinner (dinner not included in the
registration fee)





SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 1



9.30-11.00 The Female Touch

Elizabeth Crawford

'Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, House Decorators, Cabinet Makers, and Designers of
all the Details of Household Furniture and Upholstery, No 2 Gower Street
(corner of Bedford Square), London, W.C.'

Fiona Darling-Glinski
The Privilege of Patronage: Mary Thornycroft and the Sculptural Aesthetic
Kim Wahl

Artistic Play or Sartorial Delimitation? The Changing Rhetoric of Health
and Beauty in 'at-home' British Tea Gowns.

11.00-11.15 Coffee

11.15-12.45- Into the new century

Janet Floyd

Florence White: from country crafts to domestic service

Maggie Andrews
Not just Jam and Jerusalem - The WI as a rural battleground over definitions
of 'craft' in the inter-war period
Jan Carder
Dream of an Independent Life: Painted Fabrics Ltd



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier

1.30-2.30 Lunch



SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 2

9.30-11.00 Social Missions

Meaghan Clarke
'East End Missions': The Art of Improvement in the Press 1880-1900

Ruth Livesey

Art for the People or the People as Artists? Aesthetics, Subjectivity and
Socialist Thought

Richard Frith

'The Worship of Courage': Moral Aesthetics and Aesthetic Morality in William
Morris's Sigurd the Volsung


11.00-11.15 Coffee



11.15-12.45 Wildean Influences

Tony Garland

Breaking the Gender Didactic: The Femme Fatale in English Decadence

Jaya L. Venkatraman

The Artist as Critic as Teacher: Wildean Eye-Openers
Sara Lenaghan
Art and the Aesthete: The feminizing influence of art in the fiction of
James and Wilde



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier



1.30-2.30 Lunch





















-----Original Message-----
From: A Anderson [mailto:A[at]anderson80694385.fsnet.co.uk]
Sent: 15 October 2002 14:33
To: pot[at]leicester.ac.uk
Subject: Conference


Would you please post this info. Thanks.

A symposium on

Women, Gender, Class and

Victorian Cultural Philanthropy



Saturday/Sunday 16/17 November 2002

Conference Centre
Sir James Matthews Building
Southampton Institute
Southampton UK
Southampton Institute will host an international symposium on 'moral
aesthetics' or the Victorian notion that the purpose of art was to improve
or civilize man. The topics covered are wide ranging, including the Arts
and Crafts Movement, the Home Arts Movement, Settlements, individual women
artists, women as patrons and consumers, education and the influence of
Wilde and Morris. It will also examine gender roles and boundaries.



Although there are exceptions, generally speaking women did not have the
financial resources to endow art galleries, museums or libraries. Similarly
they were constrained as benefactors in terms of collection giving. What
they did have was plenty of time and many felt morally impelled to find a
vocation. Indeed for many women philanthropy was literally a life-saver, a
relief from boredom and stagnation, and offered a means of extending their
physical and social boundaries. A mission in the East End of London was
exciting, simulating and rewarding. The role of women in social work is
well documented and accounts have centred on women and child welfare,
education, housing and sanitation. This symposium seeks to address the
complex notion of 'cultural equality' or how the working classes were to be
raised to appreciate the values of the middle classes. The upper and middle
classes enjoyed what we now think of as culture, the arts. Some believed
that the poor deserved the same 'riches' or privileges as the elite. How
such notions were argued , how culture was transmitted, and issues of
inclusion and resistance are the focus of this symposium.



The keynote speaker will be Prof. Regenia Gagnier, Exeter University, well
known for her work on Oscar Wilde, Aestheticism and Commodity Culture and
Individuality.



Other speakers include Dr Maggie Andrews, Prof Edward Bird, Jan Carder, Jim
Chesire, Elizabeth Crawford, Dr Meaghan Clarke, Fiona Darling-Glinski,
Richard Frith, Janet Floyd, Tony Garland, Heather Haskins, Prof Janice
Helland, Sara Lenaghan, Dr Ruth Livesey, Dr Diana Maltz, Joseph McBrinn,
Morna O_Neill, Elaine Cheasley Paterson, Dr Talia Schaffer, Hilary
Underwood, Jaya Venkatraman, Kim Wahl, and Shelagh Wilson.

Registration fee £70 or £60 for students and members of the WHN.

This includes tea, coffee and lunch. The symposium dinner is extra.
Accommodation is not included. For further details contact Dr Anne
Anderson, FMAS, Southampton Institute,

Southampton SO14 ORF, UK. E-mail Anne.Anderson[at]solent.ac.uk. Web-site
www.solent.ac.uk/artandlife for a registration form.



Programme

Saturday 16th November

9.15 Welcome and introduction

from Anne Anderson



9.30-11.00 Earlier Traditions

Edward Bird

To Train or to Educate: The role of the schools of Art and Design in the
education of the industrial workforce during the nineteenth century.

Jim Cheshire

Women as patrons and producers of ecclesiastical art 1850-1870
Talia Schaffer
From Mending to William Morris: Women's Work in Margaret Oliphant's Phoebe
Junior.



11. 00-11.30 Coffee

11. 30- 1.00 The Home Arts Movement

Shelagh Wilson

The Origins and Intentions of the Home Arts and Industries Association
Hilary Underwood

'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it': oral evidence and Mary
Watts's Compton enterprises.

Elaine Cheasley Paterson

Homemade Industry: Mary Seton Watts and the Compton Potters' Art Guild.



1.00-2.00 Lunch



2.00-3.3.0 Rural Life

Anne Anderson

Lady Lovelace and Rural Regeneration

Janice Helland

Stitching Identity and Selling 'Irishness' in late nineteenth-century
embroidery.

Joseph McBrinn

Reviving Peasant Arts and Industries in the north of Ireland, 1894-1914:
Sophia Rosamond Praeger and the forgotten workshops of the Irish Decorative
Arts Association and the Irish Peasant Home Industries

3.30-4.00 Tea

4.00 - 5.30 London

Heather V. Haskins

Help or Hindrance? Cultural Philanthropy for Women from the Arts & Crafts
Exhibition Society

Morna O'Neill

"'Everyday Heroic Deeds': Walter Crane at the Red Cross Hall"

Diana Maltz

Aestheticism in the Slums: University Settlement and the Case of the Toynbee
Travellers Club.



6.00-7.00 Key Note : Regenia Gagnier



Followed by drinks and the conference dinner (dinner not included in the
registration fee)





SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 1



9.30-11.00 The Female Touch

Elizabeth Crawford

'Rhoda and Agnes Garrett, House Decorators, Cabinet Makers, and Designers of
all the Details of Household Furniture and Upholstery, No 2 Gower Street
(corner of Bedford Square), London, W.C.'

Fiona Darling-Glinski
The Privilege of Patronage: Mary Thornycroft and the Sculptural Aesthetic
Kim Wahl

Artistic Play or Sartorial Delimitation? The Changing Rhetoric of Health
and Beauty in 'at-home' British Tea Gowns.

11.00-11.15 Coffee

11.15-12.45- Into the new century

Janet Floyd

Florence White: from country crafts to domestic service

Maggie Andrews
Not just Jam and Jerusalem - The WI as a rural battleground over definitions
of 'craft' in the inter-war period
Jan Carder
Dream of an Independent Life: Painted Fabrics Ltd



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier

1.30-2.30 Lunch



SUNDAY 17th November



STRAND 2

9.30-11.00 Social Missions

Meaghan Clarke
'East End Missions': The Art of Improvement in the Press 1880-1900

Ruth Livesey

Art for the People or the People as Artists? Aesthetics, Subjectivity and
Socialist Thought

Richard Frith

'The Worship of Courage': Moral Aesthetics and Aesthetic Morality in William
Morris's Sigurd the Volsung


11.00-11.15 Coffee



11.15-12.45 Wildean Influences

Tony Garland

Breaking the Gender Didactic: The Femme Fatale in English Decadence

Jaya L. Venkatraman

The Artist as Critic as Teacher: Wildean Eye-Openers
Sara Lenaghan
Art and the Aesthete: The feminizing influence of art in the fiction of
James and Wilde



12.45- 1.30

Discussion- Framing the debate and ways forward

Chaired by Regenia Gagnier



1.30-2.30 Lunch

From Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of...

Christina Hunt Mahony
[Mahonyc[at]cua.edu]
Acting Director, The Center for Irish Studies
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC 20064
Tel. (202) 319-5488 Fax:(202) 319-4188

Plase distribute...

P.O'S.

Subject: IASIL 2003 Debrecen, Hungary


Dear IASIL Members - This announcement comes from Donald Morse, who is
organising our next meeting in Hungary. There were delays, I'm afraid
my fault, in circulating this notice to you by email, but I hope that
you will all be able to join us for what sounds a stimulating
experience.

As secretary of IASIL I have only been able to gather email addresses
for about half of the membership, and some remain outdated. If you have
colleagues at your universities or in your cities, or colleagues with
whom you are in contact - will you please help to disseminate this
information. Donald has provided the conference website as well.

All the best to you all Tina Mahony



IASIL 2003
The University of Debrecen, Hungary
7-11 July

"Getting into Contact"

"Irish literature, if it is to live and grow, must get into contact on
the
one hand with its own past and on the other with the mind of
contemporary
Europe." Padraic Pearse


The International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures invites
you to attend the 2003 conference at the University of Debrecen 7-11
July.


Plenary Lectures

Plenary speakers include Anthony Roche, University College Dublin, and
former editor of the Irish University Review, Maureen Murphy, Hofstra
University, USA,
former president of IASIL, and Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, University College
Dublin, Irish folklorist and poet. All three are stimulating, provocative
lecturers who have written numerous books, essays, and reviews on Irish
subjects.
A special plenary session will also be devoted to "Celebrating John
Montague" with John Montague and Richard Cave, Royal Holloway-University
of London. Other writers have been invited.


Papers Solicited

All contributions will be welcome on any aspect of Irish literatures but
especially those that relate to the announced theme that will, in turn,
become the basis for a preliminary selection of papers to be published.
Because of the nature of the conference topic, papers will be gladly
received from a broad range of disciplines. Papers on any aspect of John
Montague's oeuvre including poetry, essays, and fiction are particularly
encouraged. Also, papers related to the Field Day Anthology of Irish
Women's Writing and Traditions to be published in late 2002 will be
specially welcome. Although papers may be of any necessary length,
reading
times will be strictly limited to 20 minutes. An official "Call for
Papers" will be sent to all IASIL members fall 2002 with a deadline for
40-50
word proposals of 15 November and for abstracts of 1 March 2003. Email
proposals and abstracts to IASIL03[at]delfin.klte.hu. Papers will only be
considered
from members in good standing of IASIL. There is a special reduced
membership fee for students.


Special Events

As part of the conference, participants will have the opportunity to
tour Debrecen and go on a half-day local excursion. In addition, there will
be a special night of Irish drama along with readings by several invited
Irish writers, including special guest, John Montague. The conference will
conclude with a festive Farewell Dinner and there will be an optional
post-conference tour.


Conference Fees and Accommodation

Conference registration fees of approximately 150 euros will include the
opening Monday evening reception, luncheons during the conference, the
local excursion, coffee breaks, book of abstracts, and program.
Accommodation will include a choice of a very inexpensive well-appointed
student hostel, quite moderately-priced hotel, or luxury air-conditioned
hotel.


Central European Attendees

Colleagues from Central Europe and environs should email the Conference
Organizing Committee at IASIL03[at]delfin.klte.hu. about local currency
conference and membership fees.


For Further Information

For more information on all aspects of the conference, program, and
venue
periodically log on to the conference web site
http://delfin.klte.hu/~iasil03/; or email to IASIL03[at]delfin.klte.hu.


The Organizing Committee

The organizing committee for IASIL03: Csilla Bertha, Donald E. Morse,
and Péter Szaffkó, University of Debrecen, Institute of English and American
Studies, 4010 Debrecen, Pf. 73, Hungary H-4010 and
IASIL03[at]delfin.klte.hu.

_______________________________________________


Christina Hunt Mahony
Acting Director, The Center for Irish Studies
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC 20064
Tel. (202) 319-5488 Fax:(202) 319-4188

From Patrick O'Sullivan

The 'Final Public Event' of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
on 'Transnational Communities' takes place
Church House, Westminster - 25th October 2002.

Contact point and further information at the web site...
http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/

There are still (free) conference places available. Email
Emma Newcombe
transcomm[at]anthro.ox.ac.uk

This ESRC funded research programme began in 1997, and - being indiscreet -
I can reveal that attendance at preliminary meetings was one of the spurs to
starting the Irish-Diaspora list. For it was clear that, for the British
academic networks, the Irish were simply not on the 'Transnational
Communities' agenda.

Yet, at the same time, veritable members of veritable transnational
communities were interested in the Irish - for, to them, it seemed that we
had some control over the manner in which we were studied.

The Irish are occasionally mentioned in the research programme's reports -
notably in Tom Cheeseman's study of 'Axial Writing'. And, over the past 5
years, I think we have changed the agenda. A bit.

P.O'S.


From the web site...

People without Frontiers: The New Global Communities

Transnational Communities Programme funded by the ESRC
Church House, Westminster - 25th October 2002

The Programme

Booking

The Venue

Many different groups and organisations have grasped the opportunities
offered by advances in transport and communications technology. Such
advances enable them to operate more efficiently and effectively in
different locations across the world. How do such groups and organisations
develop their long-distance activities, and what does enhanced global
connectivity mean for politics, economy and society? To provide data and
analyses of these trends, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
set up the national research programme on 'Transnational Communities' in
1997. By developing informative research and recommendations for strategic
thinking and policy, the programme and its nineteen constituent projects
have engaged a range of institutions, including the DTI, DfID, FCO, Home
Office, World Bank, UN Development Programme, European Commission, TUC,
International Labour Organisation, Lloyds of London, Deutsche Bank, Merrill
Lynch and BP. At the public event on 25 October 2002, key findings will be
presented and discussed with panellists from organisations such as
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, IPPR, Oxfam, TGWU, The Independent and the Foreign
Policy Centre. Representatives of Government, industry, NGOs and community
groups will comprise the audience.

Research and analysis within the ESRC Programme have focused on four themes:

ENTERPRISING EXPATRIATES
Transnational communities are the products of, and catalysts for,
contemporary economic globalisation. How do transnational corporations
manage their activities in Britain? How are world markets approached by
entrepreneurs within ethnic diasporas? How do shifts in the global labour
market affect important sectors like international shipping? Why do City of
London firms still rely upon expatriate staff in global financial centres?

CULTURAL CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
Global flows of cultural goods, practices and values impact greatly on
questions of identity. How are commodities developed and marketed across
cultures? How does the consumption of foreign satellite television effect
the social integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities? To what extent
do diasporic authors mediate the experience of home-and-abroad? How are
transnational Muslim networks organised and maintained?

MAPPING MODERN MIGRATION
Issues surrounding international migration currently top British and
European policy agendas. What are the motivations, decisions and methods
used by immigrants to come to Britain? How does 'illegal' status impact on
transnational families? How do the migration experiences of men and women
differ? What role can refugees play in the development of their countries of
origin?

THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL COMMUNITIES
Planet-spanning networks pose many challenges for policy and governance. Can
citizenship accommodate multiple allegiances? Should nation-states try to
constrain the cross-border activities of social groups and non-state
organisations? What new diasporas is the West facing following the collapse
of Communism? In developing countries, can indigenous peoples, international
agencies and national governments work for mutual benefit?

From Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of...

Pascale Amiot

Subject: Etudes Irlandaises : Call for Papers


ETUDES IRLANDAISES : CALL FOR PAPERS

Etudes Irlandaises is a peer-reviewed journal publishing articles in
English and French which explore all aspects of Irish literature,
history, culture and arts from ancient times to the present. Etudes
Irlandaises publishes twice a year on a wide range of
interdisciplinary subjects including : poetry / fiction / drama /
film / music / politics / economy / social studies, etc. General
issues published in Spring alternate with special issues in Autumn -
recent topics include the Peace Process (1999) and the Irish Language
(2001). Etudes Irlandaises is aimed at scholars, postgraduate
students, institutions specializing in Irish studies as well as
people who have an informed interest in the subject. Each number has
a comprehensive section devoted to recently published material on
Ireland.

The editorial board of Etudes Irlandaises is now seeking submissions :

- - for vol. 28.1 (general issue) to be published in Spring 2003,

- - for Vol. 28.2 to be published in Fall 2003. This issue will explore
the subject : " Ireland / America in the 20th century ", addressing
it from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, such as
literature, civilisation, culture, history and the visual arts.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to :
Irish-American poetry / novels / plays
The circulation and printing of Irish literature in America
Travel writings
The representation of Ireland in American movies
Irish studies in the US academic world
Irish popular culture in the USA
International relations between Ireland and the USA

Articles in English or French should be no more than 12 pages (7000
words or 36000 signs) in length. Submissions (4 paper copies and disk
PC or Mac) must be sent by Dec. 31, 2002 (Volume 28.1) or April 30,
2003 (Volume 28.2) to :

Pr. Wesley Hutchinson
Institut Charles V
10, rue Charles V
75004 PARIS
FRANCE

For technical information regarding the journal stylesheet,
go to : http://etudes-irlandaises.septentrion.com.
For further information, please contact Dr. Bonafous-Mura :
mailto:cbmurat[at]aol.com

From Patrick O'Sullivan

My gossips tell me that Bronwen Walter, of Anglia Polytechnic University,
England, has been awarded a personal chair within her university - and she
has chosen to have it designated a Professorship in Irish Diaspora Studies.
Perhaps the first in the world?

Ir-D members will know that Bronwen Walter has recently published a book on
Irish women in the diaspora called Outsiders Inside - whiteness, place and
Irish women. She is the director of a major ESRC funded project on the
second generation Irish in Britain: The Irish2Project. And recently she
headed the team conducting the research survey for the Irish Republic's
Taskforce on Emigration.

Our congratulations and best wishes to Bronwen.

Paddy


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

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Personal Fax 0044 (0) 709 236 9050

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From Patrick O'Sullivan

My busy gossips tell me that Michael Kenneally has been chosen for the
inaugural Chair in Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia University, Canada.
He has also been appointed Director of the Centre for Canadian Irish Studies
at Concordia.

Ir-D members will perhaps know Michael best as the Editor of the Canadian
Journal of Irish Studies, whose latest issue is now in preparation.

Our best wishes to Michael in his new roles - certainly good news for
world-wide Irish Studies.

Patrick O'Sullivan


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

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Personal Fax 0044 (0) 709 236 9050

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From Patrick O'Sullivan

By what mistake were pigeons made so happy,
So plump and fat and sleek and well content,
So little with affairs of others meddling,
So little meddled with?

JAMES HENRY (1798-1876)

Christopher Ricks is rightly proud of his discovery of this neglected Irish
poet, and we can be grateful that he and Lilliput have now produced an
edition of selected poems. It almost restores your faith in poetry, that
something so good is there to be discovered...

Title: Selected Poems of James Henry
Author: Ricks, Christopher
Price: ?19.99
ISBN: 1 84351 011 1 hb
Versions: hb 215 x 136 mm / 192 pp
Publication Date: September 2002

Contact Point, plus more information...
http://www.lilliputpress.ie/

In The Guardian at the weekend, an essay, now on line: Christopher Ricks on
James Henry, neglected scholar and humanist...

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,814100,00.html

...poetry '...closer in its unyielding timbre to that of another remarkable
Irishman, Samuel Beckett, than to the Keatsian or Tennysonian
world-weariness...' Or perhaps a rather better Whitman...

I cannot recall having seen a poem by James Henry in any of the standard
anthologies. Bruce Stewart's Eirdata project does have a brief entry on
him.

P.O'S.


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

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
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Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: Peter Hart
Subject: Re: Ir-D Professor of Irish Studies, Concordia


Following on the heels of recent announcements, perhaps I should also pass
on the information that I have been appointed as the Canada Research Chair
in Irish Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

A separate Chair of Irish Business Studies has also just been established.

Further to this, the MUN library's Irish collection should probably be
better recognized as one of the finest in North America, thanks to a very
strong acquisition policy going back quite a few years. Beyond a very
comprehensive collection of periodicals and secondary and literary works,
our newspaper and periodical holdings are also extensive. Among national
newspapers we have the Freeman's Journal (1892-), Irish Times (1859-),
Irish Independent (1905-) and Irish Press (1931-). There are also partial
runs of many local newspapers, largely from south-eastern counties in the
18th and 19th centuries. Pamphlet and document collections include those
produced by the Catholic University of America (1750-1850), the Dublin
Castle records found in the invaluable British in Ireland series and the
complete records of Griffith's Valuation. UK parliamentary papers include
the Irish census reports and every report to parliament and by commissions.

The Maritime History Archives contains relevent shipping records and also
numerous microfilmed Irish parish records (1671-1900) as well as a vast
collection of genealogical files concerning Irish immigrants and their
descendents.

Students in history, anthropology, geography, folklore, literature,
sociology and other disciplines wishing to work on Irish subjects and
considering applications, please take note!

Peter Hart

>
>>From Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>My busy gossips tell me that Michael Kenneally has been chosen for the
>inaugural Chair in Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia University, Canada.
>He has also been appointed Director of the Centre for Canadian Irish
Studies
>at Concordia.
>
>Ir-D members will perhaps know Michael best as the Editor of the Canadian
>Journal of Irish Studies, whose latest issue is now in preparation.
>
>Our best wishes to Michael in his new roles - certainly good news for
>world-wide Irish Studies.
>
>Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>

From Patrick O'Sullivan

I must chide my gossips...

Why did this good news not fall into our nets?

Our sincere congratulations to Peter, and best wishes for the future...

Paddy


- -----Original Message-----
From: Peter Hart
Subject: Re: Ir-D Professor of Irish Studies, Concordia


Following on the heels of recent announcements, perhaps I should also pass
on the information that I have been appointed as the Canada Research Chair
in Irish Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

A separate Chair of Irish Business Studies has also just been established.

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: Re: Ir-D Book Announced, Poems of James Henry

When I was working many years ago on temperance movements in Ireland,
I came across James Henry as the author of several interesting early
anti-drink pamphlets held in the National Library and in library of
the Royal Irish Academy, notably 'An Account of the Drunken Sea'
(1840). I also bought at the Carraig Bookshop in Blackrock the
following booklet which gives a useful outline of Henry's life and
writings:

John Richmond, 'James Henry of Dublin: Physician, Versifier,
Pamphleteer, Wanderer and Classical Scholar', Published by the Author
at 8 Beaumont Gardens, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, 1976, 64 pp.

In addition to denouncing drink in his publications, Henry also
attacked workhouses, police forces, Daniel O'Connell, greedy doctors
- - he was himself a doctor - income tax, the hypocrisy of Christianity
and foreign wars - especially in Afghanistan!!

Elizabeth Malcolm
Melbourne



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 Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of
Susan Schreibman
ss423[at]umail.umd.edu

Subject: Irish Resources in the Humanities

Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) is pleased to
announce Irish Resources in the Humanities (IRITH) an
XML-based online gateway/finding aid.

Developed and maintained by Susan Schreibman since 1998 as a series of
static web pages, MITH recently converted the gateway into a dynamic
database which allows users to access content through general subject
headings (such as literature, history, art), or through an advanced search
interface which provides for more sophisticated search combinations. For
example, users can search by key words such as "The Famine" or "1798", or
through a combination of terms, such as 19th Century Art, or Mediaeval
History.

Suggestions for links are always welcome. IRITH can be found at
http://irith.org

From Patrick O'Sullivan

This book review appeared on H-Atlantic - and will be of interest.

The reviewer calls attention to an oddity in the title - the concept of
'citizenship' is very weak in the United Kingdom, and under a monarchy
peopler are 'subjects'...

P.O'S.



To: H-ATLANTIC[at]H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: Games on Vigne and Littleton, eds., _From Strangers to
Citizens_


H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Atlantic[at]h-net.msu.edu (October 2002)

Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton, eds. _From Strangers to Citizens:
The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial
America, 1550-1750_. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2001. 1246 pp.
Index. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 1-902210-85-9; $35.00 (paper), ISBN
1-902210-86-7.

Reviewed for H-Atlantic by Alison Games, Department of History, Georgetown
University

Ethnicity and Assimilation in Britain and the Atlantic World

This collection contains a remarkable fifty-seven essays on the subject of
immigrant communities in the British Atlantic world. The essays were
first given at a conference in 2001, and here have been published with
varying degrees of revision. There is a great range in the quality of the
essays. Some contain new research, some pose new paradigms, some offer
broad overviews, and some of the weaker essays are based entirely on
secondary research. But anyone interested in questions about migration,
ethnicity, identity, Protestantism, and assimilation will find something
of interest in this vast collection.

The fifty-seven essays are divided into nine sections. Eight examine the
experiences of "strangers," as foreigners were called, in Britain and
Ireland. These strangers were almost exclusively from the European
continent, although one section looks at the experiences of Jews, Muslims,
Africans, and Orthodox Christians in England and Ireland. It is
especially refreshing to see the inclusion of Ireland in this volume and
to find the experiences of Huguenot and Jewish communities set alongside
more familiar experiences in England. Only one section (on non-British
settlers in the British colonies of North America) has an explicitly
Atlantic focus and it will likely be of particular interest to readers of
this list.

These papers were delivered at a conference which marked the 450th
anniversary of the charter granted by Edward VI in 1550 which permitted
foreign Protestants in England to worship independently in their own
churches, according to their own practices, and apart from the authority
of the Church of England. The conference provided a forum in which
scholars examined the experiences of these immigrants in the 200 years
following this charter, "specifically regarding integration into their
host societies in Britain, Ireland and the north American colonies" (p.
1). Thus the essays particularly engage the histories of Protestants from
the European continent. The theme of the Protestant international is
prominently featured throughout, with a consequent emphasis on the
networks Protestants established. The emphasis on integration and
assimilation (symbolized in a celebratory foreward by the Prince of Wales)
explains the problematic and misleading title, _From Strangers to
Citizens_. While foreigners were generally called strangers, most did not
become citizens. Indeed, the terminology is anachronistic: inhabitants of
the kingdom were (and are) subjects, with citizenship a particular
privilege used to describe the rights of men who dwelled in particular
cities. There were two legal statuses available to newcomers: denization
and naturalization. Naturalization was the closest we might come to
modern definitions of citizenship, as it removed most legal and economic
encumbrances from strangers. But it was a rare occurrence, one most
eagerly sought by merchants seeking trading privileges, and one requiring
an act of parliament or, in the colonies, an act by a colonial assembly.
Most of the people profiled in these essays were denizens and thus
occupied a status distinct from the full legal privileges enjoyed by other
subjects.

Although many of the essays tend to highlight important religious figures
and well-placed merchants (occasionally to the detriment of giving us a
sense of the broader population of migrants), there are two noticeable
exceptions to this trend. First, several essays explore the experiences
of artisan communities and of foreign communities in provincial towns.
Essays by Nigel Goose on the Dutch in Colchester and by Laura Hunt
Yungblut on foreigners in Norwich and Colchester, for example, introduce
us to the entirety of the stranger population and to the variety of
archival sources available for delineating their experiences. Similarly,
essays by Alison Olson on Huguenots, Palatines, and Salzburgers and by
William O'Reilly on German-speaking migrants and the Naturalization Act of
1709 demonstrate a refreshing conceptual and geographic breadth. O'Reilly
includes the colonies as well as Ireland and Britain in his essay, and he
demonstrates the utility of these comparisons. Second, the essays on the
American colonies consistently engage a much broader population than the
top-heavy focus of so many of the essays on England and Ireland. The
essays by Joyce Goodfriend (on the Dutch in seventeenth-century New York
City) and by Bertrand van Ruymbeke (on the Huguenots) are particularly
admirable. Goodfriend, for example, explores the intertwined relationship
between demographic and institutional dominance by the Dutch and English
in New York, and offers an interesting parallel to Goose's discussion of
assimilation by the Dutch in Colchester. Van Ruymbeke uses the Huguenots
as a way to engage larger issues about ethnicity and assimilation. His
essay, moreover, illustrates one of the great strengths of the essays on
colonial America: they consistently connect the experiences of the
populations they study in America with their backgrounds in Europe. They
also point to the ethnic complexity and fluidity of colonial life and to
the porousness of colonial boundaries. April Lee Hatfield's essay on
Dutch inhabitants in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake, for example,
provides a refreshing reminder of the presence of stranger communities in
those settlements more typically defined by their English (and later
African) populations.

Overall, the collection would have been stronger with a more visible
editorial presence. Many of the individual essays required a heavier
editorial hand. Several present historical events in the present tense
(perhaps a remnant of oral presentations), and one essay by Michelle
Magdelaine starts in English before it shifts without explanation into
French. This is a particularly interesting essay on an unrealized scheme
to resettle Huguenots in Ireland, and it is a shame that it might be
overlooked by some readers who are bewildered or excluded by the language
shift. Above all, a more elaborate introduction which endeavored to
connect the different sections of the volume, to highlight common themes,
or to make explicit the linkages only implicit in the different essays
would have been valuable. Readers are left to find for themselves the
connections among the fifty-seven essays.

These complaints do not detract from the overall richness of the volume.
One great strength of these essays, a reflection of their considerable
variety, is the way in which they call attention to the range of sources
available to historians who are interested in analyzing the experiences of
migrants. Here we see church records, poor relief accounts, plays, and
autobiographical and confessional narratives employed with great
dexterity. Nineteen of the essays are biographical but they introduce us
to a wide range of figures--a court upholsterer, an artist, many religious
writers and leaders. Those who persevere to the end of the volume will be
rewarded by Carolyn Lougee Chappell's fascinating essay, "What's in a
name? self-identification of Huguenot refugiees in 18th-century England."
Frustrated by the emphasis in Huguenot escape narratives on the
experiences of the most privileged and male contingent of the exodus,
Chappell takes advantage of a customary divergence between English and
French marriage conventions to uncover as best she can the ways in which
Huguenot refugees assimilated to English practices. French women did not
take the name of their husbands on marriage: instead, lineage trumped the
nuclear family, and women maintained their birth name. In England, by
custom although not by law, women in the same period took their husband's
name. Chappell examined marriage records and wills to look for patterns of
naming over the course of the eighteenth century and thereby to assess
assimilation by Huguenots to English norms. It is an imaginative approach
to an important question, and, like the volume it anchors, it suggests new
ways to consider fundamental issues of assimilation, ethnicity, and
identity in the Atlantic world.

Copyright 2002 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 Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of

Maura Cronin
History Dept. Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.
Email:
maura.cronin[at]mic.ul.ie

- -----Original Message-----
Subject: Conf. Popular Cultures in Ireland


ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF IRELAND
Conference on Popular Cultures in Ireland, 8-9 November 2002. Mary
Immaculate College, University of Limerick, South Circular Road, Limerick

8 NOVEMBER PANELl 1 HIDDEN CULTURES

Denise Richardson (University of Ulster) 'Women in 19th cent. Irish tinsmith
families
Sean O'Connell (University of Ulster) 'Up the joyriders ! Popular culture,
masculinity and anti-social activity in Belfast since 1930'.
Richard McMahon (University College Dublin) 'Homicide, the courts and
popular culture in Ireland, 1800-50'.

CONNELL LECTURE: Professor Gary Owens (University of Ontario), 'A Brief but
Desperate Deed of Blood: Popular Culture and the Carrickshock Incident
1831'.

9 NOVEMBER PANEL 2 LITERATURE, POPULAR CULTURE AND IDENTITY
Tom Clyde, 'Popular political culture and the new Irish state: the Bulmer
Hobson Generation'.
Peter Martin (Trinity College Dublin), 'Censorship and Irish Popular Culture
1922-39'.
Diarmuid Scully (Cork), 'Gerald of Wales and the Irish: the creation pf a
popular ethnic stereotype'.

PANEL 3: RELIGION, BELIEF AND POPULAR CULTURE
Sile de Cleir (Limerick) 'The Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart: religious
publishing and popular culture in early 20th cent. Ireland'.
Andrew Holmes (Queen's Belfast), 'Ulster Presbyterianism and the religious
dimension of popular culture 1770-1840'.
Gillian Smith (Cork), 'Ordnance Survey debates about popular culture
1828-1842'.

PANEL 4 THE STATE AND POPULAR CULTURE
Mike Cronin (De Montfort, Leicester), 'Selling Irish Culture in the 1950s:
An Tostal'.
Gillian McIntosh, 'Art & Industry: the Northern Ireland Government and the
shaping of popular taste in the inter-war years'.
John Paul McCarthy, 'The depiction of Irish popular culture in de Valera's
rhetoric 1932-60'.

PANEL 5 SOCIABILITY AND POPULAR CULTURE
Conor McCabe (Maynooth), 'Irish trade unionism and popular culture 1917-23'.
Petri Mirala (Helsinki), 'An Eighteenth Century Masonic Lodge: Education
and Entertainment'.
Tom Hayes (Limerick), 'The open course: sports clubs in late 19th cent.
Limerick'.

PANEL 6 POPULAR CULTURE IN A DIVIDED SOCIETY
Fintan Vallely (University of Ulster), 'The Ulster-Scots quest for music as
identity'.
Neal Garnham (University of Ulster), 'Cricket in Victorian amd Edwardian
Ireland'.
Guy Beiner (Trinity College Dublin), 'Unpopular cultures in Ireland:
controversies over memories of The Turnout'.

Registration details and full conference programme can be obtained from Dr
Maura Cronin, History Dept. Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Email:
maura.cronin[at]mic.ul.ie

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: The Irish in New Zealand

I've just attended a very interesting conference on the Irish and the
Scots in Australia and New Zealand held at the Stout Research Centre,
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. There were around 35
papers from historians based in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland,
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Canada. Plans are afoot to publish
some of these.

At the conference a book of papers was launched from a previous
conference on the Irish in New Zealand, held in 2000. Below are the
details:

Brad Patterson (ed.)
'The Irish in New Zealand: Historical Contexts and Perspectives'
Wellington: Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria
University of Wellington, 2002
ISBN 0-473-08968-8

Contents:

1. Patrick O'Farrell, 'On Being New Zealand Irish'
2. Terry Hearn, 'The Origins of New Zealand's Irish Settlers, 1840-1945'
3. Angela McCarthy, '"How different it is from home": Comparisons
between New Zealand and Ireland as Reflected in Personal Letters'
4. Edmund Bohan, '"A recollection of the unfortunate failings of my
own countrymen": the Irish in New Zealand Politics, 1860-80'
5. Sean Brosnahan, 'Parties or Politics?: Wellington's IRA, 1922-8'
6. Rory Sweetman, '"How to behave among Protestants": Varieties of
Irish Catholic Leadership in Colonial New Zealand'
7. Hugh Laracy, 'Patrick Hennebery in Australasia, 1877-82'
8. Alasdair Galbraith, 'A Forgotten Plantation: the Irish in
Pukekohe, 1865-1900'
9. Cathy O'Shea-Miles, 'Irishtown Hamilton East, 1864-1940'
10. Kevin Molloy, 'Victorians, Historians and Irish History: a
Reading of the "New Zealand Tablet", 1873-1903'
11. Vincent O'Sullivan, '"My people came out...": John Mulgan in
Northern Ireland, 1940-2'
12. Donald Harman Akenson, 'What did New Zealand do to Scotland and
Ireland?'

Elizabeth Malcolm

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 Patrick O'Sullivan

This review appeared on the H-Albion list...

P.O'S.

- -----Original Message-----
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Albion[at]h-net.msu.edu (October, 2002)

Joseph Coohill. _Ireland: A Short History_. Oxford: OneWorld
Publications, 2000. xiv + 242 pp. Map, bibliography, and index. $15.95
(paper), ISBN 1-85168-238-4.

Reviewed for H-Albion, by Jeremy Black, Department of History, University
of Exeter

This is a history that very much addresses present concerns. In a nine
chapter book, one chapter, 33 pages, is all that is devoted to the period
down to 1800. This is helpful in that it ensures that more recent history
is well covered, but it is also unhelpful. It is unhelpful, first,
because of the inherent interest of earlier Irish history; secondly,
because of the significance of recent work on many aspects of this
history, for example the sixteenth century; and, thirdly, because, from a
present-minded perspective, developments then helped both to frame modern
Ireland and to influence its public myth, especially in a country in which
memory plays a potent role. Thus, the nature of English conquest, the
impact of the Reformation, and the consequences of the "Glorious
Revolution" all play a major role in modern Irish consciousness, both
north and south of the border.

A second concern stems from the insular character of much of the book.
This is a history that makes scant attempt to compare and contrast with
the history of other countries in Europe, nor to consider, in this
context, such points as the nature of composite monarchies, the character
of acculturation, the Reformation, the experience of economic change,
emigration, nationalism, and modernization. This, more generally, is a
problem with not only much writing on British history but also with the
recovery of perspectives within a "four nations history" that tends to
treat the Channel as if it was the Pacific.

What is impressive is Coohill's determined engagement with historiography,
in interesting sections termed "Interpretations." He points out that
there are divisions within the particular schools of thought, and that
generational differences in opinion should not be exaggerated. As
historiography constantly changes, there is, however, a danger that this
book will rapidly date. That would be a pity as Coohill is more
successful than most in being fair to both the Nationalist and the
Unionist tradition. He emphasizes the depth of Unionist feeling and their
severe opposition to a united Ireland, and thus presents Unionism as
clearly separate from the purposes of British politics and government. The
extent to which the "Troubles" led to a process of modernization in the
Republic would repay further consideration.

Coohill emphasizes how conceptions of Irishness have changed a great deal
over the centuries, and stresses how history has played a major role in
framing debate within public culture. That raises interesting questions
about the relationship between history, memory, and politics. The
depoliticized concept of history that many English historians endorse
appears to be more precarious in Ireland.

Copyright 2002 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 Patrick O'Sullivan

I have pasted in below the text of the latest and the last Newsletter from
the Irish 2 Project.

Summaries and contact information are given in the Newsletter. Note that a
series of workshops is planned to present and discuss the findings.

Our congratulations and thanks to Bronwen Walter, Project Director, and to
Mary J. Hickman, Joseph Bradley, and Sarah Morgan.

We should note in passing Sarah Morgan's new role as Senior Research Officer
in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Congratulations and best wishes
to Sarah.

Patrick O'Sullivan



September 2002
_____________________________________________________________________
ESRC-funded: The second-generation Irish: a hidden population in
multi-ethnic Britain. £ 172,000 over two years.

This is the final newsletter for the Project. The research is now complete
and analysis of the findings well underway. We submitted the End-of-Award
Report to the ESRC at the end of July. Dissemination of the findings has
been delayed by the participation of the team in the Irish Government
Department of Foreign Affairs? Task Force on Policy concerning Emigrants,
which required intensive input between March and August 2002 (see below).

The newsletter provides an update on the final stages of the Project and an
initial discussion of the results. Although some publications are already
completed, the wealth of data generated and the complexity of the issues
raised means that results will be forthcoming over the next few years.
Notification will be via the Project website.


Website

This can be found at www.anglia.ac.uk/geography/progress/irish2/. The
website is regularly updated and includes information on findings,
methodology, newsletters, publications and team details. We welcome
responses from visitors to the site.


Final stages of data collection

In total 13 discussion groups were held in the five chosen locations
London, Glasgow, Manchester, Coventry and Banbury. Later additions include a
group of people of Protestant background in Glasgow and a group with one
wholly non-Irish parent in London.

These were followed by 116 in-depth individual interviews lasting between
one and a half and three hours. Each interviewee also completed a Family
Tree, providing details of the birthplace, present geographical location,
religious background, education, occupation, ethnic/national identification,
and health of their parents, siblings and children (and grandparents in the
case of respondents in Scotland).

Sampling was by quota to include a gender balance, backgrounds in both the
Republic and Northern Ireland, a reflection of the social class, religious
and one/two Irish-born parent composition of the population, ?mixed heritage
? people and both high and low ?Irish identifiers?. Volunteers responded to
newspaper articles, local radio bulletins, ethnic presses, leaflets,
posters, snowballing and personal contact.


Summary of findings from the project

Portrait of the population

The Family Trees and interviews illuminated meagre existing statistical data
about this population. We found that although three-quarters of the
second-generation Irish have only one Irish-born parent, for a substantial
number the second parent is of Irish descent, especially in places of
longstanding Irish settlement such as Strathclyde and Manchester. But
out-marriage with members of other migrant groups was greater than the
British average, due to shared social and geographical locations.

Although many remained close to their birthplace, there had been a
geographical redistribution in both the childhoods and young adulthoods of
the respondents, particularly away from London. This confirms the
statistical finding from the General Household Survey that the South East
region had 49% of the Irish-born but only 38% of second-generation Irish
people.

Statistics from the ONS Longitudinal Study suggest that upward mobility has
been greater than average especially amongst those with two Irish-born
parents. Early indications a detailed study of cross-generational social
mobility are that upward movement from manual occupations in their fathers?
generation to lower professional status (closer to their mothers? status as
nurses and teachers) has been a marked pattern in the sample.


Identities

Whiteness and difference in England

The research challenges pathological conceptualisations of second
generations as being ?between two cultures?. We found that the
second-generation Irish identities lie at the intersection of two hegemonic
national domains, each of which represents their Irish identifications as
inauthentic. England/Britain cannot countenance any dilution of whiteness or
weakening of the hegemonic national subject and thus insists on their
Englishness, and Ireland rejects these ?hybrids? as not-Irish and in fact
English. Our data show that there are a range of claims made by
second-generation Irish people, from being English to being Irish, but many
articulated allegiances to both domains.

In contrast to ?visible? minority groups where difference persists ?on sight
?, those wishing to express the Irish dimension to their identity(ies) have
to stake a claim to differentiation because internal difference at the level
of cultural belongingness is not accepted.

The analysis demonstrates that multi-culturalism is not reducible to skin
colour and should therefore inform developing strategies for achieving a
multi-cultural or multi-ethnic society. In particular it highlights the
necessity of thinking about and promoting practices of social inclusion
beyond the workplace as there are many silenced subordinations.

Religion and Irishness in Scotland

In contrast to England, a distinctive multi-generational Irish community has
been produced in Scotland for several reasons. The significance and
experiences of religion, religious education, sectarianism and the historic
role played by Celtic Football Club in the construction and celebration of
Irish identity in Scottish society, are factors that often distinguish this
multi-generational community in the west-central belt of Scotland.

In contrast to much of England, this community has resided and reproduced in
various villages, towns and parts of Glasgow over several generations.
Added to an historic hostility towards Catholicism in Scotland, this has
produced a geographical reading and interpretation of the Irish in Scotland
where Catholic identity predominates over Irish and is the most frequently
and familiar label used to describe members of this community.

This has consequences in how the Irish perceive and describe themselves as
well as to how they are perceived and described by indigenous Scots.
Community history and experience are less fragmented and high rates of
inter-marriage, although less significant now than in the recent past, have
been recorded.

Our findings show a complex relationship between emerging senses of
Scottishness and Irishness, with strong pressures for the latter to be
downplayed. The media promotes Scottishness as religiously neutral and the
preferred national and cultural identity inhibiting expressions of Irishness
which are commonly associated with notions of 'sectarianism'.

Moreover in an increasingly secular society, the religious dimensions of
Irishness alluded to by most of the interviewees is a further problem
experienced by Catholics. Although many respondents described themselves as
Irish half claimed a Scottish identity, although one often permeated by a
sense of
Irishness.

Narratives of the Irish nation

The Irish are one of many groups who bring a different set of cultural
understandings to the ?diaspora space? of Britain. This knowledge is passed
to their British-born children in a variety of ways. Groups with
oppositional histories may have particular difficulty in accessing this
knowledge in the public sphere, especially when political conflicts are
unresolved, as in the case of Northern Ireland.

Material from both group discussions and individual interviews in the most
?English? location, Banbury, confirmed that Irish history had been absent
from formal educational experiences, even in Catholic schools where
second-generation Irish people comprised the majority of pupils.
Participants had made efforts to acquire a better understanding of Irish
history as adults in order to understand their own family histories and find
more satisfying explanations for the Northern Ireland conflict than those
available to them in the British media.

Policy implications

1. Census and ethnic monitoring forms

An important finding was the complexity of translating people?s senses of
identity into simple labels for monitoring purposes. Very clear choices of
all ethnic categories are needed in order to elicit responses which
correspond to the information being sought. For example a simple
categorisation of ?White? followed by a national identity such as ?British?
and ?Irish? (as used in the 2001 Census for England and Wales which will
become the benchmark for other monitoring formats) will produce an
over-identification with ?British? because it is seen as a ?fact? based on
birthplace and passport entitlement. It also excludes the small but
significant number of ?non-white? Irish people.

A better result might be achieved by replacing ?British? with ?ethnic?
categories such as ?English?, ?Scottish?, ?Welsh?.

The 2001 Census in Scotland included separate categories for ?Scottish? and
?other British? as well as ?Irish?. This gave greater choice to people of
Irish descent, although there was a more positive choice of ?Scottish? in
the Strathclyde sample than for ?British? in the English research locations.

However in Scotland an added factor was apprehension at revealing an Irish
background because it is a stigmatised identity. Where more detail is
possible, a mixed option, such as ?Irish/English? or ?Irish/Scottish? would
reflect the hybrid senses of identity expressed by a majority of the
respondents in this research.

In the light of these findings the 2001 British Census will need very
careful interpretation. It is likely seriously to underestimate the number
of people who would include ?Irish? as a major component of their identities
if they had understood that this was what was being asked.

From our discussions, very few people read the rubric for the Ethnic
Question which invited them to ?tick the appropriate box to indicate your
cultural background? unless they had been alerted to this by Irish community
groups or media. When the wording was pointed out in the discussion groups,
for example, many decided that it did describe their ethnicity, but would
have overlooked it.

2. Recognition of specificity of an Irish background for second as well as
first generation

The findings demonstrate that children raised in Irish families share
important cultural experiences with their parents, both private and public,
including religious belief systems (mainly Catholic, but with a distinctive
Protestant content for a minority), meanings of family and visits to
Ireland.

They support the arguments made by Paul Michael Garrett that attention
should be paid to the treatment of second-generation Irish children by the
social services and fostering agencies.

This recognition is also often absent from other state agencies, for example
the criminal justice system. One respondent, a magistrate in Manchester,
described the value of having a similar background to people who appeared
before her in court, contrasting her own reactions to those of the English
magistrates with whom she sat.


3. Experiences of discrimination can extend into second generation

Amongst participants in England, a number of experiences of direct
discrimination were reported, usually in schools and the workplace. People
reported abuse and ?being picked on? by teachers at school, and the need to
?keep their heads down? at times of IRA activity in Britain. At 16 a manual
worker in Leicester was given the worst jobs from Scottish Presbyterian
manager on grounds she was ?Irish Catholic?.

4. Education and cultural provision

A unanimous comment from Catholic and state schools in England was the
absence from the curriculum of reference to Irish history or culture.

Public provision was also absent in situations where other minority cultures
were recognised. For example respondents in Coventry reported that the
public library has no section and the librarian would not respond to request
to group existing materials in a more visible way.

5. Health

This is a very complex issue to which our study contributes in several ways.
We collected both quantitative and qualitative material about family members
? health status. This will allow work to be carried out on specific family
histories of illness and physical and mental health problems linked to
difficulties around managing/negotiating Irish identities in Britain.


Third Consultative Committee meeting

This was held on January 23, 2002 in a Committee Room at the House of
Commons, by invitation of Tom Clarke, MP for Coatbridge and Chrystom. It was
also attended by Jim Cunningham MP for Coventry South. Preliminary findings
from the project were reported and discussed.

Census 2001 Results

The findings from the 2001 Ethnic question are scheduled to be published in
Key Statistics tables on February 13, 2003. More detailed breakdowns, such
as small area statistics, should become available in the Summer-Autumn
period.

We shall be analysing the results in the light of the Project?s findings and
will try to ensure that advice on interpretation is widely circulated.


Task Force on Policy regarding Emigrants

The Task Force set up by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs to advise
on Government action on the issue of vulnerable migrants and intending
returnees presented its recommendations to the Foreign Minister, Brian Cowen
TD on August 28, 2002.

The Irish 2 Project team was involved in various capacities. Professor Mary
J. Hickman was a member of the Task Force. Professor Bronwen Walter
co-ordinated a Research Study which accompanied the Report, to which Dr
Sarah Morgan and Dr Joseph M. Bradley were substantial contributors. Both
the Report and the Study have been published on the Department of Foreign
Affairs website www.gov.ie/iveagh/. They are also being published in a
printed form.


Conference papers

Members of the research team continue to disseminate preliminary findings
from the Project to a variety of audiences. These include:

2001

?Cultural Spaces and Multiple Identities: City, Nation, Diaspora?, The New
face of the European City: Immigration in an Urban Perspective?, organised
by the New York Consortium for European Studies, New York University and
Columbia University (Professor M.J.Hickman)

?The Specificity of Irish Experiences in Britain?, keynote paper, Substance
Misuse and the Irish, conference organised by Hammersmith and Fulham Borough
Council (Professor M.J. Hickman)

?Ethnicity, Empire and the Multi-national State: ?locating? the Irish in
Britain?, Inaugural professorial lecture, University of North London
(Professor M.J. Hickman)

?Whiteness, hybridity and the Irish diaspora?: Paper to the Geography
Department Seminar, University of Cambridge (Dr. B.Walter)

?Gender and hybridity: second-generation Irish identities? Paper to
Migration Seminar, University of Sussex (Dr. B Walter)

2002

?Hybridity and whiteness: second-generation Irish identities in Britain?
Annual Conference of the Institute of British Geographers, Belfast, January
(Dr. B.Walter)

Presentation on the Irish in Britain to Ethnic Liaison Committee of the
London Borough of Haringey, February (Dr. S. Morgan)

?Missing hyphens; second-generation Irish-British identities in England and
Scotland? British Island Stories: History identity and nationhood (BRISHIN)
York, April (Dr. B Walter and Dr. S. Morgan)

?Bloody Sunday and the Irish Diaspora?, symposium on Bloody Sunday organised
by New York University (Professor M.J Hickman)

?Ireland: from Emigration to Immigration. Contexts, responses, Comparisons?,
public lecture, Europe-Australia Institute, Victoria University (Professor
M.J Hickman)

?Across the Black-White Dichotomy: understandings of discrimination in
British social policy?, public lecture, Europe-Australia Institute, Victoria
University (Professor M.J. Hickman)

?The Irish in London?s Diasporas?, Raphael Samuel?s London Conference, June
(Dr. S. Morgan and Dr. B Walter)

?On Identities: Britain, the USA and Australia?, public lecture,
Europe-Australia Institute, Victoria University (Professor M.J. Hickman)


Publication

WALTER B., MORGAN S., HICKMAN M.J. AND BRADLEY J.M. ?Family stories, public
silence: Irish identity construction amongst the second-generation Irish in
England? Scottish Geographical Journal Special edition on ?Transnational
networks and the production and reproduction of narratives of the nation?,
December 2002 (in press).

Further articles are in progress and their availability will be announced on
the website.



Workshops

We shall be visiting each of the five locations to present findings to
participants and other interested people over the next few months. These
meetings will be well advertised and we look forward to including your
feedback in our forthcoming publications.


New posts

Sarah Morgan is now employed as a Senior Research Officer in the Local and
Regional Government Research Unit, which is based in the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister. Her current workload includes a project on equality
and diversity in local government in England, as well as working on the
regional research programme.

Bronwen Walter has been appointed Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies at
Anglia Polytechnic University.


Notice of a Research project on Cancers

A new project on the health of multi-generation Irish populations is in
progress, and is seeking volunteers.

Raising Awareness About Cancer Prevention in the Irish Community in Britain.

The Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK are conducting an
important research study to find out why Irish people living in the UK have
higher incidence and death rates from cancers, compared with the national
average. This study will also examine whether culturally sensitive methods
of health promotion are needed to raise awareness of cancer prevention in
the Irish community.

The main aims of the research project are:
· To explore people?s knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards cancers;
· To explore people?s experiences of cancer, including attitudes towards
other people with cancer;
· To explore people?s experiences of accessing health services;
· To identify perceived gaps and barriers to accessing services; and
· To assess whether current cancer awareness initiatives for early uptake of
services need to be improved.

How can you make a difference?

We are looking to get in contact with Irish people living in London,
Manchester and Glasgow, who were born in Ireland or whose
parent(s)/grandparent(s) were born in Ireland, who are aged between 35 and
64 years, and who are willing to share their views about health, cancers and
health services in a discussion group or individual interview. We are
looking for people with no experience of cancer, as well as those who have.

Who do I contact?
For more details please telephone/text the project researcher Karen Scanlon
on: 0207-745-2645/ 0141-357-3949 or 07766 698798
Email: karen[at]msoc.mrc.gla.ac.uk
Address: MRC, Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, Suite 1, Islington
Business Centre, 3-5 Islington High Street, London N1 9LQ.





Research team

Please contact us for further information.


Dr Bronwen Walter, Project Director,
Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies,
Geography Department,
Anglia Polytechnic University,
East Road,
Cambridge CB1 1PT
Tel: 01223-363271 x2179
b.walter[at]apu.ac.uk

Professor Mary J. Hickman,
Director, Irish Studies Centre,
London Metropolitan University, North Campus,
166-220 Holloway Road,
London N7 8DB
Tel: 0207-607-2789 x2914
London N7 8DB
Tel: 0207-607-2789 x2912

Dr Joseph Bradley,
Lecturer, Department of Sports Studies,
University of Stirling,
Stirling FK9 4LA
Tel: 01786-473-171 x6493
j.m.bradley[at]stir.ac.uk

Dr Sarah Morgan,
dympna101[at]hotmail.com