Brian McGinn's Irish in South America Bibliography is now available for
the world to see at
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

We have made a new section, called 'Study Guides' - Brian's Bibliography
is, for the moment, the only item in that section. For the moment...

It is a self-reflective, self-aware Bibliography, with internal dialogue
- - on the model, perhaps, of the Shea & Casey The Irish Experience in New
York City (1995). That is, it tries to assess the usefulness and
relevance of each item, and connects relevant items with their fellows.
It still most probably needs a brief introductory essay - Brian and I
are discussing that.

Note that Brian's bibliography originally reached me as a series of
emails - and in that process it lost the usual typographic marks,
indicating book titles or journal titles, for example. Putting back in
all those marks would have been a very time-consuming and laborious
process - the Bibliography is quite clear without them. And life is
short.

Again, our thanks to Brian. And my own thanks to my elder son, Dan (14
years old, earlier this month) for help with design and coding.

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

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

I am going to post this message for a second time, because I received a
shower of error messages the first time.

Brian McGinn's Irish in South America Bibliography is now available for
the world to see at
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

We have made a new section, called 'Study Guides' - Brian's Bibliography
is, for the moment, the only item in that section. For the moment...

It is a self-reflective, self-aware Bibliography, with internal dialogue
- - on the model, perhaps, of the Shea & Casey The Irish Experience in New
York City (1995). That is, it tries to assess the usefulness and
relevance of each item, and connects relevant items with their fellows.
It still most probably needs a brief introductory essay - Brian and I
are discussing that.

Note that Brian's bibliography originally reached me as a series of
emails - and in that process it lost the usual typographic marks,
indicating book titles or journal titles, for example. Putting back in
all those marks would have been a very time-consuming and laborious
process - the Bibliography is quite clear without them. And life is
short.

Again, our thanks to Brian. And my own thanks to my elder son, Dan (14
years old, earlier this month) for help with design and coding.

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

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

From Patrick O'Sullivan

Brian McGinn has brought some further Irish in Spanish Civil War items
to my attention.

I quote...

'Riordan's Connolly Column and Stradling's "Franco's Irish Volunteers"
you already know. Also see Maurice Manning's The Blueshirts (Dublin,
1971) and J. Bower Bell's "Ireland and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939"
from Studia Hibernica, Vol. 9 (1969), 137-163.

'Something else: not a single one of these four works appears in the
bibliography of Bartlett & Jeffery, A Military History of Ireland. (This
volume also ignores South America, save for two brief mentions, and
therefore does not appear on my Irish in South America bibliography).

'Here's another one, in Irish: Eoghan O Duinnin, La Nina Bonita agus an
Roisin Dubh (An Clochomas, 1986). Reviewed by David Barnwell in ILS,
Fall 1987, p. 13.'

Thank you, Brian.

I've just looked at David Barnwell's review of the book. 'Written in
language that is simple, conversational and direct, it is accessible to
many whose Irish is less than perfect.' And he reminds us that the
first member of the International Brigade to die in defence of Madrid
was Tomas O Paitin, a native speaker of Irish, from Achill, Co. Mayo.
Where, I believe, there is a little memorial.

P.O'S.

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

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

From Patrick O'Sullivan

I am told that Donal O'Kelly's play about John Boyle O'Reilly and the
Catalpa rescue is coming in May to the Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn,
London.

A friend who saw the play in Dublin describes it as 'mesmerising...'
'one of the best things I have seen on the stage in Dublin...'

Perhaps we will hear more from London.

Incidentally, I have recently heard John Boyle O'Reilly's death
described as 'suicide'. O'Connell, Imagining Boston, says 'perhaps a
suicide...' Other material I have seen describe the death as an
accidental overdose. What is the received wisdom in Boston on this?

P.O'S.

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

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

From: eolas1[at]juno.com


Dear Paddy,

My computer has been misbehaving and for unknown reasons, the email started working
again. I was in the middle of a message to you, trying to respond about "peasant."

Here goes. I don't know when the term was first introduced. I met it in
Carleton's "A Pilgrimage to Patrick's Purgatory", THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER,
Vol VI Jan-June, 1828, p.268. It was supposed to be written by Carleton,
but some of it bears Otway's stamp: "A man must be brought up among the
Irish peasantry..." Then on to TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH
PEASANTRY; eventually Carleton was the "Great Peasant"

I used the term in my doctoral dissertation and for several years, but a
light went on with more reading of Irish history. By 1994 at the
Carleton Bicentennial; it was never used, and it won't be mentioned in
his bio.

What was the exact title of the book which Chris Morash concluded with Carleton?

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

From: Patrick Maume
Subject: Re: Ir-D The New Island


From: Patrick Maume
Another usage - perhaps derived from
Lady Gregory. In the 1890s Yeats sent
several articles on Irish current
affairs and literature to the BOSTON
PILOT and these were called LETTERS TO
THE NEW ISLAND (published in book form
under that title in the 1930s and
reprinted 5-10 years ago).
I think the term "an t-Oilean Ur"
(the new/Fresh Island) was a genuine
contemporary term for America - I think
you'd find it in the Blasket
autobiographies. By the way, I believe
there are more people of Blasket descent
in a particular town in Massachusetts
than in Ireland.

Patrick Maume

From Patrick O'Sullivan


Eileen,

The book was
Christopher Morash
Writing the Irish Famine
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995
ISBN 0 19 818279 1

I saw the book before publication - Chris sent me an untidy photocopy.
I was impressed, but (I'm afraid) did not read it all that carefully at
that time. Because I was then trying to put together the last volume of
The Irish World Wide, on The Meaning of the Famine.

For which Chris wrote a chapter. Based on his book. So that the
chapter remains a good introduction to the methods of the book.

I have now had the opportunity to give Morash, Writing the Irish Famine,
a very careful read - I have been asked to review it for the Canadian
Journal of Irish Studies. And I am writing up my notes.

The book applies the resources and methods of the newer literary
criticism to a genuine problem within Irish historiography and the study
of Irish literature - the strange patterns, underlying assumptions,
underlying theologies ('progress', 'national sin'), within writing about
the Irish Famine. It is a hard litcrit read - but the literature people
to whom I have shown the volume here are very excited by it.

In the book a very fine scholar brings his abilities to bear on 'minor
literature' - and he gives generous acknowledgement to Lloyd,
Nationalism and Minor Literature, 1987.

In sum...
when Barthes talks about an intertextual archive which is 'anonymous,
untraceable, and nevertheless already read' (p. 5 of Writing the Irish
Famine)...
when Greenblatt acknowledges 'the desire to speak with the dead' (p.
7)...
when Ricoeur speaks of 'the interweaving of history and fiction' (p.
12)...
when Foucault talks about 'the great confinement' (p. 65)...
when Benjamin talks about 'even the dead' not being safe (p. 153)...
when Jonathan Culler quotes George Eliot on 'the present causes of past
effects' (p. 166)...
when Benjamin talks about remembrance salvaging the future from
'homogenous, empty time' (p. 180)...
when de Man on Epitaphs suggests that by 'making the dead speak... the
living are struck dumb' (p. 182)...
when Todorov talks about genres being 'revelatory' of ideology (p.
185)...
when Lyotard speaks of an aesthetic 'which denies itself the solace of
good forms' (p. 186)
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
...they might well have been talking about 'writing the Irish Famine'.

The book's last full chapter, just before a short 'Conclusion: Claiming
the Dead', is Chapter 7, 'William Carleton and the End of Writing'. And
I find it interesting that the book should end with Carleton, and -
because of what has gone before and through the book's methods - an
interesting and careful reading of Carleton: 'the troubled space
occupied by Carleton's writing in nineteenth century Ireland...' (p.
155). So, Chris Morash is able to explore Carleton and the idea of
progress, Carleton and 'authentic' Country Life, ownership of the
peasantry 'endowed by the Famine with an almost talismanic importance'
(p. 157) - and explain the narrative collapse that is The Squanders of
Castle Squander.

The 'Conclusion' begins (p. 180)... 'William Carleton's "Far Gurtha" can
stand as an icon for the whole body of nineteenth-century Famine
literature, the haunting projection of the absent Famine dead...' And
near the end, says (p. 187) 'Castle Squander can be read as an
unwitting, unwilling postmodern text, beyond the comfort of formal
closure in its struggle to present the unpresentable...'

Patrick O'Sullivan


In message , irish-
diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk writes
>
>From: eolas1[at]juno.com
>
>
>Dear Paddy,
>
>My computer has been misbehaving and for unknown reasons, the email started
>working
>again. I was in the middle of a message to you, trying to respond about
>"peasant."
>
>Here goes. I don't know when the term was first introduced. I met it in
>Carleton's "A Pilgrimage to Patrick's Purgatory", THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER,
>Vol VI Jan-June, 1828, p.268. It was supposed to be written by Carleton,
>but some of it bears Otway's stamp: "A man must be brought up among the
>Irish peasantry..." Then on to TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH
>PEASANTRY; eventually Carleton was the "Great Peasant"
>
>I used the term in my doctoral dissertation and for several years, but a
>light went on with more reading of Irish history. By 1994 at the
>Carleton Bicentennial; it was never used, and it won't be mentioned in
>his bio.
>
>What was the exact title of the book which Chris Morash concluded with Carleton?
>
>Eileen A. Sullivan Tel # (352) 332 3690
>6412 NW 128th Street E-Mail : eolas1[at]juno.com
>Gainesville, FL 32653

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

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

From: Peter Holloran


There is a new biography of John Boyle O'Reilly, Fanatic Heart by E. G.
Evans (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999, paperback) that has
some errors and problems but, I find, a good read on the whole. The
author has no firm evidence about his death, it may or may not have been
a suicide. Jphn Boyle O'Reilly was an important figure, it is time he
gets some scholarly attention, IMHO.

Peter Holloran
New England Historical Association

From Patrick O'Sullivan


An Ir-D list member at the University of Middlesex, London, England, has
set things up so that Ir-D list messages are automatically re-directed
to another email address.

And has then disabled email at that new email address.

I am sick,

sick,

sick

of dealing with the flood of error messages that this generates. Every
message must be searched through, just in case there is a real problem
that needs attention.

Unfortunately the error messages do not give us enough information to
identify the culprit, and delete that email address from the Ir-D list.

Would Ir-D list members at the University of Middlesex who want to go on
being members of the Ir-D list please email me, directly, personally, at
Patrick O'Sullivan

Then, by a process of elimination, we can identify the email address to
be deleted.

The alternative is simply to delete ALL University of Middlesex email
addresses from the Ir-D list - which seems a bit hard.

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

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

From: MacEinri
Organization: Irish Centre for Migration Studies


I've been following the discussion on "the New Island" with interest and
consulted one of my colleagues in the Irish Department here. Two of the
most-used Irish-English dictionaries published in the early years of the
century, Dineen and Mac Cionnaith, do indeed translate "An tOilean Ur" as
America. Dineen's dictionary is largely based on Munster usage and Mac
Cionnaith specifies that the term is used in Munster and Connacht dialects.
I have it heard used in Kerry (as well as the commoner Meiricea). Curiously,
the word "ur" means "fresh" in Munster and Connacht but "new" in Donegal,
but I am not sure if the usage referred to here was current in Ulster.

I think Patrick Maume is right and that it is used in A t-Oileanach/The
Islandman although the term used by Peig Sayers is Meiricea. Very many
Blasket Islanders emigrated to Springfield Massachusetts and Hartford
Connecticut - there is a superb RTE documentary, mainly filmed in Hartford,
about their lives.

Piaras Mac Einri

Piaras Mac inr, Director/Stirthir
Irish Centre for Migration Studies/Ionad na hImirce
National University of Ireland, Cork
Fax 353 21 903326 Phone 353 21 902889 http://www.ucc.ie/icms

From: Patrick Maume

From: Patrick Maume
Speaking of the term "peasantry", there
is a scene in Seumas O'Kelly's novel WET
CLAY (c.1917) when the central character
(an Irish-American who has come back to
live in Ireland) disconcerts his Irish
relatives by informing them that they
are 'peasants' - a term which they had
never previously thought to apply to
themselves.
Some Irish Ireland writers like
Daniel Corkery used the term 'peasant'
for Irish farmers - in Corkery's case I
suspect because he thought it conveyed a
sense of rootedness and because he was
interested in applying Continental
literary models (such as Turgenev's
HUNTER'S SKETCHES, which are said to owe
something to Maria Edgeworth) to the
Irish situation. (Of course Corkery
himself was town-based.)
Best wishes,
Patrick.

Patrick Maume

From: KP Corrigan


Dear All,

I too have been following the comment on "an tOilen Ur" and can confirm
that it remains current in Donegal, where "ur" does, indeed, mean 'new'
rather than 'fresh' as Piaras suggests and where the best translation for
the idiom is 'The New World'. A more recent dictionary (O Donaill
(1977)/2nd ed.(1992)) continues to cite the expression which, I guess,
'officially' confirms its currency throughout.

Best, Karen.



>From: MacEinri
>Organization: Irish Centre for Migration Studies
>
>
>I've been following the discussion on "the New Island" with interest and
>consulted one of my colleagues in the Irish Department here. Two of the
>most-used Irish-English dictionaries published in the early years of the
>century, Dineen and Mac Cionnaith, do indeed translate "An tOilean Ur" as
>America. Dineen's dictionary is largely based on Munster usage and Mac
>Cionnaith specifies that the term is used in Munster and Connacht dialects.
>I have it heard used in Kerry (as well as the commoner Meiricea). Curiously,
>the word "ur" means "fresh" in Munster and Connacht but "new" in Donegal,
>but I am not sure if the usage referred to here was current in Ulster.
>
>I think Patrick Maume is right and that it is used in A t-Oileanach/The
>Islandman although the term used by Peig Sayers is Meiricea. Very many
>Blasket Islanders emigrated to Springfield Massachusetts and Hartford
>Connecticut - there is a superb RTE documentary, mainly filmed in Hartford,
>about their lives.
>
>Piaras Mac Einri
>
>Piaras Mac inr, Director/Stirthir
>Irish Centre for Migration Studies/Ionad na hImirce
>National University of Ireland, Cork
>Fax 353 21 903326 Phone 353 21 902889 http://www.ucc.ie/icms


******************************************************************************
Dr. Karen P. Corrigan,
Department of English Literary and Linguistic Studies,
Percy Building,
University of Newcastle,
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne,
NE1 7RU
Telephone: 0191 222 7757
Fax: 0191 222 8708
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~ncrl1/

From: "Ruth-Ann M. Harris"

John Boyle O'Reilly


The received information regarding John Boyle O'Reilly's death was that it
was an accidental overdose whilst treating his asthma. He was not a well
man -- a letter I have of his suggests that he may also have suffered from
depression. Ruth-Ann Harris

Ruth-Ann M. Harris, Adjunct Prof of History and Irish Studies, Boston College

From: Peter Holloran


Paddy,

Would you please post this call for papers - below - to the Ir-D list.

The NEHA conferences often have Irish studies topics on the program. The
NEHA is a regional affiliate of the American Historical Association with
papers by scholars on a wide variety of topics, not limited to US
history.

Thank you,

Peter Holloran
NEHA Secretary/Newsletter Editor

>
> The New England Historical Association (NEHA) Fall conference meets in
> Boston at Suffolk University on October 16, 1999. Proposed papers or
> panels on any historical topic, time or place may be submitted (one page
> abstract & brief CV) by July 1 to the program chair:
>
> Joanne Schneider
> Rhode Island College
> History Department
> Providence, RI 02908
> phone:401-456-9727
> fax: 401-456-8379
> email: joanne_schneider[at]hotmail.com or
> see the NEHA web site:
>
> http://www.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/NEHA
>

[Gil Hardwick and I have been discussing the Irish Diaspora, and the special
perspectives his home, his work and his areas of interest bring. The view
from Margaret River, perhaps...

With Gil Hardwick's permission, I am going to share the following with the
Irish-Diaspora list.

P.O'S.]


From: Gil Hardwick

We know John Boyle O'Reilly down this way. He escaped from Australia only
about an hour's drive from here; come 3rd March every year the locals get
together for their commemoration of the event as part of the build-up to St
Patrick's Day, and the consumption of more Guinness on the one day than is
consumed during the entire year, by otherwise sane men who tell me once they
have recovered that they don't even like the stuff.

Most people haven't a clue who John Boyle O'Reilly was, much less anything
about him worth the telling, but go along to celebrate being Irish!

Yet it is the Poor John Fields of this world we all know. They are the reason
so many of us have fallen out with our academic colleagues, and work out here
in our communities. Too bloody-minded and temperamental, they say, too bloody
Irish, to "fit in".

For our part however, the worst that happened was bare-foot Presbyterian and
Catholic kids throwing gibbers at one another on the way to school each
morning, before marrying once they'd got sufficiently past adolescence to be
respectable, and then going off to fight at Gallipoli or some such place. Then
the next stoush, then Korea and Vietnam, leaving their widows and children all
along the way.

Even in recent times, I had a lot of kids running away from home and turning
up on my doorstep, until I put my foot down finally and made an issue of the
problem. In this town anyway.

It would be very much more valuable to us for our intelligentsia to be
studying the prevalence of asthma, hyperactivity, attention deficit and
nervous disorder, mental illness, alcoholism, social dysfunction and family
breakdown among the diaspora. On the other hand, powerlessness and religious
fundamentalism might also be addressed.

I am saying that from this perspective the question of Ireland is not for
us a political issue, but a fundamental health and social issue. Apart from
the fact that my thesis is historical, I see no reason for either Irish or
Irish Diaspora Studies to be so at all.

Gil


============================
Gil Hardwick
Consulting Anthropologist
PO Box 1009, MARGARET RIVER
WA 6285 Australia
intnl: +61 8 9757 9124
gruagach[at]highway1.com.au

I will post on to the Irish-Diaspora list two Announcements from

Bob Reece
Director,
Centre for Irish Studies
Bob Reece

about the 11th Irish Australian Conference to be held in Perth/Fremantle
in the last week of April, 26-29, next year 2000.

The Irish Australian Conference is a biennial event, usually held in
Australia but sometimes in Ireland.

Bob Reece also tells us that he and Philip Bull of LaTrobe University
are in the process of establishing a permanent organising body, perhaps
on the model of ACIS, CAIS or BAIS.

We wish them luck, and obviously we will do all we can to help. And,
yes, I have suggested that the new organisation have some reference to
Irish Diaspora Studies in its title.

P,O'S.


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

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

THE 11th IRISH AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE

Murdoch University/University of Notre Dame

26-29 April 2000

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 11th Irish-Australian Conference is jointly hosted by Murdoch
University, the University of Notre Dame and the Australian-Irish
Heritage Association


The Conference marks the two hundredth anniversary of the Act of Union
and its significance for Irish history from 1800 until the Good Friday
Agreement. It also marks the success in Australia of the Federation
movement in which the Irish played an important part. Papers are
welcomed on these and any other themes in Irish Studies and the Ireland-
Australia connection, such as:

The Irish and the Empire

The Irish and the Aborigines
Australian Literature - the Irish Connection
The Celtic Revival in Australia
The Catholic Church and Education in Ireland and Australia
Memorialising the 'Scattering'
The Irish and Sport in Australia

The 'Celtic Tiger'
Ireland and the EC

Irish Writing
Irish Film and Media
Irish Music
Irish Theatre
Irish Genealogy

The deadline for paper proposals is 30 June 1999
The deadline for abstracts is 30 September 1999

Please send all proposals for papers and inquiries to:

Ian Chambers
Executive Officer
Centre for Irish Studies
School of Social Inquiry
Murdoch University
Murdoch WA 6150

Tel (08) 9360 2366
Fax (08) 9360 6480

email: chambers[at]central.murdoch.edu.au

Check our Website for later information:
http:/wwwsoc.murdoch.edu/au/cfis/



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

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

11th Irish-Australian Conference - Story so Far...


THE 11th IRISH AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE

Murdoch University/University of Notre Dame

26-29 April 2000

The 11th Irish-Australian Conference is jointly hosted by Murdoch
University, the University of Notre Dame and the Australian-Irish
Heritage Association


Keynote Addresses:


Gearoid O Tuachaigh (National University of Ireland, Galway)
'The Act of Union in Perspective' ((Oliver MacDonagh Lecture)

Patrick Dodson
'The Aborigines and the Irish' (confirmed)

Veronica Brady
'Celtic Spiritualism and the Irish in Australia' (confirmed)

Sean Doran (Director, Festival of Perth)
'The Second Irish Renaissance' (confirmed)

Siobhan McHugh, 'Filming Irish Australia' (Mary Durack Lecture)

Tom Keneally
'Writing the Irish in Australia' (to be confirmed)


Papers:

The Act of Union:

Ruan O Donnell (University of Limerick)
'The Security Imperative and the Act of Union' (to be confirmed)

Professor Tom Bartlett (University College, Dublin)
Paper on the Act of Uinion (to be confirmed)

Irish Language:

Liam O Cuineagain (Oideas Gael)
Paper to be confirmed

Irish Literature:

Frances Devlin Glass ((Deakin University)
'"Visceral Music": Shifting Perspectives on Ulster Violence in the
Novels of Bernard MacLaverty' (confirmed)

Professor Maurice Harmon
Paper on Samuel Beckett (to be confirmed)

Irish Education:

Dr Deirdre Raftery (Trinity College)
Paper on the history of education (to be confirmed)

The Irish and the Empire:

Professor Jim Griffin
'The Irish on the Papua New Guinea Frontier' (to be confirmed)

The Irish in Australia:

Ann Herraman (Flinders University), 'Irish Immigrants in the Mount
Barker region, 1836-1886' (confirmed)

Patricia Clarke
'Rosa Praed's Irish Connections' (confirmed)

Gil Hardwick (Murdoch University)
'The Hidden Irish of Western Australia's Lower South-West' (confirmed)

Danny Cusack (Murdoch University)
'The Paradox of Paddy Lynch' (confirmed)

Patricia Halligan (Murdoch University)
'The Brideships of 1854' (to be confirmed)

Pat Jacobs
'The Irish in Dampier Land' (confirmed)

Ray Blessing
Paper on recent Irish immigration (to be confirmed)

Kevin Todd
Paper to be confirmed

Eugene McKenna (Murdoch University)
'Ultramontanism and the Catholic Education System in Western Australia'
(confirmed)

Jennifer Harrison (University of Queensland)
'The fourth R: reading, writing, 'rithmetic and religion. Irish teachers
in National schools - Queensland in the 1860's' (confirmed)
- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/

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

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-LatAm[at]h-net.msu.edu (April, 1999)

Donald Harman Akenson. _If the Irish Ran the World; Montserrat,
1630-1730_. London and Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press,
1997. xi + 273 pp. Notes, maps, appendices, bibliography, and
index. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-7735-1630-1; $22.95 (paper), ISBN
0-7735-1686-7.

Reviewed for H-LatAm by Bruce Taylor
, University of Dayton

_If the Irish Ran the World_ is a delightful collection of stories
and one-liners about the Irish in Montserrat. While Akenson does
not tell us enough to make a judgement about what kind of world the
Irish would have made if given the chance, or even what kind of
slave society they actually made in the Caribbean, by the time one
finishes the book, the reader has forgotten the title anyway.

Akenson is up to his usual impish self as he punches holes in
arguments, digs up little known data, and applies a relentless
intelligence to his on-going inquiry into the nature and effects of
the Irish diaspora. And, like the Irish he writes about, his story
telling is always a delight, if perhaps not always germane to the
discussion.

His thesis suggests that despite the fact that the Irish experienced
English imperial oppression, when given the chance, they behaved no
better as slave holders than their English neighbors. "Do unto
others as they have done unto you!"

He begins with a nod to his Canadian lecture audience by noting the
Irish presence in Ontario as a lead in to the case of Montserrat.
Irish was the dominant ethnic group in early British Canada and
contributed to an ethos which marked that province even today, "...
a civilized, gentle place, the kind of world that the Irish might
have created, the earth around, had they had a bit more power" (p.
5). That is about the last kind word about the Irish as civilizers
in the pages that follow. Montserrat was not Canada.

Montserrat is one of the small Leeward Islands tucked nicely into
formation along with the other members of the Leeward and Windward
archipelago stretching in an arc from Puerto Rico to Venezuela. It
was named by Columbus after a monastic town in Spain that the Romans
had called Mount Serrat, and which, like Montserrat, featured a
serrated landscape.

Akenson then discuses his sources which, for his inquiry, seem
abundant enough. He relies much on census data, compilations of
law, and legislative acts. Although he has apparently not visited
UK's Public Record Office archives in Kew, where colonial office
correspondence is housed, he has obtained other sources which
contain materials in enough quantity to support his findings. He
also has a good selection of secondary sources to inform his study,
although one should point out an error in the bibliography: Bryan
Edwards is listed as "Bryan, Edward."

Chapter Two is entitled "Ireland's Neo-Feudal Empire 1630-1650."
The reference is to a royal patent given to the Earl of Carlisle in
the 1630s which entitled him to control all affairs in Montserrat
including the holding of all land. It is probably best to label
this form of colonial activity feudal remnant since the spirit was
commercial and not military, and the pattern of landholding made it
more manorial, at least initially. European settlement began in the
early 1630s with the arrival of the Irish from a variety of venues.
Survivors from the Amazon, rejects from Virginia, migrants from St.
Christopher and maybe Nevis, and colonists recruited by an Irish
entrepreneur (with Italian ancestry) formed the first wave of
settlers. A long aside on the history of this Irish/Italian family
is the first of a series of well-told stories that enliven the
narrative.

An analysis of the arriving Irish reveals a complex pattern of
immigration. Included are representatives of the original Celtic
inhabitants of Ireland; Norman invaders who became Catholic and
culturally Irish; later English invaders who often displaced the
Irish as well as the Norman families that controlled them; and
finally the Scots-Irish.

Akenson then discusses various tensions in the island's developing
society. Catholics could only worship in private and were only
intermittently served by priests visiting the island; indentured
servants chaffed at their exploited condition; former servants were
eager to find economic opportunity; and the archetypal sugar/slave
plantation began to impact the early small holding tobacco planting
regime. There were also issues of governance and taxation which,
however, effected directly only those with substantial economic
resources.

Chapter Three extends the survey from 1650 to 1680. The island
during this period began to "catch up" with the prevailing British
Caribbean and experienced the increasing influence of sugar and
slavery. Since the Irish were already here, Cromwell's victims were
often sent to Montserrat because it was presumed that the Irish
leadership there knew how to handle them. Institutional change
included the decline of the old patent model in favor of a crown
appointed governor, land granted in fee simple, and the emergence of
the usual pattern of governance including an appointed council and
elected assembly. One notable event marked Montserrat as unique.
In 1667, a band of French raiders along with Carib allies invaded
the island. Not only did a significant number of Irish support the
French, but they also rose in rebellion even after the French left.
Order was not restored until early in 1668. Reprisals followed.

Chapter Four, "Capitalism at a Gallop," describes the further
development of a slave economy complete with the usual social result
of white emigration. But Akenson does not see a cause and effect
pattern. He sees the Irish making rational decisions to maximize
their opportunities elsewhere and not being driven out by slave
labor. But they did begin to suffer religious discrimination from
the Anglican English. When the island was in the first stages of
development, religious differences did not matter. Nor did they
feel pressure under the restored Stuarts in the 1660s. But
following the 1688 "Glorious Revolution," which saw the Protestant
William on the Throne, the catholic issue could no longer be
ignored. Despite being denied participation in government by the
penal laws, the Irish managed to occupy first place in the ownership
of sugar plantations. And these elite were just as alarmed at
support offered to the Jacobite cause by less wealthy Irish.

Chapter Five provides a brief look at the history of Montserrat
after 1730. The economy trended downward through the century
followed by increasing pressure from abolitionists to end the slave
trade and then slavery. In the early nineteenth century, both
catholic emancipation and slave emancipation arrived together!
Catholic relief from civil restrictions became practical as the
number of white males on the island dropped below the point where it
made any sense to exclude them from political or administrative
activity. Following emancipation of the slaves, Montserrat
continued to suffer a decline in its fortunes and the whites on the
island "took to the boats." Akenson then sums up the whole story of
the Irish on Montserrat: "... they came; they used; they discarded;
and they levanted" (p. 170).

Chapter Six is a nice concluding chapter on the need for identity
creation by people in this part of the world whose lives have been
disrupted and roots so lost that they desperately need to construct
traditions useful for self worth. Historical investigation, in
which we try to find out what really happened is always at odds,
Akenson reminds us, with our self-serving version of that past.

Akenson takes some delight in blazing away at accepted historical
interpretations in a field where he is not a recognized authority.
He charges "analytic" historians with failure to notice the impact
of particular personalities on the shaping of events (pp. 58-59);
attacks such notables as Hilery Beckles, Jill Shephard, and Eric
Williams on their assumption that Barbadian history of indentured
servitude can be generalized to include the other Caribbean islands
and that the distinction between white indentured servants and black
slavery should be widened. "White indentured servitude was so very
different from black slavery as to be from another galaxy of human
experience" (p. 49). He attacks Williams again for his
generalization that whites grew tobacco and blacks worked sugar and
Shepherd again for her allegedly incorrect account of the origin of
"redlegs" as a term to describe white servants in Barbados (pp.
50-51). He chides historians who claim or assume that West Indian
land was held in fee simple in the early days of colonization and
reminds them that the lands either were worked by servants or
tenants and that the land owner was, in reality, only using the land
under the terms of the controlling patent issued by the crown (pp.
76-78).

While the work is informative and entertaining, it is not about how
the Irish mistreated African slaves. Akenson is most concerned, and
understandably so, with the Irish diaspora, its arrival in
Montserrat, and how Irish faired afterwards. The Irish are detailed
in their various positions on the social pyramid of the island.
They are governors, entrepreneurs, estate owners, tenants, and
servants. They were exploiters and exploited, catholic and
protestant, loyal and rebellious, immigrants and emigrants. He
dutifully reminds his readers of his thesis from time to time, but
does not provide much systematic data on the treatment of slaves by
the Irish other than to note that it was harsh. He does not
contribute to our understanding of the various kinds of "treatment"
in play in any slave regime. Categories of analysis such as work
loads, living conditions, social relationships, opportunities for
cultural expression, methods of escaping the system, legal status,
economic opportunities, educational/skill levels, are not
systematically employed in the discussion. One tantalizing reference
to the "Black Irish" of northern Montserrat is not pursued, nor is
there much information about the lives of racially mixed people or
free people of color.

Nor does Akenson make a good case for the Irish being a repressed
people under the British system. Indenture, although often
experienced as arbitrary and cruel, was not marked by long periods
of service. Former servants were free to sell their labor, lease or
sharecrop land, and, eventually, even acquire land in fee simple.
They had left Ireland of their own free will and could leave
Montserrat to seek better opportunities. On that score, they were
aware of the range of wage rates and conditions so that a rational
choice was possible. Their experience as Catholics within an
Anglican system did not seem to weigh that heavily. The lower class
Irish who participated in the 1667 rebellion did so, according to
Akenson, from economic frustration and nationalistic feeling, as
well as anti-Catholic prejudice. The more wealthy Irish, moreover,
did not participate. Akenson tells us that the Irish on Barbados
had a more significant cause for rebellion than did those on
Montserrat!

Akenson makes much of the fact that the Irish continued to hold
slaves up until the time of emancipation in 1834. But it should
come as no surprise since the system was up and running in the
Caribbean when the Irish arrived and there would be no reason to
oppose it in the formative years of Montserrat's shift form tobacco
to sugar in the late 17th century. Neither Anglicans nor Catholics,
moreover, voiced much concern about the fate of the slaves.

What we are left with is a not very surprising psychological
observation that oppressed people often are quite able to victimize
others when given the chance. Yet, it would seem that the Irish
were not treated badly enough to test out that generalization, and,
furthermore, there is not enough data to indicate in what ways and
to what degree the treatment of their slaves was harsh anyway.

What if the Irish ran the world? No clue, but Akenson's narrative
is an enjoyable and informative account of their sojourn in the
Caribbean.

Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work
may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit
is given to the author and the list. For other permission,
please contact H-Net[at]H-Net.MSU.EDU.

[I thought that the following book review might be of interest, in the
light of earlier discussions on the Ir-D list. P.O'S.]


IN THEIR OWN WORDS - THE FAMINE IN NORTH CONNACHT 1845-1849
by LIAM SWORDS
- - There is no doubt that contemporary accounts of historical events
have a way of drawing us into the atmosphere of the time, and Liam
Swords' book is an excellent example. The words are those of the
poor, the landlords, the public officials and the clergy who were
connected in any way with the Famine in North Connacht. The voices
in this immensely interesting volume tell only too clearly of the
hardship endured and of the efforts, both wholehearted and
inefficient, to relieve distress. Many of the letters quoted
concerned the Society of Friends, whose practical and unconditional
contribution to the Irish people at this time has been
well-documented. Less charitable were a number of absentee
landlords, and the name of Lord Lucan crops up frequently in this
connection, who both defaulted on their rates and evicted large
numbers of their tenants. Corruption among those given the task of
distributing aid to the hungry was not unknown, with a larger share
given to friends and relatives of the petty officials while the
friendless, often most desperately in need of help, were overlooked.
Some of these would in any case have resisted admittance to the
workhouses due to the Gregory clause, an amendment to the Poor Law
proposed by Sir William Gregory, later the husband of Lady Gregory of
the Abbey Theatre, which meant that anyone holding more than a
quarter acre of land was ineligible for admittance to the workhouse.
Since nobody willingly relinquished land, the owners of smallholdings
clung on in the hope of a better crop which never materialised, and
many perished in the process. Others would have resisted entry, or
stayed the least possible time, since the buildings were often
fever-ridden, and families were split on entry.

One recurring theme which I found surprising, though it should have
been obvious, was the need for clothing to be provided as well as
food. Apart from the normal wear and tear and the inability to
replace worn-out clothing, many people sold their better garments
early on in the Famine years in order to provide for their families.
There is one aspect of these reports which puzzles me, however. I
had understood that fishermen were unable to put to sea to supplement
their diets with fish, due to the bad state of repair of their boats.
But the book contains a number of reports of large groups of men
rowing fair distances from shore to intercept cargo ships and remove
as much of their contents as they could carry, which would seem to
suggest that their currachs were definitely seaworthy.

Although over 500 pages long, Liam Swords' book is reader-friendly in
that each letter or report has its place of origin in the margin, so
that it is easy to browse through and pick out the places with which
one is familiar; this will be especially interesting to anyone who
has any connection with North Connacht, as will the lists of the
passengers on 35 ships which left Sligo bound for New York in the
1840s and 1850s. The appendices also include lists of names,
categorised by village or townland, of people who received aid from
the Society of Friends, the members of Relief Committees, the names
of those who worked on public relief schemes, the numbers in the
various workhouses and those who received "outdoor relief"; in fact
"In Their Own Words" is a treasurehouse for anyone researching their
families in the North Connacht area.
(Columba Press , ISBN1-85607-247-9, pp508,IR30)


EXTRACT FROM...

THE IE BOOK REVIEW
_______________________________________________________________________
Editor: Pauline Ferrie April, 1999 Issue No.45
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This monthly supplement to the Irish Emigrant reviews books recently
published in Ireland, and those published overseas which have an Irish
theme. Back issues are on our WWW pages