From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Subscribers to Liam Ferrie's excellent Irish Emigrant newsletter will
know that it is an efficient way of keeping in touch with events and
discussions within Ireland.
http://www.emigrant.ie/

I was struck by an item in THE IRISH EMIGRANT - March 3, 2003 - Issue
No.839, which I would catalogue in the Unforeseen Consequences section
of my anecdotage...

'Irish-grown shamrock banned from Australia

Australia has warned that shamrock arriving from Ireland through the
mail this St Patrick's Day will be seized. An Australian Quarantine
Information Service spokesperson said "Shamrocks may be a symbol of good
luck in Ireland, but they could be a disaster for Australia", citing the
risk of foot-and-mouth disease, fungi, insect larvae - and even the fact
that wood sorrel, one form of shamrock, is "a noxious weed". President
Mary McAleese, making an official visit to Australia, will not be
presenting any shamrock. In the US there are no such restrictions,
however, and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will be presenting US President
George Bush with the traditional crystal bowl containing the national
emblem.'

P.O'S.

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

A number of Ir-D members have expressed what might be called guarded
amusement at my quote from Kevin Fitzgerald's autobiography, With
O'Leary in the Grave. The quote was "You are Irish, I think."

On that note - the You-are-Irish structure in operation - see today's
Guardian...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,907762,00.html

Threat of consumer boycott leads to Bhs owner issuing apology to the
Irish

Julia Finch, City editor
Wednesday March 5, 2003
The Guardian

'Retail entrepreneur Philip Green was yesterday forced to offer an
unreserved apology to the Irish in a bid to prevent a customer boycott
of his Bhs-to-Top Shop stores empire.
His apology was prompted by a suggestion, made by Mr Green during a
Guardian investigation into his accounts, that the Irish are
illiterate...'

And so on... Mr Green had attacked Paul Murphy, the Guardian's
financial editor (born in Oldham, raised in Portsmouth) who had been
asking questions about Mr. Green's accounts.

P.O'S.


- --
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 Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of...
Wilson McLeod
w.mcleod[at]ed.ac.uk

Some of you may be interested in an upcoming conference on

'Military Activity in the North Irish Sea World: Context and Response,
c. 1100-c. 1750',
to be held in Edinburgh on 21-22 March.
For more details, please see
http://www.celtscot.ed.ac.uk/news.htm#Conference

Many thanks

Wilson McLeod
Celtic and Scottish Studies
University of Edinburgh

From: McCaffrey

Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 2

Which is why these 'thick paddies' get to be called British in England.

Joyce, who cannot so easily be labelled British was never quite
accepted by the English intelligentsia - my God, is that an oxymoron? .
His genius was accepted world wide before the English started to pay
attention to him as perhaps the greatest novelist of the twentieth
century. I believe there is still a struggle about Joyce there. The
English have long believed that the supremacy of language skills lay
with them, because it was their language. A blind opinion if ever there

was one because it fails to take into account the use and expression of
language as an art. One Irish Joyce critic, David Norris, has
describes Joyce as gleefully 'smashing the language of the invader'. It
took another Irishman, Samuel Beckett, to teach a similar lesson about
language to the French.

If only, Oscar Wilde mused, we could teach the English to speak - and
the Irish to listen.

Carmel McC

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Volume 35 Issue 01 - Publication Date: 1 January 2000
Journal of Contemporary History
Was a 'Shell-shock' special. edited by Jay Winter.

There are many Journals of Contemporary History - this is the Sage
publication at

http://www.sagepub.co.uk/frame.html?http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/de
tails/j0018.html

The Contents list can be accessed from there.

The Irish chapter is by Joanna Bourke - Abstract, etc., pasted in below.
Joanna touches on a number of themes already discussed on the
Irish-Diaspora list - 'martial race', 'insanity'. However it has to be
suggested that the context - a shell-shock special - inevitably dilutes
some of the stronger arguments. None of the war-damaged men seem to
have received a happy welcome home.

P.O'S.


publication
Journal of Contemporary History

ISSN
0022-0094 electronic: 0022-0094

publisher
SAGE Publications

year - volume - issue
2000 - 35 - 1

Edited by Jay Winter
Comparative cultural history of shell-shock

Title: Effeminacy, Ethnicity and the End of Trauma: The Sufferings of
'Shell-shocked' Men in Great Britain and Ireland, 1914-39
Author(s): J. Bourke
Source: Journal of Contemporary History Volume: 35 Number: 1 Page:
57 -- 69
Publisher: Sage Publications
Abstract: Enforced passivity in the midst of life-threatening danger
caused many men in wartime to suffer psychological collapse. This
article examines some aspects of this experience including the ways in
which men who were repelled by combat violence were regarded as
'abnormal' and needed to be 'cured' of this repulsion and made to
embrace their aggressive urges. During the first world war, certain
types of men were regarded by military and medical personnel as more
susceptible to this weakness. One crucial indicator was ethnicity. For
instance, despite their reputation for being a 'martial race', Irishmen
were said to be predisposed to insanity. This article, therefore,
examines the ways in which this prejudice developed, and its
implications for Irish sufferers of 'shell-shock' during and after the
war.

Year: 2000 Volume: 35 Number: 1 Pages: 57-69

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

I have put 'Placido Castro' in the Subject line, above - not Plácido
Castro. Otherwise Boston's email system would have rejected this email,
as containing non standard text in the Header. And no one wants to
exclude Boston...

The work of Plácido Castro was brought to our attention by our
colleagues in Galicia...

If you go to the IGADI web site...
http://www.igadi.org/

Click on
Mapa da Web
on the left hand side of the screen...

In the new screen on the right click on
Fundación Plácido Castro.

In the Fundación Plácido Castro screen you have various items about
Plácido Castro, his life and work, and about the foundation named after
him. All in Galego.

You can click on
Plácido Ramón Castro del Río
for an outline of his life and work. Castro, born 1902, educated in
England and Scotland, was an interpreter of British and Irish history
and culture to Galicia. The 'Irish model', as a possible way forward
for Galicia, was of especial interest to him - and he was the translator
of Yeats into Galician. He was evidently familiar with Irish literature
of the nineteenth and early twentienth centuries. I have also seen a
collection of photographs taken by Plácido Castro in Ireland.

Our colleagues in Galicia have built a programme of research and comment
around the work of Plácido Castro - in a way that will be familiar to
those of us who have links with the Irish Summer Schools.

I have not been able to find anything about Plácido Castro in English -
and I wonder if any other member of Ir-D can help. I think that there
is interesting work to be done on these 'interpreters of Ireland' to
other languages and cultures.

P.O'S.


- --
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 Email Patrick O'Sullivan


For information...

P.O'S.


Population Studies
Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Issue: Volume 53, Number 3/1999
Pages: 345 - 359

An Australian map of British and Irish literacy in 1841

ERIC RICHARDS

Abstract:

This contribution to the study of the literacy transition in Britain,
Ireland, and Australia also touches on the relationship between literacy
and international migration. Some 20,000 emigrants arrived in Australia
in 1841 and their literacy is here established at the individual level,
and then related to regional origins, occupations, religion, sex, and
family status in the British Isles. The new Australian data offer
unusual evidence to juxtapose with the prevailing account of British and
Irish literacy. The paper makes systematic comparisons of the immigrant
evidence with existing literacy findings for the populations of England
and Wales, of Ireland, and the colonial population of Australia in the
year 1841. The results also show extraordinary similarity of rank
orderings between the Australian data and the conventional sources. The
results show that the immigrants were consistently more literate than
the home and the receiving populations and indicate a substantial link
between migration and literacy.

From: "Sarah Morgan"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 2

I need to add to Paddy's comments on this by pointing out that the
article in question was on the front page of the Guardian and
accompanied by a large photograph of the offender, looking like a
captain of industry. It is good to see anti-Irish racism in Britain
getting this coverage. Of course, this has only happened because one of
the Guardian's journalists has been dissed, they don't like it and,
importantly, they have the power to strike back. It's also important to
note: a) the emphasis on Paul Murphy's English roots - born in Oldham,
raised in Portsmouth and b) the protestation by Green that 'some of my
best friends are Irish'...

Sarah Morgan.

From: ppo[at]aber.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think...

From: Paul O'Leary

The reflex accusation of the entrepreneur Phillip Green that 'the Irish
are illiterate' has a nice echo in a postcard sent to me by a former
student not so long ago. It features a cartoon of the English comedian
(?) Bernard Manning, who is noted for his vicious jokes about ethnic
minorites, saying: 'There were these thick Paddies ...' He is standing
in front of a wall bearing the names of Oscar Wilde, Sean O'Casey,
Yeats, Shaw, Synge, etc.

Paul

you wrote:
>
>
>>From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>A number of Ir-D members have expressed what might be called guarded
>amusement at my quote from Kevin Fitzgerald's autobiography, With
>O'Leary in the Grave. The quote was "You are Irish, I think."
>
>On that note - the You-are-Irish structure in operation - see today's
>Guardian...
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,907762,00.html
>
>Threat of consumer boycott leads to Bhs owner issuing apology to the
>Irish

Dr Paul O'Leary
Adran Hanes a Hanes Cymru / Dept of History and Welsh History Prifysgol
Cymru Aberystwyth / University of Wales Aberystwyth Aberystwyth
Ceredigion SY23 3DY

Tel: 01970 622842
Fax: 01970 622676

From: patrick maume
Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 5

From: Patrick Maume
Just to complicate matters further, here's a refinement of
Gary's question:
How far is someone who might otherwise be defined as Irish
entitled to have a self-definition as "not Irish" respected?
For example, Jeffrey Dudgeon's recent book on Sir Roger Casement
quotes a letter to Casement from a Co. Antrim landowner refusing
to contribute to a Celtic Revival cause on the grounds that she
does not consider herself to be Irish but British (although she
was born and ived in Co.Antrim). Should such people - let
alone those who lived outside Ireland or were of Irish descent - be seen
as engaging in "false consciousness" (on the obvious grounds that they
were clearly influenced by their Irish
background whether they liked it or not and that others,
including their chosen fellow-Britons/Americans/Canadians &c,
would see them as Irish however they saw themselves) or does the
right to self-definition extend to a right to "opt out" of being
Irish?
Best wishes,
Patrick


On 06 March 2003 05:59 irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:

>
>
> From:
> Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 3
>
> Firstly, as a stupid and illiterate Englishman, I
> would like to endorse everything that has been said in
> this discussion to date ;)
>
> Can I add however that it is also useful as so often
> to consider an assumption so prevalent in British
> culture of this sort (that anyone who is perceived as
> stupid or politically incompetent must be "Irish") in connection with
> a politically opposite yet at once extremely derivative assumption
> found in (nationalist) Irish culture (and, dare I suggest, certain
> forms of recent academic writing) that anyone who collaborated with or

> was politically powerful in the British empire in any location or who
> opposed certain nationalist objectives in Ireland cannot be/have been
> Irish at all and must actually be/have been "British" or "English".
> These errors clearly have a common root (in a past of British/English
> conquest of Ireland) and thus indicate both the strengths and
> weaknesses of postcolonial paradigms when applied to Ireland.
>
> Incidentally, Maurice Cowling (in _Religion and public doctrine in
> modern England_, especially volume 1) would agree with Carmel that the

> term "English intelligentsia" is an oxymoron: not I think however
> for the reasons she has in mind.
>
> Gary Kenneth Peatling
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

For information...

Ethnography is a fairly new journal published by Sage - this article
appeared in the very first issue, July 2000...

Web site...
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/frame.html?http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/de
tails/j0300.html

The article is, in fact, drawn from the Preface and Epilogue to the new
edition of Scheper-Hughes, _Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics_.

P.O'S.

Title: Ire in Ireland
Author(s): N. Scheper-Hughes
Source: Ethnography July 2000 Volume: 1 Number: 1 Page: 117 -- 140
Publisher: Sage Publications
Abstract: When Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in
Rural Ireland was published some 20 years ago, it was promptly made a
classic of psychological and medical anthropology by academics in the
United States and simultaneously broadly and heatedly criticized in the
Irish press as an egregious violation of community and cultural privacy,
a debate that has blown hot and cold over the intervening decades.
Following a recent return to 'Ballybran' in the summer of 1999 which
ended in her expulsion from the village, Nancy Scheper-Hughes recounts
her attempts to reconcile her responsibility to honest ethnography with
respect for the people who once shared their homes and their secrets
with her, thereby offering candid and vivid reflections on balancing the
ethics and the micropolitics of anthropological work.

Keywords: anger and loss; culture; ethics and politics of fieldwork;
madness; revisiting the field

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

I turn back to the accuracy of Kevin FitzGerald's perception in his
autobiography - in England... '"You are Irish, I think" is a useful
all-round opening for "You are dirty; dishonest; seem to have acquired
some unpleasant habits; are a Catholic, militant Protestant, red
revolutionary", or anything else which the speaker dislikes...'

In this case the Guardian's financial journalists were asking questions
about the accounts of the captain of the retail industry. The captain
of industry did not like this. The captain of industry rubbished the
credentials and expertise of the Guardian's financial editor, Paul
Murphy, by claiming that Murphy is Irish. This is spot-on playing of
the 'You are Irish' card.

The Guardian item contains its own internal contradictions. It is clear
that the captain of industry does not accuse the Irish of being
'illiterate' - he accuses them of being innumerate. (And you cannot
help wondering if the Guardian journalist knows the difference.) And
the Guardian item ends by defending its financial editor against the
baseless accusation that he is Irish. NOT Yes he is Irish but he's not
stupid. BUT He's not stupid and he's not even Irish.

The trigger, of course, is the name 'Murphy' - and the layers of meaning
around the word 'Irish' in the English mind. There is a deep well of
prejudice, which can be visited for a bucketful as the need arises.
Like when you are having your accounts questioned...

Paddy



- -----Original Message-----
From: "Sarah Morgan"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 2

I need to add to Paddy's comments on this by pointing out that the
article in question was on the front page of the Guardian and
accompanied by a large photograph of the offender, looking like a
captain of industry. It is good to see anti-Irish racism in Britain
getting this coverage. Of course, this has only happened because one of
the Guardian's journalists has been dissed, they don't like it and,
importantly, they have the power to strike back. It's also important to
note: a) the emphasis on Paul Murphy's English roots - born in Oldham,
raised in Portsmouth and b) the protestation by Green that 'some of my
best friends are Irish'...

Sarah Morgan.

From: Jessica March
Subject: Shake Hands with the Devil


Can anyone tell me where I might get hold of a copy of this film to
borrow or buy?

It's based on the book by the same title written by Rearden Conner. It
stars James Cagney and it was released in 1959.

Many thanks,

Jessica March

DPhil Student
St John's College,
Oxford,
OX1 3JP

From:
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 6

Paddy

If in this context we refrain froming call the English 'stupid'in turn,
we certainly shouldn't hesitate to call them obtuse - to the point of
stupidity!.

If, as you sugggest, the name 'Murphy' is synonymous in the English mind
with both Irishness and illiteracy/innumeracy,how do they explain the
success of the contractor John Murphy?

Have they never made the connection between the ubiquity (to the point
of cliche)of his name on plant, transport, and site hoardings all over
Britain for the past fifty years,and business ability and acumen of a
very high order?

According to 'Construction News' Top 100 and Financial Review, 2000
(Sept. 2000, pp.VIII-X,),J. Murphy & Sons' turnover stood at ST£157.7
million. John Murphy's personal fortune was estimated by the Sunday
Times Rich List (2001) at ST£60 million.

John Murphy had no vocational, commercial, or third level qualifications
or training when he emigrated from rural Ireland to britain in 1947 (he
had spent two years in An Garda Siochana). In this respect he does
indeed typify the Irish emigrant of his generation - the so-called,
'all-brawn, no-brain Paddy'.

His current financial status is paralleled by that of many other Irish
contemporaries in the British construction industry. If this is
'stupidity', 'illiteracy', and/or 'innumeracy', where does that leave
the better-educated English?

Ultan Cowley
Copy to The Guardian, please...

From: "MacEinri, Piaras"
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: RE: Ir-D Article, Scheper-Hughes, Ire in Ireland

Paddy

The link to Scheper-Hughes came through, at least on my email system, in
a slightly malformed way and gave me a 'page not found' when I tried to
access it. I think the address should be
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/details/issue/sample/a013130.pdf

Piaras

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Piaras,

By some means you have contrived an URL that takes everyone to the
article without having to pay...

So, everyone, there is your weekend reading...

Paddy


- -----Original Message-----
Subject: Ir-D Scheper-Hughes, Ire in Ireland 2
From: "MacEinri, Piaras"

Paddy

The link to Scheper-Hughes came through, at least on my email system, in
a slightly malformed way and gave me a 'page not found' when I tried to
access it. I think the address should be
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/details/issue/sample/a013130.pdf

Piaras

From: Hilary Robinson
Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 8

As an 'english' person of mixed heritages through the
generations...... I think the 'Murphy' factor in this sorry tale is a
marker of the same process of 'othering' that happens with people of
mixed race - ie a person with one black parent and one white parent
is always identified as black, not as white, by the dominant white
population, who see certain markers of difference and not others of
identification - although within black communities, things are more
complicated..... In this case the marker is the name. Same as with
George W: if you're not one of us, you must be one of them!

Hilary


- --
Professor Hilary Robinson
Head of School
School of Art and Design
University of Ulster
York Street
Belfast
BT15 1ED

From:
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D Shake Hands with the Devil

Jessica

The Irish Film Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin would have a lead on this &
might possibly be able to facilitate you.

I worked (as an extra) on this film with my parents. I was 13 at the
time. Prophetically, I was one of the emigrants taking the boat to
Liverpool from the B & I terminal at North Wall Docks - now part of the
uninterrupted river view from the Financial Services Centre!

The scene was an attempted IRA ambush of the British Viceroy. Don Murray
also starred and I still remember himself and Jimmy Cagney doing an
impromptu sketch on the quayside during a break in shooting; their
'turn' was a (presumably American) song & dance act, entitled :'O'Mara
from Tara, McNamara from Mayo'. I think the verdict was along the lines
of, 'Can't sing; can't dance; can act a little'!

Ultan Cowley

Forwarded on behalf of...
Professor Warwick Gould

The Institute of English Studies is delighted that the John Coffin
Memorial Literary Readings will coincide with a conference, 'The
Resilient Voice: Northern Irish Poetry 1960-Present Day' on 10-11 March.
Derek Mahon and Michael Longley will read on Monday 10 at 6 pm, and
Ciaran Carson and Medbh McGuckian on Tuesday 11 at 6 pm. Both sets of
readings will be held in the University of London Senate House, as will
the conference.

The readings are free and open to the public, and include a glass of
wine at the end and an opportunity to meet the poets. To book for the
readings or to reserve a place at the conference, kindly ring
0207-862-8675, or email ies[at]sas.ac.uk or visit www.sas.ac.uk/ies and
follow the links.

Full conference details are at
http://www.sas.ac.uk/ies/Conferences/Resilient-Voice.htm. Speakers
include Ronald Schuchard, Edna Longley, Bernard O'Donoghue and Neil
Corcoran.

Full details on the Readings are at
http://www.sas.ac.uk/ies/Conferences/John_Coffin2003.htm

In addition, Professor Denis Donoghue, Henry James Professor of English
and American Literature at NYU, will be speaking on 'The Second Coming'
at the Institute's regular Irish Studies Seminar on Wednesday 12 at 6 pm
(3rd floor, Senate House. All are welcome: Full details will be found at
http://www.sas.ac.uk/ies/Staff/hutton/IrishStudiesSeminars2002-3.htm

With all good wishes,
Professor Warwick Gould, FRSL, FRSA, FEA
Director, Institute of English Studies
School of Advanced Study, University of London
Room 304, Senate House
Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Voice 0044 (0) 207-862-8673
Fax 0044 (0) 207-862-8720
e-mail warwick.gould[at]sas.ac.uk
http://www.sas.ac.uk/ies

From: McCaffrey
Subject: Re: Ir-D You are Irish, I think 5

Gary,
I absolutely agree and I don't think that this opposite assumption is
all that new either. Families who have lived in Ireland for generations

are sometimes still referred to in Ireland as English or the ubiquitous
Anglo-Irish if they have [God forbid] unionist tendencies. This litmus
test for being Irish within Ireland is real. The quintessential Irish
rebel Patrick Pierce had an English father but try to call Pierce
English in an Irish pub and face the consequences!

It's a fair cop to say that this works both ways but when you consider
the relationship of conqueror to conquered the advantage is on one side.

History, and popular perceptions, do indeed get written by the winners.

The world perception of the victim 'becomes' whatever is said by the
power elite of the winner. In this case the Irish are proclaimed to be
illiterate, drunks, stupid, in short in need of reforming and
civilizing. Irish writers, are therefore 'British' or Anglo-Irish
because as sure as hell something separates them out from the mob of
dumb Irish. If the English were to recognize Irish writers'
contribution to the literate English language world then their
perception of 'Irish' would have to change, not to mention their
perception of themselves. They solve this conundrum by the label
British.

As to the oxymoron of English intelligentsia I again refer to Wilde that

Irish master of language and satire. He puts into the mouth of Lady
Bracknell, that cornerstone of English rightful domination: 'Fortunately

for us, education in England produces no effect whatsoever'.

Carmel

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

in connection with a politically opposite yet at once extremely
derivative assumption found in (nationalist) Irish culture (and, dare I
suggest, certain forms of recent academic writing) that anyone who
collaborated with or was politically powerful in the British empire in
any location or who opposed certain nationalist objectives in Ireland
cannot be/have been Irish at all and must actually be/have been
"British" or "English".