From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

We are just about to close the door on our 2003 traditional
Irish-Diaspora list St. Patrick's Day Competition.

I have pasted in, below, the original announcement, and the competition
rules.

We have not ended the competition, because some people who told me they
were planning to enter have not, in fact, sent anything in.

So, folks, last chance...

Paddy

- -----Original Message-----

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

By popular demand...

The Irish-Diaspora list traditional St. Patrick's Day Competition.

Our traditional St. Patrick's Day Competition for 2003 is inspired by
Jill Murphy, _Peace at Last_, Macmillan, 1980 - a deeply-felt work,
which will be familiar to the parents of small children.

The Competition requirements this year are short, simple and easy.
Competitors are asked to supply just 2 things...

1.
A title.

2.
A sentence.

1.
The title should be the title of an imaginary, hitherto unknown and
unread, work which broadly falls within the fields of Irish Studies and
Irish Diaspora Studies. It could therefore be a work of Irish or Irish
Diaspora history, Irish or Irish Diaspora literature, Irish or Irish
heritage autobiography, or a work which comments on other such works,
real or imaginary. The title could be the title of a book, learned or
unlearned, or of an article, learned or unlearned. If the title is the
title of a learned article then the use of colons, "quotation marks" and
parentheses is (not) essential.

2.
The sentence should be the first sentence of this imagined work. The
sentence should be of such unmitigated and dire awfulness that the
reader can read no further. And perhaps need read no further.

Entries should be sent, as an email, to this special competition email
address... comp[at]irishdiaspora.net

Good examples will be shared with the Irish-Diaspora list. We will let
the Competition run until the end of March 2003.

Prizes will be awarded. The prizes are usually my spare copies of key
Irish Diaspora Studies texts.

Paddy

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of...
Liam Chambers

- -----Original Message-----
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 15:14:39 +0100
From: Liam Chambers

The Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society / Cumann Éire san Ochtú Céad Déag
Annual Conference will take place in Dublin on 2-4 May 2003.

The Full Programme is now available on our website at:
http://www.mic.ul.ie/ecis/Conf2003programme.htm

For information on the Society you can consult: www.ecis.ie

If you have any queries concerning the conference, please contact one of
the
co-organisers:
Dr Michael Brown, UCD (michael.brown[at]ucd.ie)
Dr Máire Kennedy, Dublin City Public Libraries
(dublinstudies[at]dublincity.ie)

Liam Chambers,
ECIS Treasurer

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Some recent contributors to the 'No Irish' discussion did manage to
persuade me, behind the scenes, that their messages contributed
something new to the discussion. And so - despite my earlier Moderator
Intervention - I allowed those further messages through. However the
messages I am now getting do not, it seems to me, add anything - they go
over well trodden ground. And increasingly the messages show signs of
being composed in haste.

At the risk of looking like a lame moderator I do feel that the
Irish-Diaspora list has most probably taken this discussion as far as it
can go at this stage - and that further development belongs on personal
web pages or within the pages of scholarly journals.

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: "Richard Jensen"
To:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-631040,00.html
London Times April 2 2003

Armed Struggle by Richard English
Publisher: Hardcover - 512 pages (21 March, 2003)
London: Macmillan; ISBN: 1405001089

This an essential book. At a stroke it replaces the many journalistic
"histories" of the IRA, too often flaccid and shoddy, says Roy Foster

IRA's bloody story fairly told

THIS IS an essential book. At a stroke it replaces the many journalistic
"histories" of the IRA, too often flaccid, shoddy, self-regarding and
over-dependent on un-named "sources". Richard English, a distinguished
historian of Irish republicanism in the early 20th century, has spent
several years researching this closely-reasoned, formidably intelligent
and utterly compelling study, which illuminates not only the IRA (since
its origins nearly 90 years ago) but also the modern Irish republican
mind. He has done so by taking the phenomenon seriously, enquiring into
its arguments, rationale and strategy, and measuring them against the
actual outcome of the last bloody decades. He has the advantage of a
deep understanding of guerrilla warfare, terrorist strategy and radical
"liberation" theory; but he has also talked to countless people, studied
a vast range of ephemeral sources, and absorbed the atmosphere of
Belfast (where he lives and works). The result will be required reading
across the political spectrum, whether its conclusions are welcome or
not.

Armed Struggle also provides a crisp historical overview, surveying the
territory from the 1900s, with a wealth of acute insights to be savoured
by the cognoscenti. He balances, with unique evenhandedness, the
combination of self-sacrifice and solipsism that drove the integrity of
purist republicanism: the belief, in Ernie O'Malley's words, that "if we
consulted the people we would never have fired a shot; if we gave them a
good strong lead they would follow". Above all, English demonstrates the
continuities which survive from "old" republicanism into the breakaway
movements of the late 1960s; and he shows that the developments in the
IRA from that era were not instigated ab novo by the Northern crisis. He
also shows, very convincingly, just how influential current theories of
anti-colonial and socialist revolution were in the formation of the new-
style IRA: and, conversely, how important the worldwide downfall of that
theoretical structure was in precipitating the transformation of
republicanism in the 1990s.

Between the lines, this judicious study reassesses many of the original
interpretations of the last 30-odd years and finds them wanting. The
relationship between the creation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights
Association and the rise of the Provisional IRA is sharply interrogated;
among much else, the picture given by Gerry Adams of his own progression
from civil rights worker to republican activist will hardly survive this
book. Nor will much else of Adams's self-serving testimony.

While allowing him his enormous importance in the history of the modern
IRA, the authority of Armed Struggle benefits greatly from a series of
in-depth interviews with far less evasive and more analytical republican
thinkers like Danny Morrison, Tom Hartley and Patrick Magee, whose
arguments and recollections are of compelling interest. (English also,
characteristically, provides a brilliant analysis of the library built
up by republicans in the Maze prison.) Some aspects of the traditional
picture remain, and indeed are
strengthened: the disastrous early record of the British Army, and the
vapid whitewash of the Widgery Report on Bloody Sunday, are bleakly
condemned. But the core of his subject is not only the formidable record
of the IRA, but the mentality that sustained and impelled it: above all,
its roots in "family, locality, tradition".

The result is an analysis which manages to be insightful and often
sympathetic (especially about the structures of discrimination before
the 1970s), but is never sentimental. The 1981 hunger strikes have
claims to heroic status by any standard, but English points out that the
self-sacrifice was not an end in itself: one survivor remembers his
anger that his comrades outside the prisons were not "slaughtering
people in their twenties and thirties" to carry through the point.

Above all, the strength of this book is to look back from the vantage of
the present and analyse, far more thoughtfully than anything else on the
subject, just how and why so much has changed. What comes across is the
importance of a new generation in politics (revolutionary and
otherwise), the rise of secularist values, and the breaking in of
realism - about revolutionary socialism, about anti-IRA feeling in the
(actual) Republic, and above all about the existence of Northern
Unionists.

Danny Morrison, who coined the brilliant slogan about taking power with
the Armalite in one hand and the ballot box in the other, is here
identified with a less glamorous but more profound insight: "politics
equals compromise". The process of self-education among jailed
republicans led in some cases to the paradoxical conclusion that there
was such a thing as a Unionist case, and that Unionists were central to
the question, and therefore to the answer.

And so a movement founded on the formula "there can be no internal
solution" ended in 1998 by accepting exactly that, and sending many of
its ex- irreconcilables out to sell and spin the compromise to its
followers. English's book is gripping enough as he tracks through the
murder and mayhem of the 1970s and 1980s, and the terrifying demons that
arise on the other side; but Armed Struggle is at its most compulsive in
its sympathetic but relentless exploration of the arguments and logic
that led the IRA and Sinn Fein to their present position.

The conclusion rehearses all the traditional foundational republican
beliefs, and shows how they foundered: the faith that the Northern
statelet could not be reformed, that the British will to remain would
crumble away, and that a 32-county socialist republic was the inevitable
future. Further, English demonstrates forensically that the IRA record,
since their opposition to the abortive Sunningdale power- sharing deal
in 1974, has in fact distanced them - and Ireland - from their
wished-for goal.

You could, of course, say exactly the same about intransigent Unionism,
over exactly the same period: the point of the Good Friday agreement was
to make both sides see another way, to a different destination. Fifty
years ago the Irish sage Hubert Butler expressed the wish that some day
the Border would "drop off painlessly, like a strip of sticking- plaster
from a wound that has healed". This important and riveting book shows
how the wound became more, not less, inflamed in the 30 years from 1968
to 1998 and explains why the healing may take some time yet.

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of...
Carmel Haynes
cahaynes[at]uwichill.edu.bb

Please distribute widely...

P.O'S.


University of the West Indies
Inaugural Humanities Postgraduate Colloquium

New Approaches: Caribbean Humanities Scholarship in the New Millennium

The Faculty of Humanities and Education of the University of the West
Indies, Cave Hill will be hosting this first ever Humanities
Postgraduate Colloquium from June 12 - 13, 2003 at the Cave Hill Campus.
Interested scholars are asked to submit 150 - 200 word abstracts no
later than April 20, 2003. Acceptance of papers will be communicated by
April 30, 2003. Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes.

In the 20th Century, the Caribbean produced a powerful intellectual
legacy in the area of the Humanities through world-renowned thinkers
such as Kamau Brathwaite, Aimee Cesaire, Edouard Glissant, Frantz Fanon,
C. L. R. James, and Sylvia Wynter, to name a few. However, in this
millennium, new voices, new approaches will come to the fore to continue
the contribution of the Humanities to Caribbean culture. The University
of the West Indies has a proud history of innovating traditional
academic approaches to Caribbean arts, literatures, languages, and
history, and we are inviting new scholars in Caribbean Humanities
studies to come share your research, your re-interpretations of the ways
in which we see ourselves, and our relationship to the world at this
foundational multidisciplinary forum. Participants are encouraged to
reinvigorate the existing intellectual debates, engage with our
intellectual forbearers, or present their own theories for debate.

Suggested panel themes include, but are not limited to, the following:

. Women writers re-visioning literatures in the Caribbean
. Beyond the Basin - Caribbean Diasporic Issues
. Expressing Ourselves - (Re)Interpretations of Caribbean
vernaculars
. Playing the New Millennium - Evolving Caribbean culture in
drama, dance, music or sport.
. (Re)Viewing the Caribbean in still and motion pictures
. Caribbean Community - 'many people, one voice?'
. 'Caribbean Philosophy' or philosophy in the Caribbean?
. Has Post-structuralism caused a revision in Caribbean studies?
. Trends in Caribbean Historiography
. Caribbean Education - an emerging female realm?
. In their own words - Oral Histories and Testimonies

Abstracts may be submitted to Ms. Carmel Haynes at
cahaynes[at]uwichill.edu.bb

From: Maria Power
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: Voluntary Work and retired Irish immigrants.


Hello everyone,

I'm working on a research project which is looking at schemes which are
aimed at encouraging people in the 50+ age bracket to engage in
voluntary activity. The main focus of the study will be on identifying
'what works' in relation to the involvement of older people as
volunteers and to uncover the factors which prevent or inhibit the
involvement of the over 50s in voluntary activity, and the steps
organisations have (successfully) taken to overcome these barriers. We
will be looking at the activities of smaller community groups as well as
the larger organisations such as Age Concern and I'd like to include an
Irish Community Group as part of this project so my request to the list
is twofold:

Firstly, can anyone suggest an Irish community organisation in either
Liverpool or Birmingham that they think would be willing to take part in
the research project and

Secondly, is anyone aware of any literature that deals specifically with
volunteering in the Irish community in the UK (especially amongst
retired people.) I've read most of the general literature regarding
volunteering and older people but haven't as yet come across anything
that is specifically Irish in focus.

Thanks in advance for your help

Maria Power

Maria Power
Research Officer
Institute for Volunteering Research
Regent's Wharf
8 All Saints Street
London N1 9RL
Tel: +44 (0) 207 520 8931
Fax: +44 (0) 207 520 8910
http://www.volunteering.org.uk

From: Steve McCabe
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: New book by Professor Richard English

I wonder have other members of the network read Professor Richard
English's new book Armed Struggle - A History of the IRA which was
published last week (if this book has already been discussed I
apologise - network here has been down for a few days).

As a careful analysis of the evolution of the IRA from the Easter Rising
through to its current position as a political movement it is very
noble. I'm certain that some of you are already aware of English's work
and that this will be regarded as a seminal contribution to
understanding why the IRA became engaged in what was believed to be the
only option: Armed Struggle. That strategy is, of course, still being
hotly debated. Let's hope that this particular war is one that we can
reflect upon and not continue to experience.

Incidentally, watched Ireland's mediocre performance against Albania
and, on the way home listened to the beginning of England's match. It
was utterly reprehensible that the Turkish national anthem was drowned
out by booing. The argument is always that it is a 'tiny minority' From
what I heard it sounded like a considerable majority joined in. As
someone who was born in England and has spent most of my life here, I
find it sad that people like me find it so difficult to give bilateral
support. I have tried and just cannot be associated with the Neanderthal
thugs who, it should be remembered, whenever they go abroad chant "No
surrender to the IRA" to bemused locals!

Also, someone asked about the reference for Professor Carl Chinn's
recent book Making Our Mark which is a collection of pieces (including
myself) about being Irish in Birmingham. I lost all my emails and never
replied to that person whose name I cannot recall. If they would contact
me again thorough the network I'd be only too happy to furnish them with
requisite
details.

Dr. Steve McCabe
University of Central England in Birmingham, UK

From: "Richard Jensen"
To:
Subject: Fw: Request for assistance re Catholics and woman suffrage


- ----- Original Message -----
From: Kim Power
Email: K.Power[at]patrick.acu.edu.au

I am working on a research project with my colleagues, looking at the
attitudes of Catholic women to woman suffrage in Australia, and at the
attitudes of clerics, journalists etc. I am currently working on a paper
on attitudes to women's suffrage in Catholic papers, and I am finding
very little here. I am reading one US monograph dedicated to Catholic
women and political activism, and one Irish study that I have to get
hold of. Catholic women are absent from secular histories, the diocesan
archives have no material on the subject, and although the Catholic
paper reports UK and local initiatives, it does so as small pars under
categories such as "Armchair jottings". So far, though I have not
exhausted my sources yet, I have found no editorial comment at all, and
nothing written by Catholic women or mentioning them by name in this
regard. If listmembers either from OZ or other countries can assist me,
I'd be really grateful.

Kim E. Power Ph.D.
Project for the Study of Women's History, Theology and Spirituality
Institute for the Advancement of Research Australian Catholic University
Limited Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australia
Email: k.power[at]patrick.acu.edu.au (work)

Subject: Chinese/Irish art
From: "DALE LIGHT JR"

I was poking around the web this afternoon and stumbled on a site that
featured Irish landscape paintings by a Chinese artist, Xu Xi. Some of
the members might find this fresh view of Ireland interesting.

The paintings can be found at
http://www.chineseartnet.com/xuxi/Ireland/Ireland.htm

Enjoy,

Dale Light

We have been following the development of the volume on alcohol and
sobriety edited by Shane Kilcommins and Ian O'Donnell.

The book is published today...

P.O'S.


Shane Kilcommins and Ian O'Donnell (eds)
Alcohol, Society and Law
£27.50.

Barry Rose Law Publishers, Little London, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19
1PG.

Tel: 01243 783637 / 775552. Fax: 01243 779278.

email: books[at]barry-rose-law.co.uk
http://www.barry-rose-law.co.uk/

ISBN 1 902681 33 9

Contents

Preface - Editors

Foreword
Judge James O?Sullivan

Chapter 1
Sobriety and Temperance
Diarmaid Ferriter

Chapter 2
Society and Alcohol
Tanya Cassidy

Chapter 3
Reconstructing the Image of the ?Habitual Drunkard?
Shane Kilcommins

Chapter 4
Alcohol and the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales
Gavin Dingwall

Chapter 5
Alcohol and the Criminal Justice System in Scotland
Rowdy Yates and Gill McIvor

Chapter 6
Alcohol and the Criminal Justice System in the Republic of Ireland
Barry Vaughan

Chapter 7
Criminal Law and the Defence of Intoxication
Paul McCutcheon

Chapter 8
The Impact of Alcohol on Sentencing
Conor Hanly

Chapter 9
The Roundabout Tavern Settlement: A Reflection of American Publican
Liability? Kathleen Moore Walsh

Chapter 10
Practitioner Perspectives
Part 1: Rolande Anderson
Part 2: Margaret Prendergast

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

I was contacted earlier today by Ian Lynch, Assistant Producer with the
tv company, Outline Productions. They are planning a tv series on
'Englishness', for the Discovery channel, and most probably to be
fronted by Eddie Izzard. Working title, Mongrel Nation

They are looking for 2 people, one to talk about Irish influence on
English literature, one to talk about Irish influence on English
language.

Further details and contact information in the email pasted in below...

P.O'S.

- -----Original Message-----
From: Clare Slessor
clares[at]outlineproductions.co.uk
Subject: help needed on Irish influence on the English language and
literature in England


Dear Patrick O'Sullivan

First of all thank you very much for your help this afternoon. I would
be grateful if you would pass this email below on to anyone who may be
of assistance.

I am urgently trying to get hold of people who can talk about the
influence of the Irish on English language and literature for a high
profile documentary series investigating the true history of the
English.

I am trying to find people who can speak to us about how the English
language in England only has been influenced by the Irish, in
literature, language, linguistics and accent.

I realise this is short notice but I am trying to get hold of people to
interview this week so any pointers or advice anyone can give me would
be very much appreciated.

For your information the series will demonstrate, and celebrate, how an
array of other nationalities and races have combined in a two
millennia-old melting pot to create the country in which we live. Of all
the European nations the English nation is the most mosaic and least
homogenous.

I can be contacted via this email (which is my colleague Clare's) or my
direct line 020 7 4281572.

Many thanks,

Ian Lynch
Assistant Producer

From:
Subject: Re: Ir-D Book published, Kilcommins and O'Donnell

P.O'S,

Did they have a drinks' party to launch it?

James.

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

>
> We have been following the development of the volume on alcohol and
> sobriety edited by Shane Kilcommins and Ian O'Donnell.
>
> The book is published today...
>
> P.O'S.
>
>
> Shane Kilcommins and Ian O'Donnell (eds)
> Alcohol, Society and Law
> £27.50.
>
> Barry Rose Law Publishers, Little London, Chichester, West Sussex,
> PO19 1PG.
>
>
[Moderator's Note: The Ir-D list migt as well know hat I thought long
before forwarding James' little geste to the list... But (he said
patronisingly) perhaps there is there a valid point here. P.O'S.]

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of SSNCI (the Society for the Study of Nineteenth
Century Ireland), Margaret Kelleher and Leon Litvack...

P.O'S.


- -----Original Message-----

Dear friends,

As you know, our next SSNCI conference will be held at Queen's
University Belfast
on 20-22 June next , on the topic of 'Ireland and Europe in the
Nineteenth Century';
and we hope to see many of you there.

For further information, please contact
Leon Litvack (l.litvack[at]qub.ac.uk) or Colin Graham (c.graham[at]qub.ac.uk).

Meantime James Murphy is finalising plans to host the 2004 conference at
De
Paul University Chicago, and it is hoped that this conference will
consist of
a joint meeting between SSNCI and the Midwest Victorian Studies
Association,
a new and exciting venture for SSNCI. The provisional date and venue are
De
Paul University, 16-18 April.

James and I would greatly welcome your suggestions as to a conference
topic,
one that would build on our previous themes and would also address
itself to
the interests of the MVSA members. Suggestions would be appreciated
asap,
either to James at jhmurphy[at]indigo.ie, or to me at
margaret.kelleher[at]may.ie.

More information regarding MVSA is available from their website at
http://www2.ic.edu/MVSA/.

Best wishes
Margaret (Kelleher)
SSNCI President.
http://www.may.ie

From: Kerby Miller
Subject: Re: Ir-D SSNCI Conferences, Belfast & Chicago

Dear Margaret Kelleher, Leon Litvak, and James Murphy,

I suggest that your Chicago conference might stimulate
research on the Protestant communities and political cultures of
19th-century Ireland, and on their relationships with Irish
Catholics, generally, and with Irish nationalism. One negative
consequence of the dominant "two traditions" paradigm is that the
emergence after 1798/1800 of a pan-Protestant, cross-class Unionist
bloc has been taken for granted as "natural" and "inevitable"
(likewise, I think the same assumption has held for the emergence of
"Scots-Irishness"--vs. the Catholic "Irish"--in 19th-century
America). Although revisionist scholars have expended great effort
in dissecting and deconstructing Irish nationalist movements and
Irish Catholic society, generally, along social, ideological, and
other fault lines, they have not paid like attention to similar
divisions, tensions, and conflicts within Irish Protestant
communities or to the perhaps-hegemonic processes by which Unionism
gained ascendancy. On the question of Protestant-Catholic
relationships, it is equally remarkable, for example, that, to my
knowledge, no historians have examined the Dolly's Brae, Co. Down,
confrontation of 1849, although that was the single most bloody and
lethal incident in Irish history between 1798 or 1803 and 1916.

However, and as you probably know, David Miller is working on
what will be an exceptionally important book on Ulster Presbyterian
society, religion, and the Famine. Also, I've published demographic
and other data--in an EIRE-IRELAND article (Spring/Summer 2001) and
in my new IRISH IMMIGRANTS IN THE LAND OF CANAAN--that questions the
"two traditions" paradigm in various ways. However, there's a vast
amount of important work still to be done--and much not even
begun--and perhaps the focus of your forthcoming conference could
serve as a stimulus or a showcase or both for such work.

Sincerely,

Kerby Miller
University of Missouri-Columbia

>-----Original Message-----
>
>
>Meantime James Murphy is finalising plans to host the 2004 conference
>at De Paul University Chicago, and it is hoped that this conference
>will consist of
>a joint meeting between SSNCI and the Midwest Victorian Studies
>Association,
>a new and exciting venture for SSNCI. The provisional date and venue
are
>De
>Paul University, 16-18 April.
>
>James and I would greatly welcome your suggestions as to a conference
>topic, one that would build on our previous themes and would also
>address itself to
>the interests of the MVSA members. Suggestions would be appreciated
>asap,
>either to James at jhmurphy[at]indigo.ie, or to me at
>margaret.kelleher[at]may.ie.
>
>More information regarding MVSA is available from their website at
>http://www2.ic.edu/MVSA/.
>
>Best wishes
>Margaret (Kelleher)
>SSNCI President.
>http://www.may.ie

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Our attention has been drawn to the following item...

P.O'S.


- -----Original Message-----
Why an Irishman gave his life
By Thomas Harding, Ireland Correspondent
(Filed: 09/04/2003)

A lance corporal who was killed during the push on
Basra was the first Irishman in almost 50 years to die
in combat while serving with the British Army.

For full text see:

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2003/04/09/n
briz109.xml

From: Kerby Miller
Subject: Re: Ir-D Query, Irish marriage patterns

Well, I was going to suggest Irish gender imbalance, too, but it
appears that won't work.

One factor might be religion. On one hand, New Orleans may have
contained a much larger number and proportion of non-Irish Catholics
than was normal in other American cities. Would that have provided
Irish women, perhaps more faithful in their religious duties than
Irish men, greater opportunities for intermarriage with other
Catholics? However, if language was at least as important as
religion in determining marriage choices (as it appears to have been
at other times and places), then I would not anticipate significant
intermarriage between English (or Irish-) speaking Irish and
French-speaking creoles, despire their shared religion. Was there
such?

On the other hand, migration patterns based on admittedly-skewed
samples of Irish immigrants' letters suggest that New Orleans was
still a disproportionately popular destination for Irish Protestant
men who were artisans and would-be clerks, as it had been since the
early 1800s, despite its pestilential reputation. If true, then
perhaps New Orleans' "Irish" male population included a
larger-than-normal number and proportion of Irish Protestants, whom
Irish Catholic women might not have considered, for religious
reasons, as likely marriage partners (and vice versa)?

Another factor might be occupation or, more broadly, social class.
Did Irish women who "married out" tend to marry men with more stable
or remunerative occupations than Irish women who "married in"? Given
the reputedly high incidences of poverty, unskilled labor, yellow
fever, alcoholism, and, perhaps most important, transience or
impermanence ("floating" up and down the river, from one public works
project to another) among Famine-era, young Irish Catholic males,
perhaps Irish Catholic women in New Orleans found their Irish male
peers less than normally attractive marriage prospects?

Finally, what about the possibility of gender imbalance among the
non-Irish groups into which Irish Catholic women intermarried?
Perhaps those groups were disproportionately male? After all,
intermarriage was a two-way street, and so the positions and
perspectives of the non-Irish partners have to be considered as well
as those of their Irish wives.

Your research is fascinating--and my suggestions may be stupid--but
please keep me informed as to your work and results. Have you
published any of your work on the Irish in New Orleans? I'm very
interested--and I have a grad. student who's also interested in the
New Orleans Irish, primarily in terms of their political culture.

Kerby Miller
University of Missouri-Columbia

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The following query has been sent to us by Laura Kelley of Tulane
University...

P.O'S.

- -----Original Message-----
From: kelleyld[at]tulane.edu
Sent: 09 April 2003 01:51
To: osullivan[at]irishdiaspora.net
Subject: Query


Patrick O'Sullivan,

One of the members of the list serve H-Albion suggested I contact to
with the
following query I posted on that list-

I have been researching Catholic marriage records of Irish immigrants
(1840- 1860)and have found that in general the Irish married other Irish
- - no major surprise. However, the rate of Irish women marrying outside
of the group was much higher than Irish men marrying other non-Irish
persons - the rates were roughly 9 percent for the women and 3 percent
for the men. Is this a normal trend for the Irish or immigrants in
general? Do women more often marry outside of their ethnic and/or
religious group? If so, what does that imply? Any suggestions re current
research or articles pertaining to this matter would also be very
helpful.


Information I did not mention in the post but you may find relevant is
the
following -

I created a database which contains every single Irish immigrant and
their
family members (Irish born and US/foreign born)listed in the 1850 US
Census for
New Orleans. Recognizing the fact that the Census was/is not perfect, it
does
however, provide a much more detailed picture of the Irish in New
Orleans than
a random sampling. I have also created other databases re the Irish, and
on
this basis alone, can refute the idea that for my time period -
1840-1860- Irish
women did not outnumber Irish men in New Orleans, the second largest
port in
Antebellum America. Many people have responded to my post stating that
Irish
women married outside of their ethnic/religious group due to the lack of

available men. What if that was not the case? What else does the
information
imply?

If the members of the Irish-Diaspora list have a moment to spare and
could give me any insights on this
matter I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you very much,

Laura D. Kelley

Ph.D. Candidate
History Dept.
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA

From: patrick maume
Sender: P.Maume[at]Queens-Belfast.AC.UK
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D Why an Irishman gave his life 2

From: Patrick Maume
This is a very odd item. Surely L/Cpl Malone cannot have been
the first citizen of the Republic killed in the British Army
since WWII as the piece suggests (even if "Irishman" in this
context tacitly excludes people from Northern Ireland, which is
itself somewhat questionable). There must have simply been too
many people entitled to or actually possessing Irish citizenship
in the British Army for this to be the case. (Cf the recent
campaign, noted on this list, to extend posthumous US
citizenship to the dozen or so Irish citizens killed in the US
Army in Vietnam.)
Any ideas how this question could be addressed?
Best wishes,
Patrick

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

I did not give my usual warning about long web addresses when I
forwarded this message, below...

So, just to remind people... These long web addresses can get fractured
at any stage in the email process, by our systems, your systems or by
your own line breaks. You then have to re-construct the original web
address - the easiest way is simply to hit FORWARD as if you were going
to forward the message, then take out the intrusive line breaks. The
re-constructed web address should then work.

Paddy



- -----Original Message-----

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Our attention has been drawn to the following item...

P.O'S.

Why an Irishman gave his life
By Thomas Harding, Ireland Correspondent
(Filed: 09/04/2003)

A lance corporal who was killed during the push on
Basra was the first Irishman in almost 50 years to die
in combat while serving with the British Army.

For full text see:

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2003/04/09/n
briz109.xml

From: patrick maume
Sender: P.Maume[at]Queens-Belfast.AC.UK
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish marriage patterns 2

From: Patrick Maume
By the way, I seem to remember reading that the nearest thing to
an Irish regiment in the Confederate Army was the 8th Louisiana,
known as the "Tigers". Does that say anything about the degree
of social integration?
Best wishes,
Patrick