From: Molloy, Frank
FMolloy[at]csu.edu.au

Responding to Elizabeth Malcolm on Ern Malley: the 16 poems have already
been published, by Angus and Robertson, Sydney in 1993, with an
introduction by Max Harris, the victim of the hoax.

Frank

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: Hoaxes in Australian Literature

After my email last week about 'Ern Malley', the Australian
'fictional' poet, and Ernie O'Malley, the Irish revolutionary/writer,
I was contacted by Cormac O'Malley, Ernie's son.

He pointed out that the name most commonly used by his family was
Malley and that his father's first name was Ernest. So, in a sense,
Ernie O'Malley WAS Ern Malley!

Ernie O'Malley also wrote and published poetry while living in the US
in the early and mid 1930s.

Ernie's youngest brother emigrated to Australia during the early
1940s, at the time of the hoax. Cormac tells me that de Valera went
out of his way to meet the brother when he was on a tour of Australia
in 1948.

Of course, none of this PROVES that Stewart and McAuley, who
perpetrated the hoax, were drawing upon Ernie O'Malley's life and
work - and, most obviously, upon his name. But the 'coincidences' are
suggestive, to say the least.

I wonder what a comparison of the 'Malley' and O'Malley poems would
reveal?? Cormac tells me that his father was friendly with Hart Crane
and that some of Ernie's poems were published in 'Poetry Magazine'
(Chicago) in 1935 and 1936.

Do the 'Malley' poems exhibit any Irish influences at all?

Thanks to Cormac O'Malley for kindly agreeing to let me pass on this
family information.

Elizabeth Malcolm

------------------------
Dr Elizabeth Malcolm
Gerry Higgins Professor of Irish Studies
Deputy Head
Department of History
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria, 3010
AUSTRALIA

Telephone: +61-3-8344 3924
FAX: +61-3-8344 7894
Email: e.malcolm[at]unimelb.edu.au
-----------------------

From: Kerby Miller
Subject: Re: Ir-D Cal McCrystal on Tom Hayden

Who's Cal McCrystal? I'm sure I can guess his politics without much
difficulty, just as anyone can guess Hayden's--so "reviews" of a book
such as his are inevitably polemical and really beside the point,
aren't they? However, you might want to run Joe Jameson's review in
a recent IRISH LITERARY SUPPLEMENT as a complement to McCrystal's,
Foster's, etc., as a "fairness" or "equal time" issue.


>From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>Our attention has been drawn to the following item - an almost classic
>example, I think, of diasporic tensions...
>
>P.O'S.
>
>http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/story.jsp?story=428071
>
>Irish on the Inside: In search of the soul of Irish America By Tom
>Hayden Cease now your wailing! Cal McCrystal takes a dim view of an
>American activist's appropriation of the Irish struggle
>27 July 2003

From: patrick maume
Sender: P.Maume[at]Queens-Belfast.AC.UK
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D Cal McCrystal on Tom Hayden 2

From: Patrick Maume
Cal McCrystal is/was a journalist on the London INDEPENDENT.
His father was a Belfast Protestant labour/republican activist
between the 40s and the 70s; McCrystal published a memoir of his
father and childhood some years ago. His politics would be
generally "liberal", whether pale orange or pale green I am not
sure - very pale in either event.
McCrystal isn't the only Irish critic to have excoriated
Hayden; last year in the IRISH TIMES Fintan O'Toole took him to
task for having a romanticised view of Ireland and engaging in
fantasies of victimhood which deny any legitimacy to
Unionist/Protestant views and present Catholics/nationalists
without qualification as what Liam Kennedy calls MOPE - Most
Oppressed People Ever.
Best wishes,
Patrick

On 18 August 2003 05:59 irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:

>
> From: Kerby Miller
> Subject: Re: Ir-D Cal McCrystal on Tom Hayden
>
> Who's Cal McCrystal? I'm sure I can guess his politics without much
> difficulty, just as anyone can guess Hayden's--so "reviews" of a book
> such as his are inevitably polemical and really beside the point,
> aren't they? However, you might want to run Joe Jameson's review in
> a recent IRISH LITERARY SUPPLEMENT as a complement to McCrystal's,
> Foster's, etc., as a "fairness" or "equal time" issue.
>

From:
Subject: Re: Ir-D Foreign Minister against votes for emigrants
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk

Paddy,

Welcome back! Good to have Ir-D stuff streaming into my
InBox again.

Simply put: do such emigrants pay income taxes in Ireland?

Also, the logistics of such an exercise would be bulky and
cumbersome!

In essence, I think the minister is correct.

James.

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

>
> From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
> The following item appeared in...
> THE IRISH EMIGRANT
> Editor: Liam Ferrie - August 18, 2003 - Issue No.863

> P.O'S.
>
> Foreign Minister against votes for emigrants
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The following item has been sent to us...

Forwarded on behalf of Deirdre Fennell, Private Secretary to Deputy
Bruton...

P.O'S.

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

Subject: From John Bruton - Former Irish Prime Minister

Dear Patrick,

Please find attached herewith a copy of an article written by John
Bruton T.D. former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland on Irish
emigrants being allowed to vote in the Irish Seanad Elections, which I
thought you might be interested in seeing. Should you have any queries
Mr. Bruton would be contactable at 353-1-6183107.

Yours sincerely Deirdre Fennell Private Secretary to Deputy Bruton


1

Article for the Irish Times by John Bruton T.D

13th August 2003



It is disappointing that the Minister for Foreign Affairs has, in his
submission

to a Seanad Sub Committee on reform of the Upper House, opposed the
election of

some Senators by Irish citizens living abroad. The Rainbow Government
published

a consultation document in 1996 proposing that Irish citizens living
abroad for

up to 20 years be entitled to elect three members to the Seanad. I had
in mind

three one member constituencies covering different regions of the world.



Of course, it is entirely understandable that many people would
not want

emigrants, who do not pay taxes here, to have a vote in Dail Elections
because

the Dail is the tax raising House of the Oireachtas. The Seanad, on
the other

hand, does not have the power to raise taxes and merely can make
recommendations

on Finance Bills. Therefore, if there is to be emigrant
representation, the

Seanad is the right place to have it.



There were even more practical considerations for choosing
representation in the

Seanad. One of the issues that had to be tackled was the practicality of
issuing

ballot papers, and collecting votes, from amongst the emigrants. A Dail
election

has to be over within a maximum of four weeks and one could not
defer the

meeting of the Dail as one awaited the return of ballot boxes from
Western

Newfoundland!



In contrast, the Seanad campaign is a long drawn out affair and
would allow

plenty of time for the collection of ballot papers.



The Minister's suggestion that representation for emigrants should be
by means

of someone chosen by the Government for their special "awareness of
emigrant

issues" is undemocratic and elitist. It implies that Mr. Cowen
believes that

emigrants have not the capacity to decide for themselves who has
"awareness" of

their problems, and that that decision should be made for them by a
government

composed of people, none of whom are actually themselves emigrants.

After all Irish emigrants who are graduates of either Trinity
College or NUI

have a vote already in the Seanad Election, so why not extend the same
privilege

to Irish emigrants who are graduates from other Universities or
non-graduates?



An election campaign for Seanad emigrant seats would provide for
the active

democratic involvement of emigrants in a process of election. This
involvement

in itself, and the campaign and debate that it would create, would
bring Irish

emigrants in touch with one another and would reduce the sense of
isolation that

many of them feel. Loneliness, particularly amongst elderly Irish
emigrants, is

a huge problem. A Seanad Election campaign would, in a small way,
reduce the

sense of isolation that many emigrants feel.



I believe that the involvement of senators directly elected by
emigrants would

greatly enhance the quality of debates in the Seanad. It would bring
expertise

to the floor of the House of people with practical experience of
separation from

their native land.



There would, of course, be problems with the costs of travel from
overseas of

emigrant Senators, but air travel costs have fallen in recent years. The
cost of

the attendance of the emigrant Senators in Leinster House would
only be a

fraction of the huge cost of the annual exodus of Ministers for
the St.

Patrick's week each year. Indeed the willingness of Ministers to use
the Irish

diaspora as an excuse for tax financed travel each March is in stark
contrast to

their willingness to be open-minded about giving the Irish diaspora
a voice,

through the Seanad, in the law making process of their native country.



I hope that Mary O'Rourke will show herself to be more open-minded
in this

matter than Brian Cowen apparently is.



John Bruton T.D., was Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) from 1994 - 1997



ENDS

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The following item appeared in...
THE IRISH EMIGRANT
Editor: Liam Ferrie - August 18, 2003 - Issue No.863

People with access to Irish newspapers might have seen a little more
coverage. But not much...

P.O'S.

Foreign Minister against votes for emigrants

The question of votes for emigrants came up again when details of
Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen's thoughts on the reform of the
Seanad were made public. In a submission to a Seanad sub-committee,
which is reviewing the issue, Mr Cowen said he did not consider votes
for emigrants to be a pressing matter. It was his view that "If the
Irish abroad are to be given a voice in the Seanad it would be better to
do so through the nomination of a person or persons with an awareness of
emigrant issues, as proposed by the Committee on the Constitution,
rather than by the election of a formal representative of the Diaspora".
This story, which appeared on page four of Wednesday's Irish Times, did
not generate any debate back here.

From: patrick maume
Sender: P.Maume[at]Queens-Belfast.AC.UK
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D From John Bruton - Former Irish Prime Minister


From: Patrick Maume
Would emigrants who are graduates have two Seanad votes?
Best wishes,
Patrick

>
> >From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
> The following item has been sent to us...
>
> Forwarded on behalf of Deirdre Fennell, Private Secretary to Deputy
> Bruton...
>
> P.O'S.
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> Subject: From John Bruton - Former Irish Prime Minister
>
> Dear Patrick,
>
> Please find attached herewith a copy of an article written by John
> Bruton T.D. former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland on Irish
> emigrants being allowed to vote in the Irish Seanad Elections, which I

> thought you might be interested in seeing.

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The following items have been brought to our attention.

As ever, remember that your own email line breaks might fracture these
long web addresses - and you will have to reconstruct them.

P.O'S.

Some recent news articles on Irish language in the US:

Echo Irish expert Barra O Donnabhain succumbs to cancer
http://www.irishecho.com/archives/archivestory.cfm?newspaperid=13351&iss
ueid=315

'Barra O Donnabháin, the Echo's longtime Irish language columnist,
passed away Saturday at his Long Island home. He was 61. O'Donnabháin,
whose column, "Macallai," ran for the final time last month, had been
battling cancer.'

Language declines in Gaeltacht, but in U.S. it's hot
http://www.irishecho.com/archives/archivestory.cfm?newspaperid=12500&iss
ueid=285

'Where were you the last time you heard someone speak Irish? Chances are
that it was in the United States, not Ireland.'

From:James O'Keeffe
okeeffej[at]londonmet.ac.uk
Subject: George Sigerson, Amnesty Act 1885


Patrick

Through my research into Tom Clarke, I have come across the
name George Sigerson particularly in connection with the
Amnesty Act 1885. I wonder if diaspora members know of any
works on him with particular reference to his interest in
the welfare of fenian prisoners, his work on the Royal
Commission on Prisons which led to the Amnesty Act of 1885
and a work by him castigating the prison system, Political
Prisoners?

Regards

Jim

----------------------
James O'Keeffe
Department Administrator
Department of Education
London Metropolitan University
j.okeeffe[at]londonmet.ac.uk
tel: 020 7133 2661
x 2661, Rm L101

From: "Laura"
To:
Subject: Re: KALEIDOSCOPIC VIEWS OF IRELAND

Dear Paddy,

I copy below the Introduction and contents of KALEIDOSCOPIC VIEWS OF
IRELAND to be shared with the Ir-D list. Feel free to edit them. Best
wishes, Laura Izarra

Kaleidoscopic Views of Ireland

PREFACE
The essays in this book explore Irish literature and culture from
various perspectives. Like a kaleidoscope, with its loose fragments of
coloured glass confined between two flat plates and reflected in two
plane mirrors in an endless variety of symmetrical multicoloured forms,
this volume enriches our understanding of the multiple configurations of
Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Changes of perspective
reveal multifarious facets of Irish writings creating reflections of
coloured glass, which will be transformed in innumerable images by those
who perceive them. These fragmentary images, from voices within and
outside Ireland, were presented by eminent contemporary critics at the
IASIL international conference held at the University of Sao Paulo,
Brazil, in July 2002.

In Mirrors and Reflections, Terence Brown's "The Irish Literary Revival:
Historical Perspectives" deals with the construction of the idea of the
Celt and the literary past in the 1860s to the 1980s and 1990s by
reassessing Arnold's On the Study of Celtic Literature and the Irish
Literary Revival as an English as well as an Irish phenomenon.

Edna Longley, in her essay "Northern Irish Writing and Post-Ukanian
Readings", asks a series of questions: will Northerners increasingly
identify with Northern Ireland as a shared point of reference? Will
they develop a more flexible sense of their relations with the Republic
and a post-devolution Britain? What does it mean to be Irish at the
turn of the twenty-first century?

Nicholas Grene's "The Spaces of Irish Drama" presents the way in which
space has been constructed in Irish plays by dramatists ranging from
Synge on down to the contemporary period of Friel, Barry and McPherson,
and discusses the relationship between dramatised and narrated space, as
well as the significance of these constructed spaces. In "Irish Culture
in a Globalised World", Fintan O=B4Toole reflects on the implications of
the fact that Ireland is now recognized as the world's most globalised
economy: formerly seen as one of Europe's most distinctive cultures,
Ireland has become the most open and unstable, shifting continually
between different contexts. O'Toole argues that Irishness has become a
saleable commodity, but also asks whether it has become a hollow
concept. Is there a way to imagine a distinctive culture when the
country it is supposed to occupy has no clear sense of its place in the
world?

Concluding this section Ann Saddlemeyer's "Mothering Genius" explores
the different worlds created by George Yeats; the roles she chose to
play as wife to genius, mother to two extraordinary people in their own
right, confidant to artists, musicians and writers; while throughout
maintaining her own personal strength and integrity.

In the remainder of the volume, other critics as well as
widely regarded creative writers have the chance to speak their piece,
adding further colour and reflection to the views of Ireland. In
Configurations, John Brannigan, Maurice Harmon, Christopher Murray,
Margaret Kelleher and Maria Tymoczko consider contemporary fiction,
poetry, drama, and womens literary studies and translation from a range
of critical approaches.

The book ends with The Writer on his Work where very significant
statements by novelist John Banville, playwright Billy Roche and poet
Michael Longley reveal their inner world and the processes of
translating life into literature.

This literary kaleidoscope, though necessarily fragmented,
hopefully will provoke the reader's imagination and create many other
images stretching beyond the boundaries of criticism.

CONTENTS

Preface 07

Mirrors and reflections

The Literary Revival: Historical Pespectives 11

Terence Brown

Northern Irish Writing: Post-Ukanian Perspectives 27

Edna Longley

The Spaces of Irish Drama 53

Nicholas Grene

Irish culture in a globalised world 75

Fintan O'Toole

Mothering Genius 95

Ann Saddlemyer


Configurations

'The Battle for the GPO': Literary Revisionism in Roddy Doyle's A Star
Called Henry and Jamie O'Neill's At Swim,

Two Boys 115

John Brannigan

Irish Poetry: Fresh Perspectives, Different Voices 133

Maurice Harmon

A Restrospective View on Irish Women's Literary Studies 161

Margaret Kelleher

Beckett's Conclusions: The Plays in Focus 179

Christopher Murray

Cultural Translation in twentieth-century Irish Literature 189

Maria Tymoczko


The writer on his work

Interviewing John Banville 227

Laura P. Z. Izarra

Interviewing Billy Roche 249

Munira H. Mutran

Unexpected Markings. Encounters with a Hare 255

Michael Longley

From: "Nieciecki, Daniel"
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: RE: Ir-D Votes for emigrants? 7

Some clarifications of the constitutional situation might be of benefit
for those of us unfamiliar with the arcane workings the Oireachtas.

First, are emigrants currently eligible to vote in Dáil and Presidential
elections? If they are eligible to vote for the Dáil, are their votes
counted toward the constituency they were born in or left?

Second, I have never been quite clear on how Seanad Éireann actually
operates. I know that eleven members are appointed by the Taoiseach, the
universities elect their own representatives, and the rest are elected
from panels of candidates. Who actually does the electing of the
non-appointed, non-University Seanadóirí? The entire electorate?

Many thanks!

From: "Laura"
To:
Subject: Re: ABEI Journal 5

Dear Paddy,

I copy below the Introduction and contents of ABEI JOURNAL - The
Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies, Issue No.5.

Best wishes, Laura Izarra


Introduction

No universo da cultura o centro este em toda parte. (Miguel Reale)

In July 2002 the University of Sao Paulo became the centre of Irish
Studies for a few days as one hundred and seventy-nine delegates from
twenty-one countries gathered for the IASIL 2002 International
Conference. The monumental clock in the central square of the campus
witnessed the event, which fleshed out the words beneath it with their
evocation of a cultural democracy no longer governed from a single
metropolis: "In the cultural universe the centre is everywhere." It is
fair to say that the congress enriched the field of Irish Studies with
its stimulating mix of a wide range of critical backgrounds and points
of view from so many parts of the world.

This Special Issue of ABEI Journal - The Brazilian Journal of Irish
Studies is a selection of papers presented at the conference, whose
theme was "Interrelations: Irish Literatures and Other Forms of
Knowledge." The articles follow interdisciplinary approaches to the
study of texts and deal with issues and arguments concerning the
relationship of Irish literatures to the visual arts, music, social =
sciences, displacements, the self and cultural translation, amongst
others.

The ideas aired during IASIL 2002 reflected those of the architect who
designed USP's trademark monument, which consists of an open tower
composed of two soaring slabs, whose outer faces each bear six panels
representing, respectively, the worlds of Humanities and the Sciences.
The two sides of the tower are linked by a staircase climbing to the
clock high above the campus. The symbolism of integration represents the
spirit which lies at the heart of this dynamic university, a spirit
echoed in this register of last year's fondly remembered conference.


Contents

Editors'Introduction........ 9

Interrelations

Interrelations: Blake and Yeats....... 13
Rachel V. Billigheimer

Social Coercion: The Field Meets Waking Ned Devine.... 27
Jerry Griswold

The Trouble with Being Borrowed: Flann O'Brien's Characters in Gilbert =
Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew........ 31
Pawel Hejmanowski

Textual Anthropology and the 'Imagined Community'................. 39
Peter Kuch

Cage and Joyce....... 51
Sergio Medeiros

Brazilian readings of British Decadentism Abgar Renault and Pedro Nava
recreate W.B. Yeats and A. V. Beardsley 57
Solange Ribeiro de Oliveira

The Wild West Show: Ireland in the 1930s...... 67
David Pierce

The Greek Influence on Primitive Irish Literature 83
Ramon Sainero

Urban and Intellectual Beauty: Aspects of Oscar Wilde's Influence. 89
Linda Wong


Displacements

'Romantic Ireland's dead and gone': Peter Carey's True History of the
Kelly Gang...... 103
Frank Molloy

"Imagery and Arguments Pertaining to the Issue of Free Immigration in =
the Anglo-Irish Press in Rio de Janeiro ............ 111
Miguel Alexandre de Araujo Neto

Travelling With Desmond Hogan: Writing Beyond Ireland.129
Jerry Nolan

Picture Bride: Fact or Image? - Immigration from Ireland and Japan =
...................141
Mitsuko Ohno


Documents of the self

All Politics is Local..... 155
James Doan

Tomas O Crohan's Autobiography: A Cultural Analysis of Robin Flower's
English Translation.............. 165
Irene Lucchitti

Shaw's Sculptress-kathleen Scott..... 181
Stanley Weintraub


Drama

Denis Johnston's Revisionist Theatre.. 195
Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos

Statistics And The Canon: Irish Theatre Historiography Beyond The
Diaspora.............. 203
Peter James Harris

Stayley's The Rival Theatres and Metatheatre............. 209
Margarida Gandara Rauen

Fatal Fathers and Sons in Tom Murphy's A Whistle in the Dark...... 219
Hedwig Schwall

Paper Knowledge. Books, Maps, Letters: the Written Word in Brian Friel's
Plays..... 241
Giovanna Tallone

What Makes Johnny Run? Shaw's "Man and Superman" as a Pre-Freudian Dream
Play.............. 253
Rodelle Weintraub


Fiction

Reading O'Connor's My Oedipus Complex ......... 265
Celia Reis Geha

The Ontological Imperative in Irish Writing.............. 275
Derek Hand

Infinite Regress and the Darkness of Reason - Flann O'Brien's The Third
Policeman in the Context of Greek Cosmology.............. 287
Nigel Hunter

Uncle Silas: Forms of Desire in the Gothic house ..........299
Maria Monteiro


Poetry

"An Old Song Resung and Revisited" by W.B.Yeats .............. 307
Genilda Azerado

Ni Dhomhnaill's Poetry as a Challenge to Patriarchy in the Irish
Literary Tradition ....................313
Nadilza Martins de Barros Moreira


Translation
Translating Brendan Kennelly's Poetic Prose: The Crooked Cross or the =
claustrophobic representation of a Classic-Irish Odyssey
......................329
Giuliana Bendelli

Translating Joyce.... 343
Bernardina da Silveira Pinheiro

Translating Oscar Wilde And Liam O'Flaherty ................ 351
Flavia Maria Samuda

From: Gary Peatling
Subject: Re: Ir-D George Sigerson, Amnesty Act 1885

I came across _Political prisoners at home and abroad_
(1890) not least because the Foreword is written by
James Bryce, Gladstonian intellectual (and Ulsterman).
Bryce was of course at the time heavily involved in
the pro-home rule intellectual publicity campaign
which Gladstone had inspired (see the article by R.A.
Cosgrove on this in Éire-Ireland, xiii (1978)),
featuring both British and Irish intellectuals: I
believe Sigerson may also have contributed to Bryce
(ed.) _Two centuries of Irish history_ at this time
(though I couldn't actually swear to that now).
_Political prisoners_ can thus be seen in part as a
product of that cooperation and of the linked specific historical moment
of the Gladstone-Parnell "union of hearts". All somewhat ironic of
course because targets of protests at the prison system such as
Sigerson's would have included its administration during Gladstone's
second government (1880-5). This was a time of very rapid political
realignments.

Gary Kenneth Peatling

- --- irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:
>
> From:James O'Keeffe
> okeeffej[at]londonmet.ac.uk
> Subject: George Sigerson, Amnesty Act 1885
>
>
> Patrick
>
> Through my research into Tom Clarke, I have come
> across the
> name George Sigerson particularly in connection with
> the
> Amnesty Act 1885. I wonder if diaspora members know
> of any
> works on him with particular reference to his
> interest in
> the welfare of fenian prisoners, his work on the
> Royal
> Commission on Prisons which led to the Amnesty Act
> of 1885
> and a work by him castigating the prison system,
> Political
> Prisoners?
>
> Regards
>
> Jim
>

From: Carmel McCaffrey
Subject: Re: Ir-D Votes for emigrants? 1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

To my certain knowledge the paying of income taxes is not a prerequisite

for voting in Ireland or anywhere. If it were there would be many who
might not qualify - for example, the unemployed. Citizenship and
residence is the requirement in Ireland and in the US citizenship only -

those US citizens who live abroad can vote via mail. So the idea of
giving all Irish citizens the right to vote is not, in my opinion, a
far fetched idea. I agree that it ought to be given consideration.

Carmel McC

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

>From:
>Subject: Re: Ir-D Foreign Minister against votes for emigrants
>To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
>
>Paddy,
>
>Welcome back! Good to have Ir-D stuff streaming into my
>InBox again.
>
>Simply put: do such emigrants pay income taxes in Ireland?
>
>Also, the logistics of such an exercise would be bulky and
>cumbersome!
>
>In essence, I think the minister is correct.
>
>James.
>

From: "Noreen Bowden"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D Votes for emigrants? 8

Apologies for sending out two similar messages on this topic earlier - a
computer glitch prompted me to write up the same sentiments twice.

I agree that the real issue is the establishment's ambivalence toward
the diaspora. Technological incompetence is a weak argument against
emigrant voting rights - and yet it's one that's not infrequently made.

Even former Taoiseach John Bruton, in his recent Irish Times article on
the subject, notes that a Seanad voice for emigrants is more preferable
than any say in the Dail due to the "practicality of issuing ballot
papers, and collecting votes, from amongst the emigrants. A Dail
election has to be over within a maximum of four weeks and one could not
defer the meeting of the Dail as one awaited the return of ballot boxes
from Western Newfoundland".

He continues to say, "In contrast, the Seanad campaign is a long drawn
out affair and would allow plenty of time for the collection of ballot
papers".

Noreen Bowden


- ----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 5:59 AM
Subject: Ir-D Votes for emigrants? 8


>
> From: Kerby Miller
> Subject: Re: Ir-D Votes for emigrants? 6
>
> The issue is primarily not one of technology or efficiency. As Jim
> Mac Laughlin and others have argued, the Irish establishment's refusal

> to grant voting rights to emigrants reflects its long-standing
> ambivalence, at best, toward the diaspora: from its aversion to the
> anti-treaty emigrants and exiles of the early 1920s, to its
> apprehension of secularized or radicalized emigrants in post-WWII
> Labour Britain, to its fear that many recent emigrants would vote for
> Sinn Fein or otherwise "rock the political boat" at home out of their
> disillusionment or anger with an Irish state and economic system that
> they perceived, however vaguely or precisely, to have failed them.
> Hence, the prevailing (and cultivated) image in Ireland of the Irish
> abroad (especially of those in the U.S.) as political "wild men" who
> don't "understand the complexities of the Irish (or Northern Irish)
> situation, etc." In some instances, the image may be correct, but
> it's self-serving and would probably be more accurate for
> American-born Irish (for whom votes are not
> proposed) than for most emigrants.
> Kerby Miller.
>
>
>

From: "MacEinri, Piaras"
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: RE: Ir-D Votes for emigrants? 8

I think Kerby is right but would add a few nuances.

The civil service department which looks after these matters, the
Department of the Environment (formerly Local Government), has always
been resolutely opposed to extending the use of the postal vote, proxy
or any other such arrangement - the danger of fraud was trotted out like
a mantra. The first category outside Ireland for whom an exception was
made was that of Army personnel on UN and other international service.
Presumably this was because the military was regarded as a body which
could be trusted to handled things in a proper and non-fraudulent manner
(though following Kerby's argument maybe they would also have been
regarded as 'safe voters'). For a number of years in the 1970s and
1980s, during which I was working in the Department of Foreign Affairs,
the ludicrous situation arose where Foreign Affairs personnel were
tasked with dealing with the Army voting papers (including in some cases
seconded military working alongside themselves) but were themselves not
allowed to vote. They were eventually given voting rights. As far as I
am aware (and here the case of military and diplomatic personnel serving
abroad in the employ of the State is different from that of other
migrants) the case was made that as such persons continued to be
technically or legally domiciled in Ireland, even while abroad, it might
be unconstitutional to deny them their voting rights. It is probably
also relevant to mention that opposition to the change for diplomatic
personnel was less strong that it would otherwise have been because
senior officials from Departments such as Finance and Environment were
themselves serving in diplomatic postings in Brussels.

None of the above is intended to excuse the politicians who have failed
to grasp the nettle down the years and the denial of a voice in the
Seanad (which is a debating chamber with few powers anyway and was
intended to be broadly vocationalist or representative or sectoral
rather than political interests even if it has long since been hijacked
by the main political
parties) is particularly inexcusable. The bitter fact, as was seen in
the reception accorded in Ireland to Mary Robinson's famous Cherishing
the Irish Diaspora speech to the Dail and Seanad, is that most Irish
people in Ireland don't give two figs about their own Diaspora. Whatever
about Fianna Fail's longstanding contempt for emigrants and emigrant
issues, the Labour Party was the one which reneged in the mid-1990s at a
point when it appeared possible that some concession would be made.

For the record I did explore the voting intentions of Irish emigrants in
my late 1980s work on the Irish in Paris. They were asked (a) whether
they would exercise the right to vote in an Irish election if given it -
the vast majority said yes and (b) who they would vote for. The voting
pattern which emerged was not, in fact, dramatically different from the
prevailing pattern in the country at the time except for a predictable
swing factor against the government which probably would have been
mirrored in any poll taken in Ireland at the time. However, the Irish in
Paris were not, at that time anyway, typical or representative of Irish
emigrants generally.

Votes for emigrants are not unusual in Europe - Italy and Poland come to
mind.

Piaras Mac Einri

From: "Noreen Bowden"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D Votes for emigrants?

People might be interested in this editorial, which ran in this week's
edition of the Irish Echo in New York. I don't think it's online yet (a
friend who works there sent this to me). They do have a news article on
the issue at http://www.irishecho.com/newspaper/story.cfm?id=13502

Noreen Bowden

---------------------
An overdue debate

The fact that a debate has broken out between two of Ireland's
leading political parties on the issue of voting rights for Irish
citizens living abroad is a welcome development.
Too bad that the argument centers on an idea so limited in scope
that it arouses less excitement than the rather more stimulating
weather.
A few years ago, when immigrant groups were agitating with some
effect for voting rights across the board, Fianna Fail responded quite
properly with a far ranging proposal to extend voting facilities to
emigrants in elections to the Dail, the European Parliament, the Irish
presidency and also in referenda.
The party saw no constitutional bar to such an idea and was indeed
correct in this interpretation.
But politics can throw up obstacles to good sense regardless of
constitutional niceties.
It is difficult to discern exactly what the objection of the present
government to even limited voting rights actually is because it has
failed to fully explain itself in this regard.
Arguments against extension of voting facilities to the Irish in
America, Britain, Australia and elsewhere, have tended to come in a
roundabout way over the years.
There is, for example, the oft-repeated fear that voting patterns in
some Dail constituencies would be warped because so many of that
constituency's inhabitants are living overseas.
There is also the familiar refrain of "no representation without
taxation."
The link between economic factors such as taxation and property
ownership and voting has been used as tool to deny basic voting rights
to citizens in numerous countries and jurisdictions over many years.
In this specific regard, it should be pointed out that no less than
the Constitution of the United States dealt with this issue as far back
as 1964 with the 24th amendment.
The amendment states that the right of U.S. citizens to vote shall
not be denied or abridged "by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or
other tax." It should also be made clear that U.S. citizens living
overseas can vote in U.S. elections, as can the citizens of every other
current EU state with the exception of Ireland.
Regardless of what the Irish government's specific objection to
extensive reform night be, it is difficult to see how it could possibly
be applied to the very modest proposal regarding overseas voting for the
Irish senate.
Irish politicians from all parties have indulged in public
hand-wringing in recent times over increased voter apathy, an unwelcome
trend made plain by diminishing voter turnout for even full Dail
elections.
It is inconsistent to say the least that the same politicians would
turn around and prevent citizens from taking part in even a very limited
aspect of Irish political life simply because they live outside the
physical borders of the state.
The idea of a right to vote, even if for a limited number of years,
is not going to cause Ireland's democracy any harm.
Quite the contrary. This measure is long overdue.

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

For information...

Included in that Special Issue IJPG, Geographies of Diaspora, Edited by
Caitríona Ní Laoire, is this article...

P.O'S.

publication
International Journal of Population Geography

ISSN
1077-3495 electronic: 1099-1220

publisher
John Wiley & Sons

year - volume - issue - page
2003 - 9 - 4 - 295

article

Forgotten migrants: Irish women religious in England, 1930s-1960s

McKenna, Yvonne

abstract

In the post-independence period, as emigration rates increased and the
population of Ireland continued to decline, the number of women entering
religious life rose substantially, reaching a peak in the late 1960s.
Many of these women lived some or all of their lives outside Ireland.
However, despite the recent growth of Irish migration or diaspora
studies, very little attention has been given to the role or experiences
of women religious, who themselves tend not to publish subjective
accounts. Based on oral history testimonies, this article seeks to
explore the experience of migration for a sample of women who left
Ireland to live in religious congregations in England between the 1930s
and the 1960s. Growing up in the newly established Irish state,
Catholicism was a fundamental part of being Irish for these women.
Post-migration, the women's experience of Irishness was influenced both
by their choice of congregation (none of which were Irish in origin) and
the wider society in which those congregations were placed. Focusing on
the experiences of two groups of women - those who entered congregations
with a majority Irish population, and those who entered a middle-class
English congregation whose population was at most a third Irish - this
article examines the space that was available within religious life for
expressions of ethnicity and Irishness. Situated within the context of
the second 'great wave' of Irish emigration, it examines the complex
processes of inclusion and exclusion (being othered and othering) that
occurred within the 'diaspora space' of religious community and English
society. Religious life during this period was organised according to a
strict code of rules and was especially designed to facilitate its
transcendence over individual identities, including ethnicity.
Notwithstanding this, however, and as this article will argue, ethnicity
for the women of this study remained deeply significant within religious
life and helped shape their experience of it. Copyright © 2003 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

keyword(s)

Irish women religious, religious life, migration, diaspora, identity,
ethnicity,

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

For information...

P.O'S.


publication
Holocene

ISSN
0959-6836

publisher
Arnold Publishers

year - volume - issue - page
2003 - 13 - 4 - 507

article

Human impact on the Irish landscape during the late Holocene inferred
from palynological studies at three peatland sites

Cole, Edwina E. - Mitchell, Fraser J.G.

abstract

Pollen data covering the last 1200 years from a transect of three
peatland sites across Ireland are reported. The data reveal reductions
in woodland and increased anthropogenic activity over time. A decline in
Corylus-type pollen at around AD 1750 was a dramatic and concurrent
event at all three sites which coincided with more intensive land use.
Multivariate data analysis reveals that prior to the Corylus-type
decline distinct regional differences occurred between the sites, but
that after it this regional variation was lost. It is concluded that
more intense land use led to greater regional uniformity. Rising human
population coincides with evidence for intense land use in the pollen
data. The failure of the potato crop and the Great Famine of 1845 led to
a population crash, but this had limited impact on the landscape. The
imprint of human activity on the landscape over the last 1200 years
appears to have overwhelmed any impacts that could be attributed solely
to climatic change associated with the 'Mediaeval Warm Period', the
'Little Ice Age' or late twentieth-century warming.


keyword(s)

HUMAN IMPACT, VEGETATION HISTORY, PEATLAND, LAND USE, POLLEN, IRELAND,
LATE, HOLOCENE,