Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Forwarded on behalf of The Center for Irish Studies, Georgia Southern
University ...

P.O'S.

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

LITERATURE. Full-time, tenure-track assistant or associate professor of
Irish Studies. The successful candidate will also become Director of the
Center for Irish Studies. Established in 1995, the Center has a
multifaceted mission including academic responsibilities for the Irish
Studies minor and the Summer Study Abroad Program in Ireland. Ph.D. in
English required by the starting date of the position, August 1, 2004.

Salary competitive and rank dependent upon qualifications. All applicants
must have a minimum of two years teaching experience at the college or
university level and have demonstrated the ability to work with a diverse
student body.
Applicants seeking appointment as associate professor must have a minimum of
5 years teaching experience and scholarship consistent with rank.

Knowledge of Irish literature and culture, an ability to run the Center for
Irish Studies, a minimum of one year of administrative experience, including
experience with fundraising are required. Candidate must possess the
ability to teach World Literature courses in the Core Curriculum. Ability to
teach Shakespeare preferred. For more information about the department,
visit
http://class.gasou.edu/litphi/irishp.htm

Send letter of application, information related to the applicant?s abilities
to satisfy the required qualifications (e.g. ability to work with a diverse
student body), curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation to:
Dr. Tom Lloyd, Chair of Literature Search Committee, Department of
Literature and Philosophy, Georgia Southern University, P.O.B. 8023,
Statesboro, Georgia 30460-8023 USA. Screening begins November 3, 2003. The
names of applicants and nominees, résumés and other general non-evaluative
information may be subject to public inspection under the Georgia Open
Records Act. Georgia Southern is an Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity
Institution. Persons who need reasonable accommodation(s) under the
Americans with Disabilities Act to participate in the search process should
notify the search chair.

From: "Brian McGinn"
To: "Irish Diaspora Studies"
Subject: Naming Diasporas


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26600-2003Oct14.html

The Roots of 'Hispanic'
1975 Committee of Bureaucrats Produced Designation

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 15, 2003; Page A21

During Hispanic Heritage Month, Grace Flores-Hughes did not dance at any
galas, sit on any panels or receive any awards. And when the annual
celebration ends today, the 57-year-old Mexican American will look back on
another year of being forgotten.

Hardly anyone knows that 28 years ago, Flores-Hughes and a handful of other
Spanish-speaking federal employees helped make the decision that changed how
people with mixed Spanish heritage would be identified in this country.

In 1975, when Flores-Hughes was a baby-faced bureaucrat working for the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare, she sat on the highly
contentious Ad Hoc Committee on Racial and Ethnic Definitions.

"We chose the word 'Hispanic,' " she said proudly in a recent interview. The
choice resounded throughout the federal government, including at the Office
of Management and Budget, which placed the word on census forms for the
first time in 1980. But the decision touched off a debate in the wider
community over whether "Latino" should have been the designated term, and
that debate still rages.

Flores-Hughes, a federal appointee who lives in Alexandria, does not engage
in it. She is more concerned with setting the record straight.

"People keep saying that Richard Nixon is the reason why we're called
'Hispanic,' " she said. "And I think, 'Where did they get that from?' "

But no one can be blamed for not knowing. Few records survive to document
the committee's existence or its work. A search of the federal Education
Resources Information Center yielded a single report that includes a list of
members and the chairman, Charles Johnson of the Census Bureau.

Even former representative Robert Garcia (D-N.Y.), who worked diligently for
a "Hispanic" designation in those days, said, "I didn't know the committee
existed."

The story of how the term came to be embraced by government is more
important than ever, Flores-Hughes said, because it is crucial to the debate
over whether to identify people as "Hispanic" or "Latino," a debate that
vexes the Spanish-speaking and Spanish-surnamed community and non-Hispanic
Americans with connections to it.

"Latino" refers to the Latin-based Romance languages of Spain, France, Italy
and Portugal. The term embraces Portuguese-speaking Brazilians in a way that
the word "Hispanic" does not.

"Hispanic" is an American derivation from "Hispaña," the Spanish-language
term for the cultural diaspora created by Spain. That diaspora is the result
of a bygone age of conquest, which disturbs many of the people who prefer
"Latino."

"For us Spaniards, there's always a very strong link to the Spanish-speaking
people across the Atlantic," said Javier Ruperez, the Spanish ambassador to
the United States. "They are part of the Spanish family."

Ruperez said he understands that people who prefer "Latino" "want to follow
their own path. But it hurts. I think it's untrue to say that 'Hispanic'
reflects imperialism. Our history is a part of human history. Empires come
and go."

Abdin Noboa-Rios, a member of the ad hoc committee, said some members wanted
to use the Spanish-language term "Hispano," but were overruled by others who
felt that "Hispanic" would be less confusing, even though it is rarely used
outside the United States.

A survey by the Pew Hispanic Center and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
last year found that a majority of Hispanics and Latinos -- 53 percent --
have no preference for either term. An overwhelming majority prefer to
identify themselves by national origin.

But among those who listed a preference, "Hispanic" was widely favored.
Activists, however, assert that "Latino" is fast becoming the favored term,
as students, intellectuals and scholars refer to it almost exclusively in
their works.

Flores-Hughes said those activists wrongly insist that "Hispanic" was thrust
on them by white bureaucrats who knew very little about their culture.

Members of the ad hoc committee said it was hastily formed early in 1975,
after educators of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican and Native American descent
stormed out of a meeting called to discuss a report at the Federal
Interagency Committee on Education.

The group never got around to discussing the report, on the education of
Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and Indians. They were livid over how it wrongly
identified certain groups. As Flores-Hughes put it, "they came ready for
bear."

Caspar W. Weinberger, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare at the
time, knew he had a problem. He ordered that a committee be convened to
solve the identity matter for good.

The committee included African Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders,
Caucasians and Native Americans, in addition to Latinos. During the year
they met, arguments erupted over now-outdated terms such as "colored" and
"Oriental."

But the most contentious arguments took place in the group that blended
Spanish and English. It included Flores-Hughes of HEW, Philip (Felipe)
Garcia of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Noboa-Rios of the
National Institute of Education and Paul Planchon of the Office of
Management and Budget.

"There was never any consensus in that group to the very end," said
Noboa-Rios, who preferred the term "Latino" and still does. "We came up with
an agreement, but . . . there were some bad feelings. I know two people who
didn't speak for up to a year after it was over."

Noboa-Rios said he agreed to "Hispanic," because "we had to transcend
labels. For the purposes of the census it was important to know who we were,
because we were an underrepresented population."

He remembered Flores-Hughes, but vaguely. Her name was Grace Flores then,
and she was 26 years old. She was a low-level employee in the Special
Concerns section of HEW, with only a high school education, serving on her
first board.

"I was like a little kid involved in every aspect of the office," she said.
Flores-Hughes went on to earn a bachelor's degree in psychology from the
University of the District of Columbia and a master's in public
administration from Harvard University. She now lectures on managing a
culturally diverse workforce in the public/private sector and serves as an
appointee to the Federal Service Impasses Panel of the Federal Labor
Relations Authority.

Flores-Hughes grew up in Taft, Tex., not far from Corpus Christi. Her
grandfather regaled her with stories about serving in the army of Pancho
Villa. He was originally from Spain, she said, and his family moved to
Mexico.

"I was called a 'wetback,' a 'Mexkin' and a 'dirty Mexkin,' " she said. "In
public school, I had to be careful what I said. If I spoke Spanish, they
would send me home for three days." Her driver's license identified her as
Latin American.

That was going through her mind when arguments were raging on the committee.
" 'Hispanic' was better than anything I had been called as a kid," she said.

"Latino," she said, would have included Italians, so she would not endorse
it. And "Spanish surname" would have given protection to people who had
never been discriminated against, she said. Besides, she said, not everyone
in the Spanish diaspora has a Spanish-sounding name.

"It was hard eliminating all those terms," she said. "I felt alone. But I
was determined to stick to 'Hispanic.' We kept going back to Spain. We
couldn't get away from it."


© 2003 The Washington Post Company
-------------------------------------------




Brian McGinn
Alexandria, Virginia
bmcginn2[at]earthlink.net

From: "William Mulligan Jr."
To:
Subject: Session for ACIS

The American Conference for Irish Studies is meeting in Liverpool in
mid-July 2004. James Walsh and I are trying to put together a session on
Irish miners in the Diaspora as well as in Ireland. If anyone is interested
in presenting a paper, especially if it is a non-US topic, let me know.
Thanks.


William H. Mulligan, Jr.
Professor of History
Murray State University

Email Patrick O'Sullivan

There was much discussion over here a while ago, about the publication of...

Irish Peacock and Scarlett Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde
Merlin Holland
London, Fourth Estate, 2003.
£18.99, 340 pages, ISBN 0007154186.

Including little dramatisations of sections on the radio. These worked.
Horribly. You could hear Wilde wittily digging his own grave...

As experts will know Merlin has discovered transcripts of the trials, and
has now published them.

A helpful review has appeared on the web site of Cercles, Revue
pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone

http://www.cercles.com/review/R12/holland7.htm

The Cerrcles web site is always worth browsing - there are a number of new
book reviews of tangential interest to Irish Diaspora Studires, reports of
studies of Englishness, Britishness, American-ness, Eliot Ness...

P.O'S.

Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The databases listed this item as an Article.

It turns out to be a book review, a review of Father Mathew's Crusade:
Temperance in Nineteenth-century Ireland and Irish America
JOHN F. QUINN
University of Massachusetts Press, 2002, 262 pp, $18.95, ISBN 1 55849 340 9


A helpful person has sent us the text of that review, which I have pasted in
below...

This book is also reviewed in The American Historical Review
VOLUME 108, NUMBER 2 April 2003

P.O'S.


- -----Original Message-----
Addiction
Volume 98 Issue 6 Page 857 - June 2003 doi:10.1046/j.1360-0443.2003.04402.x


Father Mathew's Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth-century Ireland and Irish
America
JOHN F. QUINN
University of Massachusetts Press, 2002, 262 pp, $18.95, ISBN 1 55849 340 9

In 1634, James Holwell, a graduate of Oxford University, took it upon
himself to write an essay. Its purpose was to amuse a potential patron, and
toward that end he described the drinking habits of various peoples. Because
he wished to amuse, he deliberately kept the tone light, criticizing the
drinking habits of only two nationalities: the Dutch and the Irish. The
Irish, he conceded, made a fine usquebaugh, but drank it 'by
beer-glassfulls'. This he compared with the English habit of drinking strong
liquors 'in aqua-vitæ measures'[1].

The comparison spoke volumes. In effect, it said that the English were
capable of controlling themselves and the Irish were not. In the early
nineteenth century, during the early days of the Irish nationalist movement,
certain radicals took this logic one step further, arguing that the English
were able to control Ireland because its people had surrendered to
intemperance. This simple logic, in turn, would later find expression in the
rallying cry of 'Ireland sober, Ireland free'.

It was against this backdrop that Father Theobald Mathew, a Capuchin friar,
launched his great crusade to impose temperance on what turned out to be a
very willing nation. His crusade is the subject of John F. Quinn's lucid and
competent book. Starting in 1838 and continuing until 1849, Father Mathew
visited countless towns and hamlets in Ireland; during that time, at least 5
000 000 peoplethe majority of the Irish populationpledged to abstain from
all forms of alcohol. Some even kept their pledge, so much so that the
manufacture of distilled spirits plummeted briefly. Then, from 1849 to 1851,
Father Mathew attempted to repeat his 'miracle' among Irish immigrants in
America. There he was rather less successful, enlisting only 500 000 new
recruits in his glorious cause.

Ultimately, of course, his crusade failed, although it did succeed in
creating a fissure in Irish drinking culture. Before Mathew, there were few
Irish teetotallers; after Mathew, there were many. Quinn does a great job
explaining why Mathew's crusade unraveled; as might be expected, there were
several reasons, starting with the attempts of Irish nationalists to hijack
it. In a nutshell, Father Mathew wanted the Irish to sober up because it was
good for them, while the nationalists wanted them to sober up because it was
good for Ireland.

Quinn is on less firm ground in accounting for why so many Irish men and
women were willing to give up one of their chief pleasures. After all,
renouncing alcohol also meant renouncing an entire way of life. I am not one
for elaborate theories, but here Quinn probably should have taken a cue from
the literature on social movements. Also, he probably should have given more
thought to the ways in which women responded to Father Mathew and his
message. Not only did women play a major role in other temperance movements,
but most of them drank much less than their menfolk [2,3], suggesting that
their pledges to abstain from alcohol had very little to do with reforming
themselves.

References

1. Mendelsohn, O. A. (1963) Drinking with Pepys. London: Macmillan.

2. Stivers, R. (1976) A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American
Stereotype. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

3. Stivers, R. (1985) Historical meanings of Irish-American drinking.
In: Bennett, L. A. & Ames, G. M., eds. The American Experience with Alcohol:
Contrasting Cultural Perspectives, pp. 109-129. New York: Plenum Press.


Addiction
Volume 98 Issue 6 Page 857 - June 2003

From: "William Mulligan Jr."
To:
Subject: RE: Ir-D ACIS, Liverpool, Call for papers

The call for papers is on the ACIS website: at
http://www.acisweb.com/acis04.html

William H. Mulligan, Jr.
Professor of History
Murray State University

From: J.C. Belchem
j.c.belchem[at]liverpool.ac.uk

Paddy

Ir-D list members might be interested to know that Roger Swift, Don MacRaild
and myself have put forward a panel proposal on new approaches to the
history of the Irish in Britain -- Roger will provide an historiographical
overview, Don will report on his work on the Orange Order and I will talk
about my current research on blackface minstrelsy and the Liverpool Irish.

I am delighted ACIS is coming to Liverpool -- it will be my privilege as
Dean of Arts to welcome delegates to England's most celtic city. Best
wishes, John B

Professor John Belchem
Dean of the Faculty of Arts
University of Liverpool
12 Abercromby Square
Liverpool L69 7WZ
email: j.c.belchem[at]liv.ac.uk
phone: (0)151-794-2457
fax: (0)151-794-2454

From: patrick maume
Sender: P.Maume[at]Queens-Belfast.AC.UK
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D ACIS, Liverpool

From: Patrick Maume
I'm planning to do a paper for ACIS Liverpool on William Cooke Taylor
(1800-49), Whig commentator and political economist from Youghal. He spent
most of the 1830s and 1840s in London writing for papers such as the
ATHENAEUM (that's the Irish Diaspora link).
Does anyone have a panel proposal this paper might fit into, or are they
interested in getting in touch with me to organise one? The paper might fit
into a panel on pre-Famine Ireland generally, political economy and
modernisation, the O'Connell era, the Famine (Taylor defended government
policy - he was working for Lord Clarendon in Dublin at the time of his
death from cholera), Young Ireland and its opponents, education (Taylor was
an ally of Whately and defender of the National Schools), religion or
empire.
If anyone is putting together a panel in these areas and is interested,
can they get in touch with me?
By the way, does anyone know when the Call For Papers is likely to go out?
Best wishes,
Patrick
----------------------
patrick maume

Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Our attention has been drawn to a new novel...

Hard Shoulder by Peter Woods

Published by that interesting publisher, New Island - which now has a web
site...

http://www.newisland.ie/

'A powerful portrait of an Irish male sensibility...' Yes, indeed.

P.O'S.

From the web site...

?Riveting, at times frightening, totally absorbing ?
I loved this book.?
Colm Tóibín

When McBride, a young Irishman, leaves Co Monaghan for the building sites of
London, he is confronted by a harsh new world and the volatile men who have
mastered and mythologised it.

Quickly overwhelmed by the unrelenting search for work and love, he finds
himself enslaved to the road ahead, embittered by the cold comforts of its
hard shoulders.

But when McBride eventually returns to London, the limits of the heavy
digger's life, its quixotic pursuit of the Big Money, its unreachable
horizons, are brought shockingly and suddenly home.

?This is the missing piece in the jigsaw of Irish narrative. It is a novel
about work and exile and picaresque adventure. In its account of sheer
drudgery, it is a unique chronicle of an age. It is also a powerful portrait
of an Irish male sensibility. Hard Shoulder is written in a spare, stubborn
style, full of quiet poetry, and scenes observed with acute psychological
subtlety. It is riveting, at times frightening, and totally absorbing. I
loved this book.? Colm Tóibín.

Peter Woods' Hard Shoulder is the story of countless unheard voices,
transmuting the haunting interior landscapes of Ireland's unconsidered
exiles into a novel of intense colour and vibrancy. Funny, superbly written,
laced with dialogue that rings like a shovel on steel, this debut is a
canny, knowing, many-splendoured thing.

Euro 12.99

About Peter Woods

Peter Woods was formally the Series Producer of Ireland?s number one
drive-time radio programme, RTÉ?s 5-7 Live. He served his time on building
sites in London and Germany, and as a barman in Dublin.

Hard Shoulder is his first novel. Previous work has been broadcast on RTÉ?s
Sunday Miscellany.

Married with children and living in Dublin, Peter is now making factual
programmes and documentaries for RTÉ.

Email Patrick O'Sullivan

The June 2003 issue of the journal Folklore was a special, focusing on
research on traditional drama.

Two articles are of special interest to Irish Diaspora Studies - abstracts
pasted in below. In the version of the contents on the journals web site
these articles are confusingly named.

I have pasted in also web site addresses giving some background on one of
the articles, Eddie Cass and colleagues on the Peace Egg Book. (As ever,
note that your own email line breaks might fracture long web addresses - you
might have to reconstruct...)

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~tdrg/Forum/TD_Forum_8_News.htm

http://www.arts.ulst.ac.uk/academy/Mumm_abstracts.htm

http://www.hawkhurst.freeserve.co.uk/fmcmag/easter%202002/harkness/john_hark
ness_publisher.htm

Eddie Cass and colleagues will be of interest to anyone who has read with
interest the works of Alan Gailey. And who has not?

The reference to an 'Irish text' in the Abstract means an 'Irish text'
within the study of traditional drama. The text is in the English language
and has clear connections with English language texts found in Ireland.

Cass provides something more than a footnote to studies of printing for
Irish markets in C19th England. Though he does provide that. One of his
sources, giving context, is Mervyn Busteed's work on the Irish in
Manchester.

Just thinking out loud - there has been some study of the Irish Sea as an
economic unit, with work and workers moving around the major cities and
towns. Cass's study suggests that we think of the Irish Sea in the
industrial age as a cultural network too.

P.O'S.


RESEARCH ARTICLE: FOCUS ON TRADITIONAL DRAMA

Folklore, June 2003, vol. 114, no. 1, pp. 29-52(24)

Cass E.; Preston M.J.; Smith P.

Abstract:
This article reports on the discovery of a copy of The Peace Egg Book, a
previously unknown chapbook printed in Manchester, UK. The chapbook, which
has an Irish text, is set within the contexts of printing and of the Irish
community in mid-nineteenth-century Manchester. The textual links between
The Peace Egg Book and the Belfast Christmas Rhime Books are analysed, as
are the parallels to an Irish-influenced oral tradition set out in a
manuscript of 1842. The article establishes the importance of the chapbook
in linking together Irish and Lancashire traditional play chapbooks.

Document Type: Research article ISSN: 0015-587X

DOI (article): NO_DOI
SICI (online): 0015-587X(20030601)114:1L.29;1-

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

RESEARCH ARTICLE: FOCUS ON TRADITIONAL DRAMA

Folklore, June 2003, vol. 114, no. 1, pp. 53-73(21)

Millington P.

Abstract:
The Christmas play hitherto attributed to Mylor is here re-ascribed to Truro
in the late 1780s, using biographical information concerning the actors and
physical characteristics of the manuscript. It becomes the oldest Saint
George play to feature Father Christmas and the Turkish Knight, and has
textual parallels with Irish folk plays.

Document Type: Research article ISSN: 0015-587X

DOI (article): NO_DOI
SICI (online): 0015-587X(20030601)114:1L.53;1-

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

From: "Siobhan Maguire"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D ACIS, Liverpool, Session on Miners

William,
I don't know of anyone who is working on this subject but my father came
over to Britain shortly after the war and worked in mines around Nottingham.
Siobhan Maguire

- ----- Original Message -----
> From: "William Mulligan Jr."
> To:
> Subject: Session for ACIS
>
> The American Conference for Irish Studies is meeting in Liverpool in
> mid-July 2004. James Walsh and I are trying to put together a session
> on Irish miners in the Diaspora as well as in Ireland. If anyone is
interested
> in presenting a paper, especially if it is a non-US topic, let me know.
> Thanks.
>

From: patrick maume
Sender: P.Maume[at]Queens-Belfast.AC.UK
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D ACIS, Liverpool, General excitement 2

From: Patrick Maume
No objections so far as I am concerned. Look forward to Paddy's paper on
John Denvir, provided my own paper is not on at the same time.
Best wishes,
Patrick
>
> Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
> This ACIS/BAIS/CAIS/EFACIS Conference comes as close to my doorstep as
> any reasonable person can expect. Liverpool is just over the
> Pennines, then on a bit... And I am a member of ACIS/BAIS/CAIS...
> Not Efacis, because I don't think of myself as a 'Centre'...
>
> I am writing up my paper on John Denvir - working title, 'A portable
> identity: John Denvir and the invention of the Irish.' An obvious
> Liverpool connection.
>
> I was also thinking that maybe we should have some sort of gathering
> of the Irish-Diaspora list, if we can find a venue and agree this with
> the organisers. Drinkies and nibbles. But maybe something a little
> more organised. Maybe make our Ir-D database available for inspection
> at the event - for through the database we now have a very simple way
> of showing what Irish Diaspora Studies does... Would there be any
objections to that?
>
> Paddy
>

Email Patrick O'Sullivan

This ACIS/BAIS/CAIS/EFACIS Conference comes as close to my doorstep as any
reasonable person can expect. Liverpool is just over the Pennines, then on
a bit... And I am a member of ACIS/BAIS/CAIS... Not Efacis, because I
don't think of myself as a 'Centre'...

I am writing up my paper on John Denvir - working title, 'A portable
identity: John Denvir and the invention of the Irish.' An obvious
Liverpool connection.

I was also thinking that maybe we should have some sort of gathering of the
Irish-Diaspora list, if we can find a venue and agree this with the
organisers. Drinkies and nibbles. But maybe something a little more
organised. Maybe make our Ir-D database available for inspection at the
event - for through the database we now have a very simple way of showing
what Irish Diaspora Studies does... Would there be any objections to that?

Paddy


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

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

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

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

Email Patrick O'Sullivan


I think this new article by James W. Cook will interest many Ir-D list
members - those intested in the history of New York, Five Points, the slum,
minstrelsy, dance... The article is freely available on the web at the
Common-Place site...
http://www.common-place.org/

Cook, James W. "Dancing across the color line: mixtures and markets from New
York's Five Points."
Full-Text: http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-01/cook/

Cook starts with the famous visit by Charles Dickens to Five Points, one of
'classic slums', where the world-wide 'discourse of the slum' was generated.
Cook, and Dickens, reveal this to slum to be an inter-racial zone - which
Cook explores further through study of the 'flash press' of the time,
finally homing in on the famous dancing competition between 'Juba' and John
Diamond...

'For evidence of the hopelessly mixed racial origins of U.S. popular
culture, this is about as good as it gets. What the letter demonstrates is
not simply that Irish immigrants like Diamond imitated black dance moves
performed in interracial contact zones, but that one of the first,
putatively white imitators was in fact a black man who performed in
blackface...'

The Further Reading section at the end of the article is very helpful.

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

Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Yes, the Cercles web site got Merlin Holland's name wrong...

http://www.cercles.com/review/R12/holland7.htm

And I did not spot it.

Because I was thinking of my friend who is called Melvin.

I have met Merlin Holland many times, and should have known...

I will make the correction in our Archive.

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

Email Patrick O'Sullivan

For information...

P.O'S.


Nation-State, Devolution and the Parliamentary Discourse of Minority
Languages

Journal of Language and Politics, 2003, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 5-30(26)

Wilson J.[1]; Stapleton K.[1]

[1] University of Ulster

Abstract:
Devolution in the UK has engendered debates about which language (or
languages) should be the language of parliament in the respective regional
institutions. Simultaneously, the European Union, while officially endorsing
cultural and linguistic diversity, is moving towards a supranational state
which operates alongside devolution and regional autonomies. In this
context, the contestation of the language of parliamentary discourse can be
seen as a site of power struggle and political negotiation. The present
analysis focuses on a specific example of regional parliamentary discourse
from Northern Ireland, in which Members debate the desirability of using
Ulster-Scots and Irish, alongside English, in official House proceedings.
This can be seen to operationalise "language" in specific, but interrelated,
argumentative contexts: (a) as a form of agreed and formally recognised
communication; (b) as a natural right, reflecting individual culture or
heritage; (c) as a legal and formal right; (d) as a political symbol. These
themes are discussed in terms of "nationalist" and "sovereign" state
arguments, with reference to both the political context of Northern Ireland,
and the processes of devolution and supranationalism, in the broader
political arena.

Keywords: Parliamentary discourse; minority languages; devolution;
regionalism; supranationalism; linguistic diversity

Document Type: Research article ISSN: 1569-2159

DOI (article): NO_DOI
SICI (online): 1569-2159(20030101)2:1L.5;1-

From: "Bruce Stewart"
Subject: New Voices: Paper Call (Reminder)


Dear Friends,

Please allow me to insert a reminder of the Paper Call for the forthcoming
"New Voices" conference to be held in UU (Magee) in Feb. 2004. The details
are posted on the website of the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages, and
copied on the PGIL-EIRData Conference Table page. Here are broad details as
reported in
EIRData:

"The Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages (AICH) at the University of Ulster
is pleased to announce that it will host "New Voices 2004", being the 6th
annual event in the "New Voices in Irish Criticism" series, now to be held
at the University's Magee Campus in Derry during 6-8 February 2004. Since
its inception in 1999, the series has become established as the premier
forum for emerging scholars in Irish Studies, with highly-regarded
publishing outcomes in each successive conference generation.

"The organising committee is now inviting papers from research students in
all fields of Irish Studies - including anthropology, cultural theory,
folklore, gender studies, geography, history, languages, literature, music,
philosophy, popular culture, sociology and theology. Defining 'Irish
Studies' broadly, the conference welcomes contributions on all aspects of
the study of Ireland, as well as on non-Irish topics by scholars working
from Ireland, north or south. New Voices aims to provide an opportunity for
research students in Ireland to discuss and debate their work, and also
welcomes the participation of doctoral students and other writers and
researchers from Britain, continental Europe, North America, Australia and
Asia.

Conference attendance is free apart from accommodation.
Abstracts for 20-minute papers of 150 words length should be submitted by 1
December to the following mail address: "New Voices", Academy for Irish
Cultural Heritages, Aberfoyle House, University of Ulster, Magee Campus,
Northland Rd., Derry BT48 7JL; or send by email to Willa Murphy at
W.Murphy[at]ulster.ac.uk (AICH/UU)." The conference website can be found at:
http://www.arts.ulst.ac.uk/academy/nv.htm

The EIRData Conference table can be reached at:
http://www.pgil-
eirdata.org/html/pgil_bulletin/current/conference_table.htm

[Please note that this is a shortcut and may include defective spaces on
your browser. The full site is only available at
http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/ - then proceed to Bulletin/Conference Table.]

Thanks, Bruce.

bsg.stewart[at]ulst.ac.uk
Languages & Lit/English
University of Ulster
tel 44 (0)28 703 24355

?Have you seen our website?
http://www.pgil-eirdata.org

fax 44 (0)28 703 24963

From: Carmel McCaffrey
Subject: Re: Ir-D Article, Burke and Boredom

Another recommendation would be to read "An Apology for Idlers" by Charles
Lamb. I first read this in school and have used it all my life when I feel
like doing nothing!

Carmel McC

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

>Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
>For information...
>
>I have a wicked trick which has worked well on my own children. If a
>child says 'I'm bored', I launch forth: 'Boredom is a very precious gift.
>Without boredom there would be no human creativity... ' Etc, etc.
>They soon get tired of being bored and find something else to do.
>
>P.O'S.
>

From: Joe Bradley
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: RE: Ir-D ACIS, Liverpool, Session on miners 3

In the Scottish west central belt (particularly in Lanarkshire) but even in
Fife and the Lothians, thousands of Irish worked in mining - see Mick McGahy
etc. Deep mining as well as Clay pit mining - popular in smaller areas like
Glenboig (which was linked to nearby Croy, Moodiesburn, Muirhead etc) just
outside of Glasgow. I think many of those involved came from areas of the
Irish midlands - certainly in Glenboig where many came from Offaly, Wicklow,
Carlow, Westmeath etc. In addition, in parts of Scotland Ulster Protestant
communities seemed to have re-located and became miners. Places like
Larkhall became something akin to Protestant mid-Ulster towns. A huge
number of Irish in Scotland worked in heavy industry.

From:
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D ACIS, Liverpool, Session on miners 2

From anecdotal references picked up in my trawls around the occupations of
male migrant labourers, I gather that, apart from Wales where much Wexford
labour gravitated, mining in Britain was not a popular choice with the
Irish.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Irish labour assigned to mining in
the North-East was actively discouraged by the indigenous labour force. This
is understandable, given the community-based nature of the occupation, and
probably didn't faze the more transient Irish unduly. Another factor could
have been the rural backgrounds of so many emigrants; few of them welcomed
work that wasn't out of doors (cf. 'I Could Read the Sky').

Incidentally, I hope the navvies get a mention at this conference...


Ultan cowley














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

From: "William Mulligan Jr." To:
Subject: Session for ACIS The
American Conference for Irish Studies is meeting in Liverpool in
mid-July 2004. James Walsh and I are trying to put together a session
on Irish miners in the Diaspora as well as in Ireland. If anyone is in presenting a paper, especially if it is a non-US topic,
let me know.
Thanks.

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