Subject: Ir-D O'Keeffe/hounds
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What I did in my holidays...

Last weekend I was in London. And was taken along to a milieu quite
outside my usual experience, the Antique Dealers' Fair at Olympia.
Olympia is a huge exhibition hall in the centre of London. And there
there were vast displays of many odd and some beautiful objects - with
extraordinary price tags attached.

Two items...

1. A large painting by John Eaton Walker, from about 1840 - apparently
this man practised in Birmingham and in London. The painting is
entitled - this is copied from a label on the back - 'O'Keeffe the Irish
outlaw discovering the perfidy of his mistress vide ballard poetry of
Ireland'.

O'Keeffe himself is a Rob-Roy-ish figure, standing stage right, in a
posture of astonished outrage - whilst the mistress voluptuates across a
chaise-longue. This is very much a C19th genre painting, and not a
remarkably good painting. The dealers wanted me to admire the skilful
brush work in the depiction of the gold goblet - whilst I was making an
inventory of Irish bandit iconography. (I often find this with art folk
- - they want to discuss technique, I want to discuss content.)

So, this painting has (sort of) Irish content, but is not by an Irish
artist. But what is the story of O'Keeffe and the perfidious mistress?
- - it is not anything in Thomas Moore, that I can recall. Where had the
painter come across his story?

2. Two large - well over 1 metre tall - statues of dogs, made from a
brick-red terracotta material. The dogs are perched on shaped ridge
tiles, of the same red material, and were evidently meant to be the
finials of some big house. Hairy dogs, evidently hounds, and maybe even
wolfhounds. And when I enquired of their provenance I was told by this
dealer that the hounds had indeed 'come from Ireland'.

The hounds are modelled with some panache. They look nineteenth
century. We know - for example, from the work of the O'Shea brothers in
Oxford - that there were certainly artisan artists in Ireland in that
period. The red material suggests perhaps a brick works/tile makers
that was trying to diversify - in England local ceramics manufacturers
tried to diversify by making sculptural objects. It was the work of
Charles Orser that made me want to know more about local Irish pots and
potteries - they've been very little studied.

The hounds were being presented by the dealers as attractive sculptural
objects - they've been mounted on plinths. And priced accordingly.
They seemed to me to be an intriguing part of Ireland's cultural
heritage - and I wanted to know more.

Paddy O'Sullivan





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

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

Subject: Ir-D Liverpool
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In response to Kerby Miller's request for more information.

The two books I mentioned are:

Pat O'Mara, 'The autobiography of a Liverpool Irish slummy', London: Martin
Hopkinson Ltd, 1934 and
Pat O'Mara, 'Irish slummy in America', London: Martin Hopkinson Ltd, 1935.

As Paddy indicated, the second book largely consists of an account of
O'Mara's experiences as a taxi driver in Baltimore. (By the way, having
recently been driven round in circles by a non-English speaking taxi driver
in London and having experienced many foreign taxi drivers in Australia and
the U.S., I wonder if anyone has seriously studied taxi driving as an
occupation for immigrants - Irish or otherwise?) Does anyone know anything
about O'Mara, aside from what is in his books? He appears to have been
born around 1900, but some of the chronology in the books doesn't seem to
add up to me and I am wondering how true they are.

The thesis I mentioned is: Martha Kanya-Forstner, Gender, ethnicity and the
politics of poverty: Irish women in Victorian Liverpool, unpublished Ph.D.
thesis, University of Liverpool, 1997.

Elizabeth Malcolm

Subject: Ir-D IASIL, Barcelona, 1999
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IASIL, the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures,
has announced its next Conference and has issued a Call for Papers...

The 1999 Conference will be in Barcelona, 26-29 July 1999, organised by
El Departament de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya.

The theme is...
Irish Literatures at Century's End

Sub-themes include History and Politics in Irish Literatures, Irish
Literatures and Europe, Utopia and Dystopia, Gender, Cinema, Teaching
Irish Literatures, etc., etc.

Deadline for proposals: January 8 1999

Contact person: Jacqueline Hurtley


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

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

Subject: Ir-D Irish Cultural Studies, Liverpool
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Forwarded on behalf of

Conor macCarthy

The Autumn meeting of the North West Irish Cultural Studies Group will
be at the Institute of Irish Studies, 1 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, on
December 2 at 7.30 pm. As usual two short papers will be given:

Professor Marianne Elliott, Director, Institute of Irish Studies
Community Relations in C19th Ulster

Michael Parker, Liverpool Hope University College
'Opened Ground'? Northern Irish Fiction since the Ceasefire

There will be an opportunity to meet other colleagues over a glass of
wine after the formal part of the meeting.

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

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

Subject: Ir-D History Ireland, Winter 1998
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History Ireland, Vol. 6, No. 4, Winter 1998, is now being distributed.

This issue is a good read, though there are not many items of specific
interest to Irish Diaspora Studies. The main articles are

'Ireland and the European Reformation', Karl S. Bottigheimer (State U of
New York) and Ute Lotz-Heumann (Humboldt U, Berlin). Makes the
perfectly valid point that Ireland was not the only place in Europe
where the post-Reformation principle _cuius regio, eius religio_ did not
apply. But the main examples given - Lutheran Brandenburg or Lemgo
resisting their ruler's Calvinism - do not cross the Protestant/Catholic
divide. The authors arguments might have been developed further if they
had looked at other examples of Catholic resistance to surrounding
Protestantism - eg the Catholics of Zurich.

'Lord Edward Fitgerald: the creation of an icon', Fintan Cullen - looks
at the woodcuts and the paintings, and subsequent use made of them.

'Nelson's Pillar: a controversy that ran & ran', Micheal O Riain. The
history of the Dublin landmark, its creation and its irritating presence
until its partial destruction by explosives by 'a group of young men' in
March 1966. 'Someone knows the truth... No one is talking...'

As a young man in Dublin in the early 1960s I climbed up the internal
stairway to the top of Nelson's Column, and admired the view. Nowadays
in Dublin I look at an empty space in the sky and think, I once stood
there. Spooky.

'Carnegie Libraries in Ireland', Brendan Grimes. Interesting survey of
some charming buildings, with some account of Carnegie's procedures.

'In Our Own Image: the branding of industrial Ireland', Bernard Shane.
Survey of Irish brand names throughout this century, with small section
on Irish language in advertising - some names leapt the language
boundary, eg Aer Lingus but not Cumann Luthchleas Gael.

'The Statute Staple in Early Modern Ireland', Jane Ohlmeyer. The
'staple', initially a C13th century organisation of trade in basic
goods, became a sure way for traders to recover debts. Loans were
recorded - three registers, covering 1596-1637, 1664-78, have survived
and have been made into a computerised CD-Rom database. One pattern to
emerge is the decline in economic power of Catholic gentry.

'Exhibiting 1798: Three recent exhibitions', Elizabeth Crooke.
Exhibitions in Belfast, Dublin and Enniscorthy contrasted.

Reviews
McGuinness, Harrison, Kearney, eds., John Toland's Christinaity Not
Mysterious: text, associated work and critical essays. Lengthy review
by Charles Ludington.

Connolly, ed., Oxford Comp to Irish History. Quite critical review by
Michael O Siochni - eg Thomas Preston entry 3 dates wrong.

Dungan, They Shall Not Grow Old: Irish Soldiers and the Great War.
Review by Timothy Bowman. Again critical. Too much use of Putkowski &
Sykes, no use of Fitzpatrick or Tom Dooley. Looks briefly at Irish in
Anzac forces, but no corresponding assessment of Irish in Canadian or US
armies. But a popular, lively history.

McGurk, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland; the 1590s Crisis.
Ecstatic Review by Vincent Carey. Quarrels only with the title - this
is really a book about the distorting effects of the Irish wars on
England, 'a plague sent against the English', 'England's Vietnam...'

I recently had a letter from John McGurk, now retired from Liverpool to
County Mayo. This book will most probably be his last major
contribution, and it is deeply pleasing to see that it has been so well
received. Deservedly well received.

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

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