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Subject: seattletimes.com: Ireland's booming population a challenge
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The following item has been brought to our attention....


Ireland's booming population a challenge
Full story:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003843430_ireland19.html

By Eamon Quinn
The New York Times


DUBLIN, Ireland -- Ireland is dealing with growing pains.

In four years, the Irish population swelled by 322,645, roughly split
between immigrants and births, according to a survey completed in April
2006. That lifted the total population to 4.2 million.

No European Union country has a younger population: Statistically, the Irish
have been barely aging at all, with the median age staying close to 33. The
country will remain young for decades, say the experts, and escape the
"graying" fate of the rest of Europe.

Further, demographers now predict that the population could rise to more
than 5 million in about a dozen years, and to 6 million within a generation.
The population changes have been uneven geographically. New houses stretch
in a wide arc from north Dublin to the west of the city. But the city's
core, despite being replenished by an influx of immigrants, has lost
residents to the suburbs and to once unimaginably distant commuting centers
in the midlands. In the south, the city of Cork shrank while the county
grew.

Eunan King, an economist at NCB Stockbrokers in Dublin, has argued that a
rising population -- more workers and more consumers -- will help sustain
Ireland's remarkable economic renaissance of the past dozen years.

The largest increases in immigration since 2002 have been from Poland,
Lithuania and Nigeria. The latest census showed 63,276 Poles living
permanently in Ireland, up from 2,124 four years earlier. In some small
districts in Dublin, Limerick and Cork, the census showed, 52 percent of
residents were non-Irish, said Aidan Punch, a senior census statistician.

Ireland permits all residents, not just Irish citizens, to cast ballots in
local elections. That has helped immigrants win seats in local councils. The
mayor of the midlands town of Portlaoise, Rotimi Adebari, is from Nigeria.

To encourage assimilation, the government recently named a minister for
integration, Conor Lenihan.

Lenihan said his department would investigate ways to provide extensive
language classes for adult immigrants and to increase training for unskilled
local Irish workers.

But immigrants' representatives say the government needs to do more.

"Ireland should be taking a lead in Europe," said Jean-Pierre Eyanga
Ekumeloko, a naturalized Irish citizen from Congo and a co-founder of
Integrating Ireland, a support group for immigrants.

Ekumeloko said the Irish prime minister should lay out a plan for welcoming
and integrating immigrants. He said many were working jobs for which they
were overqualified. "A lot of things have changed in interactions between
the Irish community and immigrants," he said, adding that in the past he had
heard racist remarks. "Things have changed very positively. Now Irish people
know Africans."


Copyright (c) 2007 The Seattle Times Company
www.seattletimes.com

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From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Review, Razmik Panossian, The Armenians
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A Review of: "Razmik Panossian, The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to
Merchants and Commissars"
New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Pp. 442. $40.00 (hbk). ISBN
0-231-13926-8.
Author: William Safran a
Affiliation: a University of Colorado at Boulder,

DOI: 10.1080/13537110701451728
Published in: Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Volume 13, Issue 3 July 2007
, pages 493 - 496


This book is a comprehensive exploration of the evolution of the Armenian
ethnonation in virtually all its dimensions: from its locally fixed
beginnings to the multilocal and multicultural reality of the contemporary
period. Using the tools of history, political science, and sociology, Razmik
Panossian discusses the relative importance of the various markers of
Armenian collective identity, among them historical memory, religion,
language, and geography. The author, himself raised in several cultures and
incarnating the complex identities formed in the diaspora, demonstrates a
thorough familiarity with the background, preoccupations, and internal
tensions of an old and complex civilization.

The author places his analysis in the context of general theories about
nationalism and national identity formation. He deals with the meanings of
nation, ethnie, and diaspora in general and insofar as they relate to the
Armenian case. He also takes up the debate about the various connotations of
diaspora from its narrow "classic" definition (as applying to Jews,
Armenians, Greeks, and Palestinians, for example) to the "long-distance
nationalism" of a very broad category of people living outside their
homeland (pp. 311-14). In discussing the question of the continuity of
Armenian ethnonational identity, Panossian raises questions about the
applicability of Gellner's notion of homogenization as a necessary condition
for the development of industrial society. He argues (pp. 273-4) that while
in the Soviet Union the maintenance of Armenian identity was facilitated by
federal institutions, a pluralistic ethnocultural policy (at least in the
formal sense) and a nationalities policy that "fixed" that identity
officially, these were insufficient to explain the persistence of Armenian
ethnonational consciousness. Much of the book deals with the reasons for
that persistence.

Members of the Armenian diaspora fulfilled important intermediate functions
as merchants, financiers, and scholarly mediators between East and West (p.
74f), and their cosmopolitan orientations and connections contributed
greatly to the modernization of the host society; yet despite periods of
calm and prosperity, the Armenian diaspora lacked political power and was
dependent on the good will of the hostland rulers. At the same time, in the
absence of adequate cultural production in the homeland, the diaspora
communities "became major agents of identity maintenance" (p. 90).

Language played a crucial role in the formation of the modern Armenian
nation, and, as in many other nation-formation processes, especially in
Europe, the vernacular language won out over the hegemonic classical
language of the elite (pp. 133ff). But there emerged two competing popular
idioms and literatures, an Eastern and Western one, which reflected the
continuing rivalries between the Ottoman and Russian Armenians, and
ultimately, the Western diasporas (p. 148). In addition, there developed an
Armenian diasporic variant of the hostland language, exemplified by a
Turkish dialect written in the Armenian alphabet.

What strikes the reader is the fact that in all these particulars, the
Armenian diaspora suggests parallels to a number of other diasporas, notably
that of the Jews. The diaspora was an influential factor in the
politicization of the Armenian ethnie, that is, its growing nationalism.
Printing played an important role in this process; nevertheless, the author
insists, in a theoretical excursus, on the limited applicability of
Anderson's "print capitalism" to the Armenian situation (pp. 94-7), because
Armenian identity predated the invention of printing.

The author explores the place of the Armenian minority in the political
process, both in the Ottoman Empire and the diaspora, and the variable
nature of Armenian identity in the Soviet Union, the Middle East, Europe,
and the United States. He shows how the political and ideological
mobilization of that identity was affected by the particular context of
these hostlands, and how Armenian diaspora nationalism was influenced by the
nature of their polities and their prevailing ideologies. It is not
surprising, for instance, that although "[Armenian] diasporan national
identity was constructed on the model of the 'organic' eastern notion of
nationhood" (p. 293), it was in the secular republican atmosphere of
interwar France that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation could be formed,
with its notion of national liberation founded on a mass-based socialist
ideology. At the same time, Armenian national mobilization in the Western
democracies, such as the United States and France, was moderated, if not
impeded, by internal divisions as well as the assimilative and integrative
possibilities and pressures prevailing in these countries (a reality that
explains why the elite, which defined "Armenianness," was relatively
unsuccessful in developing Armenian educational institutions, at least until
the 1960s. It also explains why language, despite its formative role, has
not figured importantly as a marker of Armenian identity in recent years,
especially in the West.).

Modern Armenian nationalism was strongly influenced by the nationalist
ideologies of nineteenth-century Europe. Although this nationalism was
largely secular, it could not be dissociated entirely from religion. The
Armenian Apostolic church, with its imageries, rituals, ethnosymbols, and
monuments - and, indeed, the notion of the "holiness" of the Armenian nation
- has continued to be important in buttressing Armenian collective identity
despite the progressive secularization of Armenians, both in the homeland
and the diaspora (p. 199). Under Soviet rule, the ethnoreligious element of
Armenian identity had to compete with the counter-ideologies of communism
and materialism, but it was never suppressed, in part because religious
leaders accommodated themselves in a formal sense to the Soviet regime. The
religious connection has been maintained in the post-Soviet era owing to the
continuing involvement of the Church in Armenian affairs, an involvement
that has made for the intertwining of politics, theology, and ideology. The
book refers in detail to the incorporation of Armenians into the Soviet
Union, and contains long stretches of chronology of the gradual
sovietization of Armenian life (pp. 242-61) and the territorial dispute with
Azerbaijan.

Since the majority of Armenians live outside their historic homeland, the
diaspora figures importantly in this book. There is a continuing orientation
to the homeland; there is a myth of return, but it is weak, and the actual
return to the homeland has been disappointing because the diaspora has
become an independent center of Armenian life. The relationship between
diaspora and homeland is a symbiotic one, marked by complementaries, mutual
support, clashing priorities, and misunderstandings. The diaspora extends
financial and diplomatic help and engages in lobbying for homeland
interests, especially in the United States. An increasingly attenuated
Armenian ethnonational consciousness is periodically reawakened by special
circumstances, as it was during the Armenian earthquake in 1988. The
Armenian diaspora is also - and today perhaps primarily - concerned with
symbolic satisfactions, such as keeping the memory of the genocide alive,
and continuing efforts at getting Turkey to admit its responsibility for it.
For many Armenians, "feeling Armenian" cannot be explained simply by
reference to descent, the church, or the ancestral homeland; and what is
important is a "symbolic ethnicity," in which "affiliation is coming to
replace filiation (p. 306). In the face of this, the task of the elite in
maintaining a "core" ethnic identity that can be passed to the next
generation is a daunting one.

The book is a first-rate piece of scholarship. It is exhaustively
documented; its footnote references alone are accompanied by details that
greatly amplify and complement the text, and the provision of population
statistics and other hard data is balanced by numerous poetic evocations of
Armenian feelings. The book may well serve as a model for the study of other
diaspora nations.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Article, The End Of the Affair: Irish Migration,
9/11 and the Evolution of Irish-America
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The End Of the Affair: Irish Migration, 9/11 and the Evolution of
Irish-America
Author: Feargal E. Cochrane a
Affiliation: a Lancaster University,
Published in: journal Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Volume 13, Issue 3
July 2007 , pages 335 - 366
Subjects: Citizenship; Nationalism; Race & Ethnic Studies;


Abstract
This article examines the changing relationship between Ireland and the
United States in the 21st Century and argues that the new security climate
within the US following the 9/11 attacks (combined with long-term social
changes in both countries) is having a major impact on the relationship
between Ireland and the US. The central argument is that Irish-America is
undergoing a period of fundamental change, caused by a combination of
short-term political factors linked to the attacks of 11 September 2001 and
their aftermath, together with longer-term economic and social trends taking
place in Ireland which has greatly reduced the flow of migrants from Ireland
to the US.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Article,
Convent Schools and National Education in Nineteenth-Century
Ireland: Negotiating a Place within a Non-denominational System
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Convent Schools and National Education in Nineteenth-Century Ireland:
Negotiating a Place within a Non-denominational System
Authors: Deirdre Raftery; Catherine Nowlan-Roebuck

DOI: 10.1080/00467600600874344
Published in: journal History of Education, Volume 36, Issue 3 May 2007 ,
pages 353 - 365
Subject: History of Education;
Also incorporating: Journal of Sources in Educational Histor


Abstract
This Article does not have an abstract.

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From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Article,
The Human Body as a Terrorist Weapon: Hunger Strikes and Suicide
Bombers
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The Human Body as a Terrorist Weapon: Hunger Strikes and Suicide Bombers
Authors: James Dingley a; Marcello Mollica b

Affiliations: a Northern Light Review, Belfast, Ireland, United
Kingdom
b University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom
DOI: 10.1080/10576100701329592

Published in: journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 30, Issue 6
June 2007 , pages 459 - 492
Subject: Terrorism;

Abstract
This article argues that a major factor in terrorist acts is an appeal to
the actor's own community at an emotional and symbolic level, through acts
of sacrifice, particularly self-sacrifice. Although other aims also exist, a
prime concern is to recall the actor's home audience to the struggle,
because the actor regards himself as acting on their behalf. This utilizes
the imagery and symbolism of traditional religion, implying a strong
communal and non-material impetus to terrorist acts, rather than rational
material calculation, that modern Western man finds difficult to comprehend.
It also recalls much classical social theory, which emphasized the central
role of religion in community. Self-sacrifice tells an emotional story to
the actor's community that is comprehensible to them and will have an
emotional appeal to maintaining the community. For the Northern Ireland
hunger strikes (possibly analogous to suicide bombers) this is reflected in
their appeal solely to a Catholic/nationalist community that equates
strongly with ideas of a pre-modern society under threat from a modernizing
society. All the hunger strikers were very normal for their community, but
left non-Catholics completely unmoved. Consequently there is a need to
understand the communal dynamics behind terrorism if one is to effectively
counter the threat and that different societies may have different values
regarding the individual, community, and life itself. Individual motivations
do not provide an adequate explanation for much terrorism and it is a
failure to grasp this that severely hinders much counterterrorism.

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Subject: Article, Fighting an Antaean Enemy
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Fighting an Antaean Enemy: How Democratic States Unintentionally Sustain the
Terrorist Movements They Oppose
Author: Tom Parker - Tom Parker is a Ph.D. candidate in the Political
Science Department at Brown University, and a former British
counterterrorism official. He has taught classes on trends in international
terrorism and counterterrorism at Yale University and Bard College and is a
member of the adjunct faculty of the Defense Institute of International
Legal Studies in Newport, Rhode Island.a
Affiliation: a Department of Political Science, Brown University,
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
DOI: 10.1080/09546550701246809

Published in: journal Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume 19, Issue 2
June 2007 , pages 155 - 179

Abstract
Terrorist groups have yet to attract the same level of academic interest as
other social movement organizations (SMOs), although they are well suited to
the analytical approach pioneered by Ted Gurr, Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow,
and Charles Tilly. Social constructivism offers a valuable frame with which
to assess state responses to terrorism. Carlos Marighela argued that one of
the principal goals of the urban guerrilla was to goad the state into a
spasm of overreaction that would undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the
public. This article takes Marighela's concept one step further, arguing
that by adopting repressive counterterrorism policies, democratic states
"socially construct" more resilient, more aggressive terrorist
organizations. Like Hercules' antagonist Antaeas in Greek mythology,
terrorist groups draw their strength from their surrounding environment.
Successful counterterrorism strategies erode popular support for terrorism
and unsuccessful ones contribute to it. This paper examines the experiences
of five democratic states - the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Italy, and
Israel - from this perspective and concludes that when confronting
terrorism, the greatest challenge of all is to adopt and maintain a measured
response to terrorist outrages.
Keywords: frame amplication; precipitating incident; relative deprivation;
social movement organization; state construction

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Subject: Conference on Migration and Vulnerability
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Forwarded from H-Migration.

This may be of interest to the list.


13 - 15 October 2008 - Conference on Migration and Vulnerability -
Call for Pre-Registration

The International Conference on Migration and Vulnerability is
conceived to explore the inherent scientific issues by particularly
addressing the aspects environmental drivers of migration; migration
as a coping strategy to reduce vulnerability; temporary and permanent
migration; environmentally forced migration; assessment of migratory
fluxes due to environmental drivers; and geographical distribution
and trends in vulnerability and migration. The conference will take
place in Bonn, Germany.
The conference is conceived to attract a multidisciplinary audience
of academics, practitioners, and professionals from organizations
that assist migrants and/or shape migration policy and humanitarian
assistance. We welcome individuals across sectors-including academia,
public offices and ministries, NGOs, donors, humanitarian
organizations-to participate in the conference.
The approach of the International Conference on Migration and
Vulnerability is multidisciplinary, encompassing natural and social
sciences, engineering, and scientific understanding with business,
policy responses, and citizen participation. The event will be a
venue for the sharing knowledge about migration and vulnerability
patterns particularly related to environmental drivers, and seeking
solutions to some of the vulnerability factors (social, economic,
environmental) that contribute to migration.
Call for Abstracts
Potential authors are invited to submit an abstract related to
migration and vulnerability, including the causes of migration and
links between migration and vulnerability, patterns of migration and
vulnerability, including methodological approaches and case studies,
policy recommendations, and strategy development.
The abstract deadline is 15 March 2008.
The conference is organised by the United Nations University
Institute for Environment and Human Security, in collaboration with
partner organizations from the EACH-FOR Project, and other
collaborating organizations such as UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, and the
Munich Re Foundation.
For more information please download the flyer.
http://www.ehs.unu.edu/file.php?id=257

Bill Mulligan

William H. Mulligan, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor of History
Graduate Program Coordinator
Murray State University
Murray KY 42071-3341 USA
Office: 1-270-809-6571
Fax: 1-270-809-6587

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Subject: Article,
The limits of commodification in traditional Irish music sessions
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The limits of commodification in traditional Irish music sessions

Author: Kaul, AdamR.

Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 13,
Number 3, September 2007 , pp. 703-719(17)

Publisher: Blackwell Publishing


Abstract:
This article analyses the economics of paid-for traditional Irish music
sessions in Doolin, County Clare in the Republic of Ireland. In part, it
takes up Shepherd's recent call for research on the commodification of
culture in tourist destinations. It is argued here that =
`commodification'
should be distinguished from the more general process of
`commercialization'. I suggest that commercialization is simply the =
build-up
of commercial relationships surrounding the production of an activity or =
an
object, while commodification, following Helgasson and Palsson, is the
intensive sequestering of that production into the realm of =
commensurable
exchange-values. This clarification has important theoretical and =
political
implications. Theoretically, the distinction bolsters and extends the
critique of the notion of `authenticity' in tourist destinations. In =
turn,
this legitimizes the credibility of commercialized activities if and =
when
productive control remains primarily in the hands of the producers
themselves.=20

R=E9sum=E9
L'auteur analyse l'=E9conomie des soir=E9es payantes de musique =
traditionnelle
irlandaise dans les comt=E9s de Doolin et Clare, en r=E9publique =
d'Irlande. Il
r=E9pond en partie =E0 l'appel r=E9cent de Sheperd en faveur d'une =
recherche sur
la marchandisation de la culture dans les destinations touristiques. Il
avance ici que la =AB marchandisation =BB doit =EAtre distingu=E9e du =
processus plus
g=E9n=E9ral de =AB commercialisation =BB et sugg=E8re que la =
commercialisation est
simplement la cr=E9ation de relations commerciales entourant la =
production
d'une activit=E9 ou d'un objet, tandis que la marchandisation est, selon
Helgasson et Palsson, la s=E9questration intensive de cette production =
dans le
domaine des valeurs d'=E9changes commensurables. Cet =E9claircissement a
d'importantes implications th=E9oriques et politiques. En th=E9orie, =
cette
distinction renforce et =E9largit les critiques de la notion =AB =
d'authenticit=E9=BB
dans les destinations touristiques, l=E9gitimant ainsi la =
cr=E9dibilit=E9 des
activit=E9s commercialis=E9es pour autant que le contr=F4le de la =
production reste
en majeure partie entre les mains des producteurs eux-m=EAmes.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2007.00451.x

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Subject: Article,
Holding hope and hopelessness: therapeutic engagements with the
balance of hope
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I thought that this item about family therapy would be of interest - since
there has been recent IR-D discussion of specifically Irish approaches to
Irish problems... This article looks to the Ireland based work of Nollaig
Byrne and Imelda McCarthy - but, of course, their little nod to Irish
history, the notion of a 'Fifth Province', lacks resonances outside Ireland.
This article also links with Nikos Papastergiadis' work on diaspora.

P.O'S.

Journal of Family Therapy

Volume 29 Issue 3 Page 186-202, August 2007

To cite this article: Carmel Flaskas (2007)
Holding hope and hopelessness: therapeutic engagements with the balance of
hope
Journal of Family Therapy 29 (3), 186-202.

Holding hope and hopelessness: therapeutic engagements with the balance of
hope

* Carmel FlaskasaaSenior Lecturer, Social Work Programs, School of
Social Sciences and International Studies, University of NSW, UNSW Sydney
2052, Australia. E-mail: c.flaskas[at]unsw.edu.au

*
aSenior Lecturer, Social Work Programs, School of Social Sciences and
International Studies, University of NSW, UNSW Sydney 2052, Australia.
E-mail: c.flaskas[at]unsw.edu.au

Abstract

Hope and hopelessness are coexisting and powerful experiences in the human
condition. The dynamics of hope and hopelessness within intimate
relationships are complex, and individual and family experiences of hope and
hopelessness are embedded within historical contexts and wider social
processes. This article rests on a relational set of understandings about
hope and hopelessness, and offers a dual exploration. It focuses first on
the complexities of the patterns of hope and hopelessness within families,
and then on the complexities of the therapist's relationship to hope and
hopelessness and the family's experience. Orienting to the balance of hope
in constellations of hope and hopelessness provides one compass point of
therapeutic practice. Reflective practice enables the use of the therapist's
involvement in the therapeutic relationship, and helps the therapist to
witness the coexistence of hope and hopelessness in a way that nurtures hope
and emotionally holds both hope and hopelessness.


EXTRACT
The first idea challenges the assumption that the experiences of hope and
hopelessness exist as opposites and in inverse proportion - so that when
hope is high, hopelessness is low, and vice versa. An alternative
understanding is to think of hope and hopelessness as coexisting
experiences, and to allow for the possibility of strong hope and strong
hopelessness existing side by side. This alternative understanding is more
finely tuned to some difficult human experiences that are often part of the
landscape of presentations in therapy. One could think here of the
territories of loss, abuse, trauma and tragedy, all of which can
simultaneously call forth both strong orientations to resilience and hope as
well as strong experiences of hopelessness. The Irish family therapists
Nollaig Byrne and Imelda McCarthy (2007) write of the relationship of hope
and hopelessness as being a dialectical one, and there are many very fine
descriptions of practice that plot patterns of strong hope and strong
hopelessness (see e.g. Perlesz, 1999; Weingarten, 2000, 2007; Coulter et
al., 2007; Shuda and Just Anna, 2007). These descriptions resonate with the
comment by critic and writer Nikos Papastergiadis: 'of course hope is the
other side of despair - and being closer to one reminds you of the need for
the other' (Papastergiadis in Zournazi, 2002, p. 82).

Byrne, N. and McCarthy, I. (2007) The dialectical structure of hope and
despair: a Fifth Province approach. In C. Flaskas, I. McCarthy and J.
Sheehan (eds) Hope and Despair in Narrative and Family Therapy: Adversity,
Forgiveness and Reconciliation.
London
: Routledge.

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From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Article,
St Columba and the convention at Druimm Cete: peace and politics
at seventh-century Iona
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Early Medieval Europe

Volume 15 Issue 3 Page 315-334, August 2007

To cite this article: James E. Fraser (2007)
St Columba and the convention at Druimm Cete: peace and politics at
seventh-century Iona
Early Medieval Europe 15 (3), 315=96334.
doi:10.1111/j.1468-0254.2007.00208.x

St Columba and the convention at Druimm Cete: peace and politics at
seventh-century Iona

* James E. Fraser 1 1University of Edinburgh=20

*
1University of Edinburgh=20

Abstract

Attendance at the =91convention of kings=92 at Druimm Cete in north-east =
Ireland
is one of the most famous episodes in the career of St Columba or Colum
Cille, who died in 597. Discussion of the significance of this shadowy
summit, largely informed by unreliable late evidence, has hitherto =
focused
upon what (may have) transpired there between kings based in Ireland and
Scotland. The result has been the neglect of the hagiographical =
dimension of
the presentation of Druimm Cete in our principal source, Adomn=E1n's =
Vita
Sancti Columbae, composed c.700. Analysis of this material shows that
Adomn=E1n's information about the convention came from his principal =
source,
composed some sixty years earlier. It reveals moreover that Druimm Cete
assumed prominence within the Columban dossier in the 640s for what it
represented, rather than because of what actually happened there. Once =
the
hagiographical agenda of Vita Sancti Columbae and its principal source =
is
restored to its rightful place in evaluating the text, it emerges that
several of its best-known stories =96 including the story of Columba's
ordination of a Scottish king =96 are much more problematic as witnesses =
to
sixth-century history than is conventionally supposed. As scholars begin =
to
lose their grip upon the historical Columba, however, they grow better =
able
to grasp seventh-century political history in north-east Ireland and =
Gaelic
Scotland.

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Subject: Article, The African Irish
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This little article, based on interviews in a Dublin obstetric hospital,
will interest a number of Ir-D members. Particularly because obstetrics
hospitals featured in recent constitutional discussions.

A feature of the article is the authors' sympathy with the women's wish for
a safe place to give birth...

P.O'S.

Shandy, Dianna J., and David V. Power. "The African Irish." General
Anthropology Bulletin of the General Anthropology Division 14.1 (2007): 1 -
9.

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Apologies for cross posting

Liam

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Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 09:55:07 +0100
Reply-To: UCD Screening Irish America

Sender: UCD Screening Irish America
From: Ruth Barton
Subject: Visiting Research Fellow in Irish Studies
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Visiting Research Fellow in Irish Studies, Centre for Irish Programmes,
Boston College: Ireland, Spring term 2008

Boston College=92s Centre for Irish Programmes, based in Dublin, is =20
pleased to
offer a Visiting Fellowship in Irish Studies. The Fellowship is open =20
to any
scholar of postdoctoral standing working in any area of Irish =20
Studies, and
would be ideal for someone on research leave from their own =20
institution and
seeking a base for their research in Ireland. The Fellow will be =20
given an
office in the Centre for Irish Programmes building at 42 St Stephen=92s =20=

Green,
and full computing and administrative support. The building is in the =20=

heart
of Dublin and a short walk to the National Library and National =20
Archives.
The Centre runs a full lecture and research seminar programme =20
throughout the
year, and the Fellow would be invited to present a lecture during their
tenure. Although there is no stipend attached to the Fellowship, =20
there will
be a payment of =805,000 to the Fellow to assist with travel to Ireland =20=

and
some basic research costs.

The Fellowship is for a period of between two and six months, and is
available from January 2008.

If you wish to apply for the Fellowship, please send a curriculum =20
vitae and
a two page rationale of the research that you wish to undertake while in
Dublin. The deadline for applications is 17 November 2007.

For further information, please contact the Director of the Centre, Mike
Cronin by e-mailing croninmr[at]bc.edu or call 00353-(0)1-6147450. For =20
further
details see: http://www.bc.edu/centers/irish/dublin/


--------------040901020207060805030404--

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Jim McAuley
Subject: BRITISHNESS WITHIN GLOBAL CONTEXTS
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Hi paddy - any chance of circulating this?
BW

Jim

CONFERENCE: BRITISHNESS WITHIN GLOBAL CONTEXTS

The Centre for Constructions and Identity at the University of Huddersfie=
ld is organizing a two day conference to be held on 5th-6th June 2008. The =
main theme of the conference is =91Britishness=92 within global contexts, a=
ddressing such issues as transnationality of identity, British diasporas an=
d the implications of dual citizenship across the former Empire and beyond.=


We seek papers from a range of contributors across disciplinary boundarie=
s to build a coherent and cogent assessment of the importance of Britishnes=
s beyond the current borders of the UK state. The conference will include t=
he following themes:

=95 Philosophical considerations of post-colonial and post-imperial citiz=
enship and identity.
=95 The historical legacy of empire: transnational constructions of Briti=
shness.
=95 British Diasporas and the impact of dual citizenship on identity and =
governance.
=95 Representations of Britishness in non-British national media, educati=
on and culture.
=95 Contemporary debates on the value and legacy of Britishness across wi=
thin the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Commonwealth, Europe, United Stat=
es and elsewhere.

Keynote speakers and plenary participants already confirmed include Profe=
ssor Sir Bernard Crick (University of Edinburgh), Professor Krishan Kumar (=
University of Virginia), Shahid Mailk MP, Professor Christopher G. A. Bryan=
t (University of Salford), and Professor Paul Ward (University of Huddersfi=
eld). Further details of keynote participants to be confirmed.

The conference will provide an integrated programme of presentations from=
invited keynote speakers, plenary sessions, and a number of themed invitat=
ional panels addressing the core themes (including a dedicated post-graduat=
e poster presentation session). We are currently in negotiation with Palgra=
ve with a view to producing an edited volume of selected papers from the co=
nference.

We would invite abstract submissions of 300 words from those interested i=
n presenting papers to the organizers by November 1st 2007.

For further enquiries, please contact:
Dr. Andrew Mycock, Division of Criminology, Politics and Sociology, Unive=
rsity of Huddersfield, HUDDERSFIELD. HD1 3DH
Email: a.j.mycock[at]hud.ac.uk







This transmission is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you r=
eceive it in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and remove it fr=
om your system. If the content of this e-mail does not relate to the busine=
ss of the University of Huddersfield, then we do not endorse it and will ac=
cept no liability.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Visiting Research Fellow in Irish Studies
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

An earlier version of this message - in the form of a forwarded email =
within an IR-D email - was rejected by many institutions' anti-virus =
systems.

It seems right to send the message again.

P.O'S.


Subject: Visiting Research Fellow in Irish Studies

Visiting Research Fellow in Irish Studies, Centre for Irish Programmes,
Boston College: Ireland, Spring term 2008

Boston College=E2=80=99s Centre for Irish Programmes, based in Dublin, =
is =20
pleased to
offer a Visiting Fellowship in Irish Studies. The Fellowship is open =20
to any
scholar of postdoctoral standing working in any area of Irish =20
Studies, and
would be ideal for someone on research leave from their own =20
institution and
seeking a base for their research in Ireland. The Fellow will be =20
given an
office in the Centre for Irish Programmes building at 42 St =
Stephen=E2=80=99s =20
Green,
and full computing and administrative support. The building is in the =20
heart
of Dublin and a short walk to the National Library and National =20
Archives.
The Centre runs a full lecture and research seminar programme =20
throughout the
year, and the Fellow would be invited to present a lecture during their
tenure. Although there is no stipend attached to the Fellowship, =20
there will
be a payment of =E2=82=AC5,000 to the Fellow to assist with travel to =
Ireland =20
and
some basic research costs.

The Fellowship is for a period of between two and six months, and is
available from January 2008.

If you wish to apply for the Fellowship, please send a curriculum =20
vitae and
a two page rationale of the research that you wish to undertake while in
Dublin. The deadline for applications is 17 November 2007.

For further information, please contact the Director of the Centre, Mike
Cronin by e-mailing croninmr[at]bc.edu or call 00353-(0)1-6147450. For =20
further
details see: http://www.bc.edu/centers/irish/dublin/

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Carmel McCaffrey
Subject: Kevin Myers on Irish Immigration
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FYI - from today's Irish Independent site:


The problem isn't racism, it's the tidal wave of immigrants

By Kevin Myers
/Wednesday September 05 2007/

All right, you know about the Government's latest move to outlaw
beggars? Do you really think it's really about beggars? It isn't. It's
about immigrant-beggars, who now throng our streets.

We could, of course, deal with the substantive matter, that of
immigration itself, but instead we prefer to deal with its symptoms --
and in the usual cowardly way in which we address anything which is a
little difficult or embarrassing.

Now look: I'm not a complete fool. People don't turn columnists to read
the same stuff, day after day after day. Yet that's what I've been
doing, endlessly writing on this same subject.

No doubt by this time, the one reader left is some old wino sitting in a
doorway in his own personal pool of warmth, scanning these few column
inches in the belief that these are the greyhound results. No matter.
Here I go again.

Immigration is now not merely the dominant feature of Irish life, it is
the greatest threat to the existence of the Irish nation as a coherent,
and cohesive whole.

No country has ever accepted, never mind assimilated, the volumes of
foreigners now present in this state. We have some 400,000 legal
immigrants; but everyone knows that the army of illegals, especially
Africans and Chinese, is vast, and probably tops 200,000. In all,
Ireland has received at least 600,000 immigrants, most of them within
the past five years. It could be many more. No one has the least idea.

In the US, such immigration would translate into an inward population
movement of 45 million. In the UK, the figure would be nine million.
Needless to say, neither state would be so idiotic or feckless as allow
such vast numbers to enter.

Only Ireland would be so idiotic and so morally lethargic as to allow
such massive inward population movements.

And of course, we haven't got the resources to cope with the
consequences of such an influx. But worse than our lack of resources, is
our lack of courage in confronting the issue.

We do not have policies, but inept evasiveness: and perhaps worst of
all, we have a posturing gallery of home-grown jackanapes ready to
shriek "racism" wherever and whenever they see that things are not going
quite the way that immigrants want.

Thus, on any discussion on RTE, especially from its newsroom, immigrants
are never held responsible for choosing to come here. Instead, we hear
endless complaints that Irish institutions had not prepared themselves
properly for their arrival.

On the News at One on Monday, African after African in Balbriggan
complained there were no places for their children in the existing local
schools.

Not once was the question posed: what was the real reason for the
Africans not having places in schools? Answer: they'd only just come here.

Instead, Africans who were just off the boat were allowed to accuse us
of racism for not having school places awaiting their children.

There's also the Paddy- factor in all this. It's impossible for any
outsider to understand that this state is almost pathologically
incapable of planning anything.

This is the land of the Red Cow Roundabout and motorways without service
stations, rest-stops or toilets. So how could we be expected seven years
ago to have planned school-building projects in north county Dublin for
Africans as yet unborn?

If blaming ourselves for our failure to plan for Africa's educational
needs were not fatuous enough, some poor spokeswoman from the Catholic
archdiocese of Dublin had to defend the Catholic Church against an RTE
journalist's accusations of bigotry.

Naturally, in this unprincipled liberal Ireland, for the Catholic Church
to insist that Catholic schools have a primary duty to educate Catholics
is nowadays both racist and sectarian.

But of course, no one on RTE would ever dream of proposing that Islamic
madrasahs should take in Jewish, Catholic or Hindu pupils: in the new
Ireland, the only people who are expected to bend their own rules are
the Irish Catholic majority.

Accompanying this presumption is the pious and all-prevalent dogma that
immigrants will on arrival abandon ancient loyalties, and will promptly
don a Hibernian mantle: hence the brainless cliche, wittered endlessly
by journalists and politicians alike, "the New Irish".

Sorry. This is conceited gibberish. Why would a Pole surrender something
which the Polish people have fought for a thousand years to retain?

Why the presumption that an Asian Muslim who lives in Ireland is in any
way Irish?

My mother lived most of her life in England, but never for a second
thought of herself as English.

The media should be asking the big question, 'Why are we still admitting
hundreds of thousands of immigrants?'

Instead, we are obsessing with the relatively trivial question of: Are
the Irish people, who after all have admitted vast armies of strangers
to their national home, racist?

This is self-hatred at its most pathetic, and its most self-defeating.

Whether Irish people are "racist" is irrelevant. We have created a
society whose apparent cohesiveness is totally dependent on
immigration-fuelled economic growth. That growth must one day come to an
end.

Then what, in Darndale, Coolock, or even Balbriggan?

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: "MacEinri, Piaras"
Subject: Re: Kevin Myers on Irish Immigration
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain

I think it's important that anyone on the list who is not currently living
in Ireland should be aware of who Kevin Myers is and how metriciously
inaccurate his views are.

Myers is an Englishman living in Ireland for most of his life, whose views
seem to derive in part from his own strong feelings about his home city of
Leicester, which is now home to a large population of Asian origin.
Unfortunately he seems to operate on the basis that what happened in one
place (whether one regards it as positive or negative is beside the point)
must inevitably happen in another. There is very little comparison between
midlands Britain and Ireland, either socially, economically, cultural or in
terms of the kinds of migration flows to the two places.

Ireland is not inoculated against racism - the hard evidence from serious
surveys suggests that Irish attitudes are in the middle of the range of
European views. It's just that we have been fortunate enough up to now to be
shielded by a strong economy. It's also very clear that we are heading into
choppier waters, with very little thought or preparation. The most egregious
example of this failure to plan for the entirely predictable challenges of
the future is the school system. Certain schools in the Dublin area are now
operating a discriminatory Catholics only admission policy, leading to a
situation this week in Balbriggan where a new non-denominational school
found itself with an almost entirely black intake. I use the word
'discriminatory' advisedly: the 1998 Education Act specifically allows
schools to discriminate in teacher recruitment and admissions policies and
the usual equality legislation does not apply, even though such schools are
paid for from the public purse. Cue self-righteous and contentless
statements from the Minister for Education (who has singuarly failed to
address this issue because she will not take on the entrenched confessional
interests involved) and Pontius Pilate-like press statements from the
Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.

Just for the record, the streets are not thronged with 'immigrant-beggars'.
There are probably fewer beggars on the streets of Irish cities than in most
other parts of Europe and many of them are Irish. The overwhelming majority
of migrants here are working, although the provisions of an extremely harsh
'habitual residence' code, copied directly from the British one, do mean
that migrants are barred from certain rights and entitlements until they
have been habitually resident here for a certain period (in practice, two
years) and this does lead to situations where people can end up on the
street through no fault of their own ('habitual residence' can also affect
returning Irish migrants).

Myers' allegations about numbers are entirely unsubstantiated; people seem
to think, like the politics of the big lie, that if a number is repeated
often enough it acquires the status of hard fact. Not unlike the ridiculous
claims that there are 50,000 Irish undocumented in the US, in fact...

The rate of immigration in recent years has been high (but not the highest
in the EU) but commensurate with the economic demand for migrants. The
problem is that we have failed to address the associated social and cultural
challenges. The overwhelming majority of migrants here are fellow-EU
citizens; as it happens nearly all are also white and Christian. We cannot
have it both ways; Irish people benefited from the right to travel, live and
work since we joined the EU. Now we are at the top table and others want to
come here.

Myers' snide and ad hominem references to 'home-grown jackanapes ready to
shriek 'racism' need to be put in context. He sells newspapers because he
is a controversialist, paid to say stupidly offensive things. His career is
littered with instances of such language, perhaps the most notorious being
his reference to single mothers as 'mothers of bastards' in 2005. He used to
work for the Irish Times but now writes for the right-wing Independent
Newspapers group, a resolutely 'un-independent' newspaper which is
notoriously unbalanced in its coverage of immigration matters (and also in
its coverage of Northern Ireland, where it is laughly biased).

One other specific lie in Myer's article (apart from the street beggars and
the general tone) needs to be nailed. The majority of African children (and
mysteriously they were almost all African) who were denied school places in
Balbriggan this week were born here. In other words, they hadn't 'only just
come here'. I think, given the factually inaccurate nature of Myers' article
and the general tone, the word 'racist' might for once be the correct term.

Finally, the term 'madrasah' (anyone who knows basic Arabic will know it
simply means a 'school' of any kind but it has come to be used in the
English language press as 'Islamist/fundamentalist') is also indicative of
his thinking. The main Islamic school in Dublin is in fact staffed almost
entirely by Irish Christian teachers, who deliver all of the teaching except
for religion and Arabic.

Piaras Mac Einri
Cork

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Carmel McCaffrey
Subject: Re: Kevin Myers on Irish Immigration
In-Reply-To:
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I agree with Piaras on his assessment about Kevin Myers but like most
nutters Myers can sometimes expose an uncomfortable truth - the
discussion on immigration needs to be addressed beyond the simple and
singular "racist" label so many want to tag it with. I worked over a
number of summers for Aer Lingus at Dublin Airport in the 1970s and the
immigration controls were not soft then. It was quite common then for
Irish immigration to refuse entry to white American students who showed
up with one way tickets. Many of these young students wanted to spend
an 'idyllic' summer in Ireland searching for their roots and had not
planned for their return dates - this was a less sophisticated time.
They were usually told to buy a return ticket to the US before gaining
entry. One really hard case for me - which I became involved in - was a
women in her 70s who held a US passport and came in on a one way ticket.
She was refused entry and it was obvious that this woman was ill. She
explained that she had been born in Ireland - and had taken US
citizenship - and did not understand that now her US passport did not
give her resident status in Ireland. She was detained for a number of
hours while calls here being made from Immigration at the airport to
Dublin. I was assigned to "take care" of her while the wait went on.
Eventually it was determined that she had a sizable bank account and
would not be "a burden on the state" and she was formally admitted. We
got her nursing care in a home and that is where the story ended for me.

Carmel




>

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: "Morgan, John Matthew"
Subject: immigration
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Ireland is a very small island and extraordinarily vulnerable these days
to the effects of industrial expansion, tourism, road projects and, for
certain, immigration. Myers is spot on--not particularly to his credit,
since his analysis could not be more obvious, as he himself notes.

JMorgan





















Jack Morgan
Research Professor of English
University of Missouri-Rolla
Rolla, MO. 65401

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Muiris Mag Ualghairg
Subject: Re: Kevin Myers on Irish Immigration
In-Reply-To:
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The question of the relationship of the Catholic church and schools in
Ireland is something that does need to be looked into. As people on
the list know, my wife and I are seriously looking into moving to
Ireland and I would like my son to attend an Irish medium school (a
sector which is sadly underdeveloped in Ireland - with not much in the
way of second level education as if just being educated in Ireland in
a primary school is enough!). The first problem that I came across is
that nearly all the schools I can find are tied to the Catholic church
- and even though I am a Catholic - I don't particularly want my son
to attend a Catholic school in Ireland. I would rather that he
attended a non-denominational school and that the religious education
of my son was taken care of within the parish (I like the idea of
separation of church and state) however, this seems to be nigh on
impossible and some of the schools that I had contacted had already
started to ask about when my son was baptised etc. The date of baptism
is now used over here to weed out the 'baptise the child to get him
into a good school' catholics who have their children baptised when
they are 3 or 4 years old in order for them to get into the local
Catholic school. I assume that that has already started in Ireland
otherwise the question wouldn't have been asked!

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: "Thomas J. Archdeacon"
Organization: UW-Madison
Subject: Irish Citizenship
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Regarding the sick and elderly woman attempting to enter Ireland in the
1970s:

My parents came (as single people) to the U.S. from Ireland in the 1920s.
They became American citizens. The U.S. required a renunciation of other
loyalties, which they gave. My assumption has been that, if I or my
children wanted to claim Irish citizenship on the basis of ancestry, the
Irish government today would not put the most severe interpretation on the
renunciations by my mother and father. (At least in the case of my mother,
who became a citizen before my father, the abjuration was of allegiance to
the king of England. She was always proud that it was the king whom she was
disowning). From an analogous perspective, the American government today
would not be terribly put out if my children or I sought Irish citizenship,
provided the move indicated no explicit and purposeful rejection of
allegiance to the U.S. Indeed, the father or a former, American-born
reporter for the NY Times told me his son was tacitly advised to carry his
Irish to flash instead of his American if he encountered "bad guys" on his
travels.

I used the word "today" twice in the preceding paragraph to highlight the
possibility that practices may have been different in the past. They
certainly were in the U.S. Taking out citizenship in another country would
have automatically led to the loss of U.S. citizenship. The State
Department still warns against dual citizenship (e.g., If young and abroad
in certain countries, you might be subject to conscription. Regardless of
age, you might not also be allowed access to the American consulate if you
encountered trouble with the authorities), but court decisions have made
dual citizenship more of a possibility than it once was. Has the situation
in Ireland changed over time? The recent controversies about non-nationals
giving birth in Ireland may be tangentially relevant to my question, but the
focus of it is on the existence of a "right of return."



Thanks.



Tom