Life In Ireland Research Articles

Preface

Preface Food and Drink is the second thematic volume to be published since the decision of the editorial board of Proceedings in 2007 to bring out an occasional thematic volume addressing a fundamental theme in Irish life. Like its predecessor, Domestic Life in Ireland (Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 111C), which was published in 2011, the current volume favours the multidisciplinary approach that is one of the defining features of the journal. It aspires thereby to provide a forum for new ideas and for syntheses of established approaches and findings. In keeping with the remit and tradition of the journal to explore the Irish past in la longue durée, it addresses food and drink between the Mesolithic and the present. As Stephen Mennell’s ‘introduction’ to this collection points out, despite the long tradition of collecting and assembling recipes and the cultural potential of printed cookery books, awareness of the rich and revealing potential of the history of food and drink is a comparatively recent development. The decision of Louis Cullen in 1981 to devote two chapters in his vastly influential exploration of the emergence of modern Ireland to ‘diet in a changing society’ and ‘hospitality and men’ was crucial in this respect, because it brought food and diet into the Irish historical mainstream.1 It did not, to be sure, herald a flood of publications on these or allied subjects. The history of alcohol consumption, for example, remained anchored in a world that answered more visibly to the politics of social control than to the new perspectives presented by sociability, conviviality of sociability.2 However, it did pave the way over time for more ambitious work, since as well as Regina Sexton’s helpful short survey, which appeared in 1998,3 the publication by Oxford University Press in 2001 of Feast and famine: a history of food in Ireland, 15001920 by Leslie Clarkson and E. Margaret Crawford can justifiably be identified as a milestone, less for the novelty of its findings, than for the breadth of its conclusions, its temporal range and the eclectic range of sources upon which it draws.4 It certainly highlighted the riches to be gleaned from parliamentary enquiries and official surveys, which Ian Miller has * doi: 10.3318/PRIAC.2015.15 1 L. M. Cullen, The emergence of modern Ireland, 16001900 (London, 1981). 2 Colm Kerrigan, Father Matthew and the Irish Temperance Movement (Cork, 1992); Paul A. Townsend, Father Matthew, Temperance and Irish identity (Dublin, 2002); Diarmaid Ferriter, A nation of extremes: the Pioneers in twentieth-century Ireland (Dublin, 1999). 3 Regina Sexton, A little history of Irish food (Dublin, 1998). 4 Leslie Clarkson and E. Margaret Crawford, Feast and famine: a history of food in Ireland, 15001920 (Oxford, 2001). Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Vol. 115C, viix # 2015 Royal Irish Academy demonstrated still more authoritatively and in greater detail in his recent pioneering engagement with the way in which science, medicine and social reform intersected to shape attitudes to food and diet in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.5 This is a most important development because for all their intrinsic interest as subjects in their own right, food and drink are still more revealing archaeologically and historically of the societies, peoples and eras in which they are located when they are appealed to amplify and to illuminate broader societal behaviours and tendencies. This is something that Irish archaeology does particularly well. The archaeological essays in this volume introduce several new themes around food-related behaviour and culinary material culture, supported by innovative theoretical frameworks and breakthroughs in scientific methodologies. Complexity has been recognised as a feature of Mesolithic diets and foodways, with belief exercising an influence on food consumption and identified in the archaeological record as specific rituals and patterns of discard. The potential of stable isotope analysis on lipid residues has been realised in its initial application to Irish Neolithic ceramic vessels. This method has revealed that vessels were used mainly to process dairy fats and other foodstuffs, thereby providing new insights into diet and food procurement among the earliest farming communities on the island and marking a beginning to the research journey...

Racialised Inequality, Anti-Racist Strategies and the Workings of the ‘Dialogical Self’: A Case Study in the Shifting Construction of Migrant Identity in Ireland

The theory of the dialogical self understands that identity is constructed from a shifting pallet of ‘I’ voices, each created from the dialogic interaction that takes place between the individual subject ‘I’ and multiple ‘others’. These positions are changeable and identity space is constructed in each context, out of the interaction that takes place between a situationally specific manifestation of the self and an ‘other’, who is deemed to be important and worthy of note. This article engages with this conceptualisation in an effort to illustrate how some recent immigrants to Ireland internalise the experience of life in a new cultural contact zone, against a background penetrated by experiences of racialised othering. This takes many forms, but after these experiences are extracted from research participants’ narrative stories, individual immigrants are seen to harness a series of different positions in an effort to internalise the experience of this racialised discrimination and negotiate its place in their lives. Two particular strategies are adopted. Racialised discriminations are seen to be anchored in notions of human nature, broadly based. Immigrants use this conceptualisation to divorce the experience from their aspirations for their future life in Ireland. Equally, Immigrants are seen to switch ‘I’ positions laterally in order to defect the experience of exclusion. In so doing, potentially new and intersectional migrant identity spaces are created.

The changing demands of academic life in Ireland

Purpose – The consequences of institutional change for faculty is an under-researched aspect of the higher education (HE) sector in Ireland. The purpose of this paper is to report on the changing demands of academic life in Ireland. Design/methodology/approach – A case study of the School of Business at the largest university in Ireland, University College Dublin, set out to determine the extent to which HE change is impacting on faculty. The research, involving 28 interviews with faculty and manager-academics, covered the five-year period since the appointment of a new President in 2004. Findings – The research provides evidence of an increasing focus on more explicit research output requirements; the growth of routine administration and teaching and learning compliance requirements; and the greater intensification of work and working hours. Research limitations/implications – While the university was at the forefront in implementing large-scale institutional change in Ireland, further research is needed to explore the issues raised in this paper in the context of other schools and the remaining six Irish universities. Originality/value – Few empirical research studies have been conducted in Ireland on how institutional change is impacting on the working lives of faculty. This paper serves to shine a light, for the first time, on the perspectives of faculty regarding the changing demands of academic life in Ireland.

The Riddle of Father Hackett: A Life in Ireland and Australia by Brenda Niall (review)

The Riddle of Father Hackett: A Life in Ireland and Australia by Brenda Niall (review)

Curating the Colony: Museums in Ulysses

The National Museum on Kildare Street, which Leopold Bloom visits in Ulysses, was an institution whose curatorial policies reflected ongoing debates about Ireland’s cultural history and colonial status. This essay argues that Ulysses reimagines the work of Ireland’s National Museum: where nationalists linked Irish identity to the ancient Celtic past through the Museum’s archaeological artifacts and loyalists and imperialists used the Museum’s administration to reaffirm Britain’s control over Ireland’s people and material history, Ulysses shows how the Museum could support alternative formulations of Irish identity. Additionally, the essay claims that Joyce represents the Blooms’ home as a museum of the ordinary, paralleling its collection to that of the National Museum. Although he uses both locations to suggest how museums might productively “curate” colonial people, Ulysses ultimately makes the case that museums could best represent life and identity in colonial Ireland through common domestic objects.

A Note on Mutual Savings and Loan Societies in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Mutual savings and loan societies played an important role in social and economic life in nineteenth-century Ireland yet, to date, they have been overlooked by economic historians of the island. This article addresses this lacuna by providing an overview of the history of Friendly Society Loan Funds (FSLFs) and Building Societies. It finds that there were a variety of savings strategies in urban Ireland and concludes that the economic function of these mutual institutions sheds light on other aspects of Irish history, such as Loan Fund Societies (LFSs), savings banks and cooperative banks.

“This receipt is as safe as the Bank”: Reading Irish Culinary Manuscripts

“This receipt is as safe as the Bank”: Reading Irish Culinary Manuscripts

THINK AHEAD: AN IRISH CARE PLANNING TOOL

Background Think Aheadis a public awareness initiative of the Forum on End of Life in Ireland. The Forum is guided by the National Council of the Forum on End of...

The ‘silent’ Irish – football, migrants and the pursuit of integration

Much has been written about life and sport in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, such discourse has rarely strayed from the issue of identity politics and all aspects of society appear, even in an era of peace, to reflect some degree of partisanship, including within the realm of association football. In the Republic of Ireland, the emphasis has increasingly been on the growing multiculturalism of that state and at present there exists a real challenge to all aspects of civic society to do more to integrate ‘new arrivals’ into Irish life in a more convincing manner than has been the case to date. And so, this is essentially what this article intends to examine – the role football authorities in Ireland can and do play in utlising the game as a means of integrating ethnic minorities into everyday life. There are examples of impactful work already taking place in this regard – notably on the part of the Irish Football Association’s (IFA’s) innovative World United programme, whilst there also remains shortcomings around the approach adopted both by the IFA and the Football Association of Ireland and these are critically engaged with throughout this article. Finally, in the spirit of finding a constructive way forward, the somewhat recalcitrant and authoritarian approach to granting eligibility to some of the very best young footballers on the island, including those living in the Republic of Ireland’s designated refugee centre north of Dublin, is afforded due recognition.

Expect the Unexpected. Essays über Tomi Ungerer zu seinem 80. Geburtstag ed. by Daniel Keel, et al (review)

Reviewed by: Expect the Unexpected. Essays über Tomi Ungerer zu seinem 80. Geburtstag ed. by Daniel Keel, et al Dr. Reinbert Tabbert Expect the Unexpected. Essays über Tomi Ungerer zu seinem 80. Geburtstag [Expect the unexpected: essays about Tomi Ungerer on his eightieth birthday]. Edited by Daniel Keel, et al. Zürich: Diogenes, 2011. 254 pages. Tomi Ungerer: obsessive, creative, provocative. The mild Maurice and the wild Tomi? They must have made a remarkable pair, producing images and picture books in the hectic city of New York in the 1950s and 1960s. When Maurice Sendak completed the series of his popular bear books with A Kiss for Little Bear, Tomi Ungerer countered with No Kiss for Mother, a picture book about bad kitty Piper Paw, which caused outrage in the United States. Probably most readers had not noticed the hidden explosive in Sendak’s final picture, and even less so the gesture of reconciliation at the end of Ungerer’s [End Page 83] story. It seems that the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and the enfant terrible from Alsace, who grew up under German and French repression, are closer than they may seem at first glance. “All minorities,” Ungerer suggested in 1997, “share the same humour: Jews, the Irish, Alsatians. Black humour” (112). On November 28, 2011, Tomi Ungerer, who now lives in Ireland following long years in New York and the Canadian Nova Scotia—with many interludes in his home town of Strasbourg—celebrated his eightieth birthday. In honour of this birthday, Diogenes published a celebra-tory volume of essays on him, authored over the last forty-four years by drawing and writing colleagues, including Ungerer himself. They feature an obsessively creative man and the impressively wide spectrum of his creations. Even readers primarily interested in his books for children will gain from learning more about his work not suited or intended for younger audiences. Because the sense of uneasiness with the modern adult world so vividly expressed in his commercial, personal, and political art also informs Ungerer’s work for children, it prevents it from indulging in the children’s book genre’s wide-spread harmlessness. This overall subversive consciousness is rightly highlighted by the contributors who work in the field of children’s literature criticism (Ute Blaich, Roswitha Budeus-Budde). Essays reflecting this more subversive strand include contributions on the early caricaturesque drawings of a U.S.-American society besottet with sex and technology (Jonathan Miller, Walter Killy), on provocative political posters (Hellmuth Karasek), and punchy, facetious advertising graphics (Robert Gernhardt). Ungerer himself reflects on his illustrations of Das große Liederbuch [The great book of song], which cannot deny their nostalgic origin despite their darker duplicity. Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the great Swiss playwright, observes how opposites converge in Ungerer’s work: the idyllic in the Song Book and Heidi illustrations on the one hand, and the monstrosities in Fornicon and Babylon on the other, modelled on nineteenth-century precursors as varied as Ludwig Richter and Honoré Daumier. In her honorific speech to the Kästner Prize, Jutta Limbach draws out the parallels between Ungerer and Kästner, who passed equally harsh judgement on adults while openly reaching out to children—Kästner did so in writing, Ungerer mainly in pictures. Art historian Werner Spies digs deeper, analyzing Ungerer’s art in relation to modern art, especially the works of Picasso and Max Ernst. Andreas Platthaus draws on his intimate knowledge of Ungerer’s art to profile the oeuvre of this verbal-visual genius in its uniqueness. In a second contribution focusing on Ungerer the writer, Platthaus traces two models to the picture book cat Piper Paw: the recalcitrant tomcat Piper in Heute hier, morgen fort [Here today, gone tomorrow] and the author himself as child in Es war einmal mein Vater [Once upon a time my father] (205). Personal memories of Reinhard Stumm and Thomas [End Page 84] David’s description of a day in Ungerer’s Irish workshop give insight into the artist’s creative process. Overall, readers will regret the publisher’s decision not to include any illustrations in this collection of essays, especially when specific images are referenced. Readers can instead...

Evidence, policy and pragmatics: a case study on the development of a national research and data strategy on children’s lives and the role of knowledge exchange

This paper presents a case study on the transfer of research into policy and describes how evidence was used to inform, develop, frame and ultimately agree a national strategy for research and data on children's lives in Ireland. The paper highlights key issues arising in the research–policy exchange, but also argues that evidence on its own, while vital and helpful, is insufficient to develop strategy. The paper concludes by highlighting other brokering, pragmatic and strategic considerations that need to be addressed if implementation is to be agreed.

Language and Adaptation Barriers of Polish 1.5 Generation in Ireland

The decision about emigration for economic reasons, including emigration to Ireland, after Poland joining the European Union, has been the object of research interests of a number of fields of knowledge. Sometimes, a tempting vision of improving Polish people’s own economic status makes them decide to leave the homeland without any knowledge about the culture of the adopted society. The article is focused on the analysis of the language competence of Polish grammar school students in Ireland. There are presented weaknesses and strategies for surviving in the new environment without language skills and its influence on adaptation to school and life in Ireland. The article is supported by the research conducted in Irish grammar schools and Polish weekend schools in Ireland (2010–2011).

Elizabeth Bowen’s Ireland? Film, Gender and the Depiction of 1960s Ireland

At the start of Ireland’s transformational decade of 1960s, the American network CBS contacted Padraig O’Hanrahan, the Director of the Irish Information Bureau in Dublin. They were interested in gaining government assistance for a program being planned for its popular television series The Twentieth Century. The episode envisioned would address social, political, economic, and cultural developments in the country and provide an accurate portrayal of everyday life in Ireland. The Dublin government readily agreed but was unaware that the Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen, a writer with very distinct cultural and political prejudices, had been hired to write the script for the program. The narrative of the film produced by Elizabeth Bowen is revealing as it allows the viewer a unique perspective into a society undergoing significant change. The film addresses a wide array of issues including the evolving role of women in Irish society at the start of a decade characterized by rapid change. What at first may seem like a rather awkward American effort to ‘capture’ the real Ireland, warts and all, was a more complex effort, strongly influenced by a remarkable Irish writer. The program is also revealing as it deeply upset an Irish Government concerned about its image and desperate to present itself in the words of Taoiseach Sean Lemass as ‘a progressive nation seeking efficiency’.

THE IRISH NATIONAL AID ASSOCIATION AND THE RADICALIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION IN IRELAND, 1916–1918

ABSTRACTAt the 1918 general election, Sinn Féin overtook the Irish Parliamentary Party as the dominant political force within nationalist Ireland, a process that has its origins in the aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916. This article argues that to understand better this shift in public opinion, from an initially hostile reaction to the Dublin rebellion to a more advanced nationalist position,1it is important to recognize the decisive role played by a political welfare organization, the Irish National Aid Association and Volunteer Dependents' Fund. The activities of the INAAVDF significantly shaped the popular memory of the Rising, but also provided a focus around which the republican movement could re-organize itself. In foregrounding the contribution of the INAAVDF to the radicalization of political life in Ireland between 1916 and 1918, the article argues that this understudied but important organization offers a useful way of charting popular responses to the Rising and its aftermath, as well as laying the foundations for a reinvigorated political and military campaign after 1917.

Cycling in Circles: Flann O'Brien's Free-wheeling Stories in The Third Policeman

Flann O'Brien's stories always feature bicycles as the unavoidable props in his stereotypical Irish landscapes. In his novel The Third Policeman, bicycles are comically upgraded to full-blown characters and provide a recurring theme, lending linear consistency to an otherwise convoluted narrative. In Ireland, the (very real) national interest in bikes originally derives from necessity more than sports; in O'Brien's caricature, it becomes an obsession, and the bicyclist's relationship with his machine an improbable love-story. Bicycles betray the modesty of life in rural Ireland as much as they are a source of pride and joy when they display their owners' skills as mechanics or sportsmen. The aim of my paper will be to analyse the role of bicycles in the novel, both as symbolic attributes of the Irish common man and as structural devices in the narrative. O'Brien makes fun of the national vehicle and its users, playfully reminding us that cycling round and round is an ambiguous achievement. As a man-made device, the bicycle is also a direct application of mechanical science; thus the relationship between man and his machine comically reflects the mystery of creation, in a parody of the Great Clockmaker. The wandering bicycle finally represents the narrative structure of O'Brien's novel and his digressive representation of story-telling and language.

Twenty Litres of Tears - the Karen journey from Burma to Ireland

The journey of the Karen community from Burma to Ireland highlights an extraordinary story of survival, courage and the depths of human endurance in the face of adversity. Forced to flee their deeply divided and war- torn homeland, ninety seven Karen people arrived in Ireland in 2007 to begin a new life, only to be faced with the new challenges of adjusting into a modern, western society. This paper wishes to explore their transition and integration experiences on this difficult journey while also highlighting the nature of conflict faced by Karen people in their native Burma. In order to gain insight into the Karen experience, both primary and secondary research is presented, highlighting common themes around the immigrant perspective. The findings of this paper reveal the unique lived experiences of these individuals. A violent homeland is depicted with many living in fear of the Burmese army. The participants escape to Refugee camps on the Thai Burma border is referred to, highlighting the difficult choices forced upon these individuals. Their triumph over adversity is discussed in their journey to freedom and a new life in Ireland. However new challenges are faced in Ireland such as language barriers, education and for some, discrimination. Attempts to face these new challenges are addressed with reference to the support structures available to the Karen in Ireland.

Essays on Health, Well‐Being & Happiness published in print AN

Abstract:“Happiness Anthropology Redux” by J Anthony Paredes“Boundaries of the State and Politics of Everyday Life in Ireland” by Mark Maguire and Fiona Murphy“Investigating Coastal Resource Use, Quality of Life, and Well‐being in Southeastern Puerto Rico” by Carlos GarcÍa–Quijano, John J Poggie, Ana Pitchon and Miguel del PozoETHICAL CURRENTS:“Ethical Currents in Happiness, Health and Well‐being” by Barbara Rose JohnstonMorag Kersal is the contributing editor of Ethical Currents, the AN column of the AAA Committee on Ethics.“Fast Track to Health, Well‐being and Happiness: The Emerging Profession of Health Coaches” by Meg Jordan“Entangled Bodies: Structural Violence, Well‐being and Humor in Australian Indigenous Health” by Megan McCullough“Tuberculosis: Global Health Pandemic” by Mimi Stelmack“I Still Got Joy: Black Women's Strength and Resilience after Breast Cancer” by Michelle Chatman“Elusive Maladies: Finding Hope with Integrative Medicine in North America” by Suzanne Morrissey and Mary PatzelKeywords:health, well‐being, happiness, optimism, ethnography, coastal community, health coach, nutrition, power, poverty, crisis, recovery, medical anthropology

Health, Employment and the Quality of Life in Ireland

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the Quality of Life (QoL) in Ireland using a sample of 3,500 respondents to the Irish Health Service Executive's Survey of Consumers' Experience of the Health Services in Ireland (HSE Survey) carried out between November 2006 and March 2007. Using an ordered logit model, we show that the likelihood of being satisfied with one's QoL is enhanced by social class, income, employment and, above all, by health. The methodology's ability to identify persons who might be ‘at risk’ from a low QoL allows one to speculate on the QoL in Ireland today, in the winter of its discontent, compared to that in 2006–07 when it basked in the summer of the Celtic Tiger. In present circumstances, one would expect that joblessness would play a much more important role in determining QoL: prior to 2008, unemployment meant a short wait till a suitable job turned up; now it is more likely to involve either a protracted search at home or emigration. Furthermore, since unemployment often leads to bad health outcomes, one can be reasonably certain that the QoL associated with a 14 per cent unemployment rate will be considerably worse than those witnessed during the halcyon days of the economic boom. This raises the question of how this additional, recession-induced demand for health services will be met at a time when public expenditure on health in Ireland is to be cut by €1.4 billion over the next four years.

The Circle Cast: The Lost Years of Morgan Le Fay by A. Epstein

Epstein, Alex. The Circle Cast: The Lost Years of Morgan Le Fay. Vancouver: Tradewind Books, 2010. Print. This Young Adult historical fantasy novel begins in Britannia around 500AD. Anna’s father, a Roman chieftain, is slain by the British war leader Uter Pendragon. To protect her from Uter, her mother sends her to Ireland with a new identity as Morgan. Morgan is a strong female character who will appeal to female readers. She is a survivor who adapts well to new surroundings and situations. Her driving force is her mission to return one day to Britain to avenge her father’s death. The story follows her life in Ireland. She lives first with a great warrior clan that is related to her family by marriage. When a neighbouring clan defeats them, she is captured and lives as the slave of Buanann, the clan’s magical wise woman. She escapes and flees to a Christian settlement where she stays until she marries the landowner’s son Conall. As his wife, she teaches him and his men British war tactics which help him to become a great warrior with extensive land and large numbers of men. She eventually returns to Britain with a small group of Conall’s warriors to seek vengeance on Uter and in the end helps to protect her birthplace from invading Saxons. The novel is filled with elements of magic and connections to the earth as we learn of Morgan’s growing prowess with casting spells. This period of her life has previously not been mentioned in Irish mythology, and provides one interpretation of how and why she became known as ‘Le Fay’. The book is an aside to an otherwise familiar story. The Enchanter, whom we know as Merlin, plays a small role. In the epilogue, the character of Arthur is introduced and leaves the story open to a sequel. In mythical legend, Arthur and Morgan are half-siblings. The short prologue uses a style of writing that is quite poetic and unlike most of the rest of the text. This may not appeal to some readers and may discourage them from continuing with the rest of the book, which is presented in a more easily digestible style. The story includes scenes of sex and violence that may not appeal to all readers. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Trish ChatterleyTrish is a Public Services Librarian for the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library at the University of Alberta. In her free time she enjoys dancing, gardening, and reading books of all types.

“Doing the Job as a Parent”

Recent studies of family life in Ireland have focused on changes in “traditional” family structures, including the increase in one-parent families. This article illustrates the impact dominant conceptions in Irish society that privilege the family based on marriage have on one-parent family policy. The authors focus on two key areas of social interaction associated with family life—parenthood and (un)paid work—to identify both congruences and tensions between social policy and the needs of one-parent families. The article draws on interview and survey data collected in Galway in 2007 to show how existing welfare policies create some opportunities for those parenting alone while at the same time perpetuating inequalities within the gendered family context and across multiple generations.