Role In Ireland Research Articles

Networks between Ireland and the Irish American Diaspora during the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Abstract This article explores the complex relationship between the network of actors in the United States and Ireland who sought to influence American foreign policy in the Northern Ireland peace process. These networks operated in civil society, representing numerous Irish American organizations linking corporate and church leaders and the media to members of the Irish American diaspora in government to influence the United States’ diplomacy. These Irish American groups and individuals interested in influencing events in Northern Ireland were linked with a wide array of governmental and non-governmental actors in Ireland. Often, Americans were quite deferential to leaders and groups in Ireland and Northern Ireland who sought to mobilize the Irish diaspora in the United States for their cause. Thus, the United States’ role in Ireland and Northern Ireland was not that of a hegemonic power but one of an empathetic actor responding to developments and cues provided by various actors in the Irish context. Transatlantic networking, made more possible due to technological changes in communication and transportation, facilitated increased exchanges of ideas, agents, and information. These networks allowed groups across the Atlantic to elicit support for local groups in Northern Ireland and mobilize the US government to play a political and diplomatic role in the conflict and peace process. Ultimately, the majority of Irish Americans moved from supporting the nationalist/republican side in the early years of the Troubles to becoming strong supporters of the peace process in the 1990s.

"She just makes it easier…" The impact of having a dedicated nursing role in supporting people with intellectual disability when accessing acute hospitals, from the perspective of their support staff, the Irish context.

Learning Disability Liaison Nurses have been shown to improve hospital experiences and this is an emerging role in Ireland. This research qualitatively explored the impact of a Clinical Nurse Specialist Acute Hospital Liaison from the perspective of staff in an intellectual disability community organisation. Participants identified significant challenges with supporting people attending hospitals including accessing and understanding information, anxieties and not being prepared for transitions through the hospital. The findings demonstrate the introduction of this role is a supportive, positive step with reports of improved information sharing, feeling better prepared and alleviating anxieties related to supporting someone in hospital. The findings clearly identify that this role has considerable benefits when set in a community organisation. This role has had a positive impact on service users and staff when interacting with hospitals, providing evidence of the value of this role in Ireland and also of they having a specialist qualification in the role.

Paraprofessional support in Irish schools: from special needs assistants to inclusion support assistants

ABSTRACT Paraprofessional support to enable access to education has developed in differing directions in a range of countries. In Ireland, the role of the special needs assistant has focused on supporting the additional care needs of children with special educational needs to ensure their participation in lessons. The role of the special needs assistant (SNA) was considered crucial as Irish mainstream schools adapted to delivering more inclusive learning environments. Support provision has been recently reconceptualised and within this model special needs assistants are now designated as Inclusion Support Assistants with a very specific care role excluding any teaching activity. This research draws on data from a longitudinal study of SEN provision with a specific focus on the role of SNAs within Irish schools. Findings indicated that the contribution of special needs assistants was highly valued by education stakeholders. It is suggested that the evolution of the SNA role in Ireland can support schools in adopting a flexible approach to create inclusive learning environments.

Experience of the Irish physician associate role: PA and supervising consultant perspectives

Background: The physician associate/assistant (PA) role was introduced into the Irish healthcare system in 2015 when four PAs from North America were recruited to work in Ireland as part of a two-year pilot program. In parallel, the Royal College Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) began its own PA program in January of 2016 and has graduated 25 PAs. To date, there is little published on the few Irish-trained PAs. This study seeks to share initial experiences with the PA profession in Ireland.Methods: This descriptive phenomenological study explores the newly implemented PA role in Ireland through semi-structured, one-to-one interviews with five PAs and their supervising consultants in Dublin, Ireland. Questions centered on the PA scope of clinical practice, satisfaction with the role, acceptance by the medical team, and integration into the Irish healthcare system.Results: Six themes were identified from the interviews: continuity of patient care, flexible scope of practice, lack of role clarity, complementary to the medical team, regulation and prescribing challenges, and the emerging role of the PA.Conclusions: The development of the PA role is in its infancy in Ireland, but this study suggests that they fill an important role by providing continuity of care to both patients and the medical team. Currently, there are significant challenges imposed by a lack of regulation of the PA profession and the inability to prescribe. However, PAs in Ireland appear to enjoy their work and have great potential to expand throughout Irish healthcare and are valued by their team members.

John Nash in Ireland: Patronage and Legacy

ABSTRACTStudies on Irish architectural history following the Act of Union in 1801 have concentrated on public buildings. This article introduces an important new perspective to the subject by exploring John Nash (1752–1835) and his work in Ireland from 1803 to 1810. Nash is best known for the work he undertook for the prince regent, later King George IV. Relatively little is known of his other clients. However, patronage connections were singularly important to Nash and it was ultimately their high social and political profile that contributed to his career's upward trajectory. Nowhere are these connections more evident than in Ireland, where practically all of Nash's clients can be linked to his first known Irish patron, James Stewart (1741–1821) of Killymoon Castle in County Tyrone, and his wife Elizabeth née Molesworth (1751–1835). The timing of Nash's arrival in Ireland within a year of the Act of Union is also significant. Many of his Irish clients were new MPs at Westminster or representative peers elected to the House of Lords whose shared desire for personal aggrandisement found form in building works. In spite of Nash's often troubled relationships with his clients, his architectural output in Ireland was versatile and involved a variety of styles. As Nash's involvement with the prince regent grew, his supervisory role in Ireland passed to his pupils James and George Richard Pain, who in time established successful architectural practices of their own in the country. Few of Nash's Irish buildings have survived the test of time, but his legacy in Ireland is preserved in the works of the Pain brothers, whose design style remained remarkably faithful to their teaching master.

Introducing the physician associate role in Ireland: Evaluation of a hospital based pilot project

Objective: Ireland has medical workforce challenges and a growing demand for services. One strategy is to include Physician Associates (PAs) in healthcare settings. A pilot study was undertaken with PAs recruited from North America and the United Kingdom to work in a large Dublin teaching hospital.Methods: Four PAs were deployed on surgical services. Communication with the hospital staff preceded their employment. A series of interviews were undertaken at the beginning [2015] and end [2017] of the project. Data collection included surveys and interviews with staff and PAs.Results: Despite a series of communications about the employment of PAs a lack of awareness among hospital staff prevailed. This presented a challenge for the PAs to assume their role and for staff to bring them on board. Once on board those staff who worked with the PAs found their role beneficial in terms of continuity of care and skillset. Recommendations for inclusion of PAs in any new employment should include a more robust stakeholder engagement and promulgation throughout the wider healthcare system.Conclusion: Attitudes about the adoption of the PA have come slowly when first introduced in a country and Ireland seems no exception. At the same time communication lessons were learned about introducing a new health provider role in Irish society.

Utility of somatic mutation panel testing in patients with advanced cancer receiving treatment in an Irish teaching hospital.

3076 Background: Tumor testing for potentially actionable somatic mutations via commercially available panel tests has entered routine clinical practice in many countries. In Ireland the cost of these tests is not covered by insurance companies and must be paid for by patients. Use of these tests is sporadic and depends on patient and clinician factors (including ability to pay). Existing data suggest that such testing results in a direct impact on patient therapy in a minority of patients only. We reviewed the impact of somatic mutation testing on treatment selection and outcomes in patients attending a medical oncology service in a teaching hospital in Ireland. Methods: We performed a retrospective study of patients who had commercial panel testing performed as part of routine oncology care. All patients opportunistically tested between 2013 and 2018 were included. Patients having focused molecular tests for approved therapies (e.g. RAS mutations in colon cancer, EGFR and ALK mutations in non-small cell lung cancer) were excluded.We reviewed medical records to assess the frequency and utility of mutations detected, the impact of testing on next and subsequent lines of therapy, and the effectiveness of therapy. Results: 74 panel tests were performed in 71 patients. 39 tests (53%) detected mutations, of which 21 (28%) were potentially actionable. 36 patients (51%) had further treatment after testing was performed. 9 tests (12%) led to test-based treatment. The mean duration of test-based treatment was 34 days (range 1-90 days). No patients had benefit from test based treatment, defined as tumour response or disease stabilisation on restaging scans. 23 patients died within 90 days of panel tests being requested. Among patients starting and completing a subsequent line of therapy after testing, the mean duration of therapy with test-based treatment was 39 days (range 6-90) and for standard of care treatment was 56 days (range 1-262 days). Conclusions: While testing for tumor-specific somatic mutations with proven predictive benefit is very useful, somatic mutation panel testing for non standard of care genetic alterations is not of utility in this real world setting. Its role in Ireland should be limited to identification of suitable early phase clinical trials. Discussions of panel testing should include frank discussion of expected benefits, and should also address factors such as patient ability to travel for clinical trials. [Table: see text]

An inductive qualitative approach to explore Nurse Practitioners views on leadership and research: An international perspective.

To explore the ways in which Irish and Australian Nurse Practitioners (NPs) implement leadership and research in their roles and whether there is a difference in how leadership and research are demonstrated between NPs in Ireland and Australia. The original concept of the NP role was to expand nursing practice in order to provide high-quality, accessible health care to patients. This placed NPs at the crux of changes to healthcare delivery. Implementing these changes requires leadership. Research demonstrates the effects of these changes to healthcare delivery and contributes to healthcare knowledge from the nursing profession. In the qualitative phase of a mixed methods study, an interpretative descriptive approach was used to draw on participant experiences. Thirty-eight respondents agreed to be interviewed following an online survey. Ten interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke thematic analysis method. The research complied with the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research, COREQ. Ten participants, five NPs from Ireland and five from Australia were interviewed. Four themes emerged from the analysis: (a) Innovative leadership, which included the categories of leadership activities, the work of NPs and trailblazers; (b) Optimism, incorporating pride in achievements, the future outlook for the role and continued innovation of NPs over time; (c) Research, which included the NP research role, research challenges, support and research leadership; and (d) Resilience, which included overcoming resistance, isolation and seeking positive support systems. Nurse Practitioners are clinical leaders focused on improving healthcare delivery for patient populations. There is a lack of understanding of the NP role. Nurse Practitioners lack confidence to be independently research active. Research by NPs requires support from nurses in academia. There is no difference in the role in Ireland and Australia. Nurse Practitioners are engaged in healthcare transformation. Nurse Practitioners require support from research experts in academia to make a significant contribution to nursing knowledge in healthcare delivery.

Ireland's Foreign Relations in 2018

Author’s e-mail: donnacha.obeachain@dcu.ie Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 30 (2019), 235–264 doi: https://doi.org/10.3318/ISIA.2019.30.11 INTRODUCTION1 This article examines aspects of Ireland’s foreign relations in 2018. It begins with a brief synopsis of domestic politics in Ireland. Deteriorating relations between Russia and the West are then surveyed, particularly the Irish response to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, for which the Kremlin was blamed, and which­ triggered the mass expulsion of diplomats. The visit of Pope Francis to Ireland is examined and provides an opportunity to reflect on the rapidly changing interactions between Ireland and the Holy See. Subsequent sections are devoted to signifi­ cant political events during the Brexit negotiations process including the ‘chequers plan’, the Salzburg summit and the withdrawal agreement negotiated by the European Union and the British Government. The review then appraises the presidency of Michael D. Higgins and its role in Ireland’s foreign relations. Before concluding, a brief section is devoted to those significant ­figures in Irish and international politics who died during the year. DOMESTIC POLITICAL SETTING Throughout the year, opinion polls suggested support levels for Fine Gael was at around 30 per cent, with Fianna Fáil trailing slightly on around 27 per cent, and Sinn Féin peaking at around the 20 per cent mark. Gerry Adams stepped down from the position of President of Sinn Féin after 35 years at the helm and was replaced by Mary Lou McDonald. The government enjoyed strong backing for its performance during Brexit negotiations. All parties in Dáil Éireann consistently supported the backstop, 1 The author would like to acknowledge the support of a Marie Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange scheme within the H2020 Programme (grant acronym: SHADOW, no: 778118). Ireland’s Foreign Relations in 2018 Donnacha Ó Beacháin1 School of Law and Government, Dublin City University 236 Irish Studies in International Affairs as did a majority in Northern Ireland. The confidence and supply arrangement put Fianna Fáil in the difficult position of propping up a party they opposed and sought to replace in government. Moreover, a general election was considered unlikely to fundamentally change the parliamentary arithmetic. In December, Fianna Fáil announced that it would continue to keep Fine Gael in office for another year, because of the uncertainties associated with Brexit. Party leader Micheál Martin said, ‘The chaos will not spread here from London… The national interest will come first’. This meant an election was considered unlikely before 2020.2 IRELAND, RUSSIA AND THE SKRIPAL CASE Ireland-Russia relations Ireland’s relationship with Russia has almost always been complicated. Due in part to its long-standing antipathy to communism, Ireland had the distinction of being the last EEC member state to establish diplomatic relations with the USSR. Fearing espionage and mischief making in Northern Ireland, foreign minister Garret FitzGerald had told his communist counterpart, Andrei Gromyko, in 1973 that he wanted the Soviet embassy to be a small mission. Gromyko, in turn, accused FitzGerald of uncritically repeating American propaganda .3 FitzGerald’s fears proved well founded when in 1983, a KGB spy ring was located operating out of the unlikely venue of the Stillorgan Shopping Centre. Consequently, three Soviet diplomats were expelled from Ireland.4 Difficulties persisted with the USSR’s main successor state, Russia.5 In 2010, the Gardaí concluded that the Russian embassy in Rathgar had been cloning the passports of Irish citizens applying for visas and distributing these bogus documents to Russian spies in the US. This resulted in the expulsion of a Russian diplomat. The ill-defined retaliation threatened by Moscow never materialised.6 Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and military­ support for separatism in the Donbas region of Ukraine, Ireland participated in EU-sponsored sanctions, which reduced trade with Russia. While the EU ­ sanctions had targeted individuals and companies connected with 2 ‘Fianna Fáil guarantees no election in 2019 amid Brexit uncertainty as it extends confidence and supply arrangement’, Irish Independent, 12 December 2018. 3 Garret FitzGerald, All in a Life (Dublin, 1991), 126. 4 ‘Ireland and the KGB’, RTÉ Documentary on One...

Patient willingness to be seen by a physician associate in Ireland

Background: The physician associate (PA) role was piloted in Dublin, Ireland between 2015 and 2017. However, the concept of a PA and the acceptance of their role in Ireland had not been explored.Objective: To investigate the willingness of Irish citizens to be seen by a PA based on medical scenarios in a typical clinical setting.Design: A mixed methods study was undertaken. A preference survey, with three medical scenarios, gave participants a choice to be treated by a PA or a doctor, with two time trade-off options offered. Responses were supported with qualitative text. Four hundred people were invited to participate as surrogate patients.Setting and participants: In 2017 a total of 270 respondents took part in the study (67.5%) in two hospitals (one private and one public) in Dublin. The mean age was 60; male (n = 142) and female (n = 128) respondents.Findings: In total, 95% of the respondents chose to see a PA over a doctor based on the scenarios presented and a wait time of 30 minutes. Wait time, trust, competency and the severity or seriousness of the medical condition were categorized into three themes for choosing the PA over the doctor. The “surrogate patient” decisions made by this sample were influenced by knowing that the PA is supervised and can check decisions with his/her supervizing physician.Conclusion: These findings are consistent with studies carried out in other countries where willingness to be seen by a PA is neither age nor gender specific. Patient preference seems to concur around the importance of trust and confidence in the medical provider.

Ireland's Adaptation to Membership of the EEC: Early Dealings with the European Regional and Development Fund

Author’s e-mail: ackeogh@gmail.com Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 29 (2018), 261–277 doi: https://doi.org/10.3318/ISIA.2018.29.19 Ireland’s Adaptation to Membership of the EEC: Early Dealings with the European Regional and Development Fund Aoife Keogh Florida State University International Programs, Italy INTRODUCTION Ireland’s search for membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) was lengthy and arduous; Irish politicians and civil servants had steered the Community toward that goal since 1961 and relations were at a significant juncture when Ireland acceded as a full member state in 1973. Political scientists have demonstrated that the system for administering relations with the EEC after accession was adapted rather than changed; this lay in contrast with other applicants such as the UK. Essentially, Irish officials did not turn a blank page after accession because there were already procedures set for managing relations with the EEC. That backdrop, it will be argued in the first section of this paper, had an important impact on how those structures were adjusted and evolved after accession. But these dynamics also had consequences for Ireland’s initial years within the Community. The fact that the Department of Finance had played a key role in Ireland’s road toward membership throughout the 1960s, and that the Department of External Affairs (DEA) led the negotiations team in Brussels is crucial to this story. One department coordinated policy formulation in relation to accession at home while the other took care of negotiations abroad. However, as accession progressed, the DEA was nominated as gatekeeper for EEC affairs and this change fueled considerable debate among key administrators, including secretaries of Finance, Taoiseach, External Affairs, Agriculture and Fisheries as well as Industry and Commerce. Correspondence shows that some administrators favoured continuing to work through the Department of Finance in relation to the EEC even after accession. Ireland’s decision on how it would strategically seek access to the European Regional and Development Funds (ERDF) provides an important example of several departments coordinating together shortly after accession. Parts of Ireland, Southern Italy and the UK were due to benefit significantly from these European funds; considerable attention and resources were invested in the ERDF by officials and empirical sources are rich and plentiful. These will be 262 Irish Studies in International Affairs used to exemplify and analyse dynamics between various government departments . The Department of Finance took the lead in establishing procedures for administering the ERDF internally and the DFA managed negotiations with the other eight member states and the Commission. While the two ministries tackled the latter on different fronts, this research underlines the varying visions, motivations and approaches that both adopted. The Department of Finance advocated seeking access to the ERDF as one region while the DFA favoured formulating a policy that presented Ireland as multiple regions. In planning Ireland’s application for funding, the Department of Finance focused its attention on national concerns, optimising funding, managing allocation centrally and continuing state grants to industry. At the same time, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Garret FitzGerald, emphasised Ireland’s eligibility for funding for its poorest regions and forcibly rejected the notion of juste retour. Ultimately, the Taoiseach’s Office sided with the Department of Finance’s one-region approach, but the debate surrounding that decision gives a significant insight into policy-making and the varying perspectives regarding Ireland’s membership of the EEC among officials and departments at the time. This episode also highlights the disconnectedness, power struggles and rivalries that existed between key government departments. IRELAND’S ADAPTATION TO MEMBERSHIP OF THE EEC By the time Ireland turned its sights on membership of the EEC, several Irish government departments had already cooperated collectively to nurture links with the Community, going as far back as the early 1960s.1 Some government departments were more heavily involved in this process than others. Important changes occurred for the Department of Finance and the DEA in terms of portfolios .2 Those changes reflected central policy-making which, after having reinforced Anglo-Irish relations through the 1965 Anglo Irish Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA), laid increasing emphasis on bolstering Ireland’s relationship with the EEC.3 Ireland’s economic...

Queering the Poetics of Race and Nationalism: Yeats, Casement, and Paul Muldoon's "A Clear Signal" (1992)

Queering the Poetics of Race and Nationalism:Yeats, Casement, and Paul Muldoon's "A Clear Signal" (1992) Alison Garden On St. Patrick's Day in 1992, the Irish poet Paul Muldoon published "A Clear Signal" in the New York Times.1 The dense and complicated poem is sixty-two lines long, written across thirty-one sardonic couplets. With its rhyme scheme forming forced and simplistic pairings, it sounds much like an acerbic children's nursery rhyme. As we have come to expect of Muldoon, the poem shifts in tone and, thematically, traverses a great amount of ground. But it is chiefly preoccupied with the deeply intertwined politics and histories of Ireland, both in the North and the Republic, Britain and the United States. Beginning with the "tit-for-tat" violence that was one part of the euphemistically named "Troubles," the poem ends by invoking the "ghost of Roger Casement" as a riposte to the Ancient Order of Hibernians' (AOH) refusal to let the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) march in the 1991 New York St. Patrick's Day Parade. Muldoon's poem—which, curiously, has never been anthologized or republished—is structured around the repeating refrain calling "to our Irish-American cousins" to desist in their support, financial and otherwise, of Troubles-related violence. Poets from Northern Ireland had long been caught in the dilemma of how to adequately respond to the violence, terror, and loss of life caused by various paramilitary groups and the British military. In Seamus Heaney's oft-quoted words, poetry changed from "being simply a matter of achieving the satisfactory verbal icon to being a search for images and symbols adequate to our [End Page 78] predicament."2 Why, then, did Muldoon turn to Roger Casement? What about Casement made him "adequate" for this particular "predicament"? Roger Casement (1864–1916) remains an enigmatic figure who has left a controversial and transnational legacy as a human rights activist and an Irish nationalist. Born an Anglo-Irish Protestant, his radical politics would see him executed for his role in Ireland's struggle for independence. He was hanged as a traitor by the British in 1916 for liaising with the German military and attempting to obtain a shipment of German armaments in the Easter Rising. To complicate matters further, Casement had, in his earlier years, achieved nothing short of a spectacular career in the British Colonial Service and Foreign Office; his reports on the systematic abuse and racialized oppression that were inflicted upon laborers in the Congolese (1903–04) and Amazon (1910–11) rubber plantations earned him a knighthood. Casement's Irish nationalism intensified as a direct result of his work participating in the British imperial project and his increased awareness of the violence of European colonialism more generally; his anticolonial nationalism led him to source support of various means from Irish America and Germany for Irish independence. Casement was well connected and well liked, especially in the United States, with multiple prominent figures signing various petitions for reprieve before his execution. In the months following Casement's arrest, Britain was courting the United States in the hope of securing support for the war effort, and needed to tarnish Casement's reputation. An opportunity to do so presented itself with the discovery of Casement's so-called "Black Diaries," uncovered during his trial and selectively circulated by the British government. These diaries detailed Casement's sexual encounters, many of which he paid for with cash or gifts, with men and adolescent males. In 1936, W. J. Maloney published The Forged Casement Diaries, which insisted that Britain had forged the diaries in order to weaken support for Casement. Debate has raged about their veracity ever since. Casement's legacy has been nothing if not contested. He has been vaunted as a seminal human rights activist; a key figure in the struggle for Irish independence; a traitor to British imperialism; and a homosexual martyr. In Casement, a slippery, evasive subject who resists categorization and capture, Muldoon finds the perfect symbol of his hope for a more tolerant, convivial sense of Irishness, unencumbered by limiting notions of religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality. In celebrating Casement as a queer, unsettling subject...

The role of emotions in the choice to adopt, or resist, innovations by Irish dairy farmers

In this paper we uncover the emotional factors that contribute to the adoption, or rejection, of different categories of innovation by dairy farmers in Munster, Republic of Ireland. Although emotions have been extensively researched in different fields, little research to date has examined the effects of emotions on farmers' decision making. Munster is the most important region for grass-based dairy farming in Ireland and this type of farming still plays an important role in Ireland's economy and sense of self. By using in-depth interview data from 27 dairy farmers and 6 other participants in the local industry we identified three categories of innovation that were influenced by different emotional pathways. We further uncovered the strong value-driven emotions that underpin the Irish dairy farmers' beliefs about what farming is, and means, and the influence that this has on innovation choices.

Spending reviews in Ireland – Learning from experience

This article examines the Irish experience of spending reviews and seeks to identify key lessons that should enhance the effectiveness of this process both in Ireland and in other OECD countries. Since the beginning of the economic and financial crisis, spending reviews have played an important role in Ireland’s efforts to restore expenditure policy to a more sustainable footing. However, the purpose of future reviews will move from improving the deficit position to ensuring all expenditure is considered when Government is making budget decisions. The purpose of spending reviews is to increase the fiscal space available to government for new, high priority, policies. By systematically examining baseline expenditure using available evidence and data, the increasing tendency to focus only on incremental improvements in expenditure can be countered. Spending reviews should be used to further embed the principles of expenditure efficiency and effectiveness into the wider budget process. This can be facilitated through extending the availability of relevant evaluations and performance information and ensuring such evaluations become central to the budgetary process.

Community of Practice and Professionalization Perspectives on Technical Communication in Ireland

Research problem: In Ireland, technical communication has developed as an academic and occupational field since the late 20th century. Research on the field in Ireland is limited. Research questions: (1) To what extent do technical communicators in Ireland operate as a community of practice? (2) What steps are Irish technical communicators taking toward professionalization? Literature review: This study uses a theoretical framework that combines symbolic interactionism and communities of practice theories. While traditional professionalization theory uses a structural functionalist approach to the study of occupations, characterizing disciplines as professions depending on whether they meet certain traits (including autonomy, market closure, license to practice, and service orientation), symbolic interactionism prioritizes interactions among individuals. In this sense, it overlaps with the concerns of communities of practice. A community of practice involves a group of people working together, and creating meaning through their interactions. Studying an occupation through this lens foregrounds individual and community identity, and how that is formed and informed by work. Methodology: Mixed methods—a survey, focus groups, and interviews—were used to explore Irish technical communicators' perceptions of aspects of their field: practice, education, value and status, and professional and community structures. Results: The findings indicate that Irish technical communicators exhibit traits of communities of practice (such as joint enterprise and shared repertoires). They also identify with their job title and practice. A key finding is that some Irish technical communicators have a keen appetite for community involvement. This enthusiasm notwithstanding, barriers to professionalization include low visibility of the role in Ireland, limited evidence of professionalizing activity, and the potential for career stagnation.

GENERATING A LONG-TERM SERIES OF SST AND CHLOROPHYLL-A FOR THE COAST OF IRELAND

Abstract. The use of remote sensing has increased greatly in recent years due to technological advances and its advantages in comparison with traditional methods. In the case of Ireland however the use of these techniques is not well established and only 17% of remote sensing studies are related to marine and coastal environments. As a first step, and taking into account that fisheries and aquaculture plays an important economic and social role in Ireland, a database of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) relating to the ICES fisheries management areas is being generated. Up to now three different products have been produced. These products correspond to the annual SST Climatology and annual SST Anomalies from 1982 to 2014, as well as the annual Chl-a Climatology taking into account the different life span of CZCS (1982–1986), SeaWIFS (1997–2010), MERIS (2002–2012) and MODIS-Aqua (2002–2014). Initially, the Chl-a Climatology was produced for each sensor individually while the creation of a continuous Chl-a series will be investigated in the future. Analysing the SST trends highlighted an increasing trend in SST values in Irish waters, a trend which was more pronounced in the northern areas (+0.54 °C in the last 10 years). Although there are differences between sensors, Chl-a concentration seems to present higher values in the Celtic Sea since 2009. Analysing the ICES Divisions individually highlighted that coastal areas presented the highest Chl-a concentrations, involving a clear differentiation in the optical properties of coastal and oceanic waters.

The development of the role in Ireland of the Authorised Officer (Section 9:1b Mental Health Act 2001) applicant for the involuntary admission to approved centres of persons suffering from mental disorders

This article outlines the development of the role of the Health Service Executive Authorised Officer in Ireland, the professional applicant for the involuntary admission of an adult to hospital beyond that which was envisioned in the Mental Health Act 2001.

The famine plot: England's role in Ireland's greatest tragedy

The famine plot: England's role in Ireland's greatest tragedy

Can advanced paramedics in the field diagnose patients and predict hospital admission?

BackgroundAccurate patient diagnosis in the prehospital environment is essential to initiate suitable care pathways. The advanced paramedic (AP) is a relatively recent role in Ireland, and refers to a prehospital...

The Advanced Paramedic Clinical Activity Study (APCAS): an insight into the work of advanced paramedics in the mid-west of Ireland

The Advanced Paramedic (AP) is a relatively recent role in Ireland and refers to a prehospital practitioner with Advanced Life Support (ALS) skills and training. The Advanced Paramedic Clinical Activity Study (APCAS) was initiated to provide an evaluation of the impact of the AP programme on patient care in Ireland. The aim of this study is to provide an insight into the clinical activity of APs over a 6-month period in the mid-west region of Ireland. A prospective study was initiated whereby all ambulance calls dispatched by the regional Ambulance Control Centre were recorded by the attending AP, including calls received via the statutory 999/112 system. Participating APs were asked to complete a separate call log data sheet recording all demographic and clinical information for every call attended during the study period. A total of 17 APs participated and 1,969 ambulance calls were recorded in APCAS. The Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Limerick was the busiest receiving facility. Activity peaked at weekends and was lowest on Tuesdays. Crew response, on-scene times and transport times agree with previous reports. Most common emergencies include medical (12 %), cardiovascular (10%) and altered level of consciousness and seizures (10%). Least common calls include airway and ventilation and environmental emergencies (<1%). This study provides an insight into the work of APs in the mid-west region of Ireland. It would appear that despite the relative recency of the Irish AP programme, the findings of this study are in line with previous international studies.