Book Review - Irish Studies Review

My review of the book Nation/Nazione: Irish Nationalism & The Italian Risorgimento (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013) has just been published on the website of the journal Irish Studies Review. Here is the DOI: 10.1080/09670882.2014.955952

It was refreshing to look at a book based on Italo-Irish relations, rather than Franco-Irish studies, which I normally work on. It seems to me that Ireland's relationship with France is quite different from that with Italy.

We've seen that at crucial moments throughout Irish history, Irish people have looked to France for help. An example of this would be the 1798 Rebellion, when Wolfe Tone and The Society of United Irishmen sought and received French military assistance to stage an uprising against British rule in Ireland. I don't think we could say that the same kind of relationship exists / existed between Italy and Ireland.

Nevertheless, there have been a good number of significant cultural, religious and military connections between Ireland and Italy down through the years. For example, James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, who built the architectural gem that is the Casino at Marino in Dublin, traveled extensively in Italy. He spoke the language like a local, admired the country immensely and was greatly inspired by its architecture and customs.

The following book, Italian presence in Ireland: a contribution to Irish-Italian relations (Dublin: Istituto Italiano di Cultura, 1964), would provide readers with an introduction to the area. It was published to mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Italian Institute of Culture in Dublin. 

According to an article in the Irish Independent from 8 January 1955, five hundred people applied for membership of the Institute in the first few weeks after it opened. They were only expecting one hundred and fifty. It seems that Irish interest in Italy is nothing new!

Dorothea Lange in Ireland - 60 years ago

The American photographer, Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), is perhaps best known for her poignant photographs of migrant families and farm workers in 1930s America. She captured the faces of migrants who had traveled to California from the Midwest of America in search of work and a better life.

This photograph of Florence Owens Thompson surrounded by some of her children was taken at a camp for migrant farm workers in Nipomo, California in 1936.

Image source: http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b29516/

Lange's first trip outside of the USA was to Ireland. In 1954 Dorothea Lange traveled to Ireland on assignment with Life Magazine with her journalist son Daniel Dixon (1925-2009).

While they spent some time in Dublin initially, they were in County Clare for the majority of the one month that they spent in Ireland. Over the course of their stay, Lange took some 2,400 photographs, which are now held in the Dorothea Lange Collection at the Oakland Museum of California. These photos can be viewed online at the University of California's calisphere website.

A nine page article entitled Irish Country People was published in Life Magazine on 21 March 1955. It contains twenty one of Lange's photographs together with a brief sketch by her son detailing the scenes they witnessed.

A book, Dorothea Lange's Ireland was published in 1996. It contains 106 photographs that she took in Ireland as well as articles by academic, Gerry Mullins and her son, Daniel Dixon. Lange's trip to Ireland was also the subject of a film. In Dierdre Lynch's Photos to Send, Lynch travels to Ireland and interviews the surviving subjects of Lange's photographs.

Read more about Lange's time in Ireland on the Clare County Library Blog.

AFIS Conference 2014 in Irish National Concert Hall

The 2014 annual conference for the Association of Franco-Irish Studies (AFIS) took place at the National Concert Hall, Dublin on the 23rd and 24th of May. Appropriately, given the venue, the conference theme was "France and Ireland: Celebrating Music, Words and Art".

The conference was opened by the new French Ambassador to Ireland, Mr Jean-Pierre Thébault. Speakers came from universities all over Europe and North America (including Ireland, France, Germany, Macedonia, UK, USA and Canada). Conference programme available here: http://arrow.dit.ie/afis/programme.pdf

Keynote speeches were delivered by the Irish Times Paris correspondent, Lara Marlowe and the Irish poet and author, Mary O'Donnell.

On Friday 23rd May, Lara Marlowe discussed France's place in the European Union from being firm advocates at the beginning of the project in the 1950s to the present state of the relationship. On Saturday 24th May, Mary O'Donnell was interviewed about her books of fiction and poetry by Sean Rocks of RTE's Arena arts programme. I had heard Mary O'Donnell on the radio before. She presented a really good programme on poetry in translation called Crossing the Lines. I'd advise you to listen to it if you have the time.

I delivered a paper on an aspect of my current research. In my paper, I looked at the way in which the French newspaper Libération used photographs to report on the Northern Irish 'Troubles' in the period from the 1970s to the 1990s.

ADEFFI 2014 Postgraduate Symposium

The annual Postgraduate Symposium of the Association des Etudes Françaises et Francophones d'Irlande (ADEFFI) took place in NUI, Galway on Saturday 22 March 2014.

Postgraduate students from universities in Ireland and the UK, who work in the areas of French and Francophone studies, presented papers on various aspects of their research. This is the last symposium that I will organise as Postgraduate Representative of the association. I really enjoyed being part of the committee over the last three years and attending the annual conferences. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way.

A report on the symposium is up on the association's Facebook page. It includes some photographs of the participants and attendees. Below is a photo of a section of the quadrangle in NUI, Galway.

Book Review - Irish Journal of French Studies

 

I reviewed a book on 'narrative' called Le Récit aujourd'hui for the latest edition of the Irish Journal of French Studies. The journal is an annual international refereed journal published by the Association des Etudes Françaises et Francophones d'Irlande (ADEFFI). Fist issued in 2001 in printed version, the journal is now published online and can be accessed here: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/irjofs/ijfs

More information about the journal here and a list of back issues here.

An Irishman's Diary - Mary Poppins author - PL Travers

PL Travers, circa 1924, source: Wikimedia Commons.

I have just had another 'Irishman's dairy' published in today's Irish Times, Saturday 23 November 2013.

'Mary Poppins - the Irish connection' looks at the links between the author of the Mary Poppins books, Pamela Lyndon Travers (known as PL Travers) and Ireland.

It was through the poet, artist and Co-operative movement supporter, George William Russell (known as AE) that Travers became associated with Ireland. She contributed some of her poems to the weekly arts journal that he edited. Travers' circle of friends in Ireland included others who contributed to the Irish Statesman. 

With articles by writers such as Frank O’Connor and Padraic Colum and artists Paul and Grace Henry, the list of contributors to the Irish Statesman is like a who’s who of literary and artistic Ireland of the time. I cannot help but marvel at seeing such a collection of talented people all in the one place. Lennox Robinson, Jack B. Yeats and W. B. Yeats also wrote for the journal. 

Travers and AE remained close up until he died in 1935. There's a great interview with Travers here from the Paris Review where she discusses her relationship with AE (among other things).

NPHFI Annual Conference 2013

The 2013 annual conference of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland took place in Dublin City University on 8 & 9 November 2013.

The theme of the conference was 'Journalists in History: Blackguards, Muckrakers and Crusaders'. Speakers came from Ireland, the UK and North America and delivered papers on a marvelously wide range of journalists and publications. From the provincial and national presses of Ireland to the minority press of black America and lots more besides, the conference provided unparalleled  insights into journalists and journalism history.

I delivered a paper on the French journalist Henri Béraud (1885-1958) who reported from Ireland in the 1920s, and was sentenced to death at the liberation of France for the polemics he wrote during World War 2.

Conference Poster