An Irishman's Diary - A Corkman's Philanthropy

I have just written another Irishman's Diary article in the Irish Times. Read it here. It tells the story of a donation that Joseph Stafford Gibson made in 1919 to the Cork Municipal School of Art (now Crawford Art Gallery). Through Gibson's kind bequest, the gallery was able to acquire many fine works of art, including paintings, drawings, sketches and sculpture by Irish as well as other artists.

The bequest also allowed students to travel abroad to add to their knowledge and understanding of art. Over the years, artists such as Kathleen Murphy-O'Connor (Paris 1924), Seamus Murphy (Paris 1931/2), John O'Leary (Paris 1957) and Pat Murray (Bayreuth 1966)  were awarded a Gibson Bequest Scholarship that enabled them to travel to Europe to hone their artistic skills. Link to a web page about the Gibson Bequest on the Crawford Gallery's website.

Photograph of the Crawford Art Gallery

These days, the most prominent collection on display in the gallery is the AIB Art Collection. It's an amazing tour de force of some of the best artists produced in Ireland in recent times including Mainie Jellett, Mary Swanzy, Jack B. Yeats, Sean Keating, Harry Kernoff, Paul and Grace Henry, Colin Middleton, Roderic O'Conor, Aloysius O'Kelly and John Lavery. In other words - well worth a visit...

Photograph of plaque on side of display cabinet housing items donated to the Crawford Art Gallery by Joseph Stafford Gibson.

Bequests and donations are very important to galleries and museums as they provide a fresh source of funds to keep them relevant and competitive. In the National Gallery of Ireland for example, there are several important bequests that have helped the gallery acquire art works. The Shaw Fund (George Bernard Shaw), the Lane Fund (Sir Hugh Lane) and the Vaughan Bequest (Henry Vaughan [Turner watercolours]). Link here to the gallery's web page on bequests. More information here on bequests from Apollo Magazine.

An Irishman's Diary - Friedrich Engels and Ireland

I have just written an Irishman's Diary entry in the Irish Times. It is available to read here. It tells the story of the connection between the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels and Ireland.

It seems that the German philosopher and political theorist became a little obsessed with Ireland after he met Mary Burns, who was of Irish extraction, in Manchester. He visited Ireland twice during his lifetime and planned to write a history of the country. He even learned Irish to be able to study its history. Sadly, he never managed it, as he died before it could be completed.

Friedrich Engels in 1856. Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Engels_1856.jpg

Irish Times online article and podcast on flâneurs & Ireland.

Photograph of Henri Béraud (1885-1958). Image source: Wikimedia Commons

I have just written a short online article on flâneurs and Ireland for the Irish Times. You can read it here. The article stems from the chapter I wrote on Henri Béraud's time in Ireland in the book The Flâneur Abroad: Historical and International Perspectives (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014).

A podcast of a discussion on flâneurs and Ireland with me, Fionn Davenport and Hugh Linehan of the Irish Times is available here (from 31 mins).

Link to the publisher's website. A sample from the book, including table of contents and introduction, is available here.

My chapter in book "The Flâneur Abroad: Historical and International Perspectives"

Have you ever heard the word flâneur? These are some commonly used definitions:

* "an idle man-about-town" Merriam Webster Dictionary

* "an idler or loafer" Collins Dictionary

* "a man who saunters around observing society" Oxford Dictionaries

A new book - "The Flâneur Abroad: Historical and International Perspectives" (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014) exploring the world of the flâneur and flânerie has just been published. Link to the publishers website. The book developed from a conference of the same name held at the University of Nottingham in England in July 2012. The conference was organised by Prof Richard Wrigley of the Department of Art History at that university.

The book contains sixteen chapters which examine various types of flâneur in various locations around the world. My chapter 'Henri Béraud's Flâneur Salarié Abroad in Ireland' looks at an unusual type of flâneur who visited Ireland, an unusual destination for this mythic character, who is more usually associated with the great European cities of London and Paris.

The flâneur is a curious type of character who sprang to consciousness in the 19th century through the work of writers such as Charles Baudelaire. Below is a page from the book Physiologie du Flâneur by the French journalist, Louis Huart. Illustrations are by three celebrated illustrators, Marie-Alexandre Adolphe, Honoré Daumier and Théodore Maurisset. This image is taken from Gallica, the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Link http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8530312c/f10.image The book is also available to view on The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/physiologiedufla00huar

National Library of Ireland - Blog Post

I have just written another blog post on the official blog of the National Library of Ireland (NLI). It is about the Art Ó Bríain Papers - a collection of papers that I have been researching as part of my PhD research.

The previous blog post that I wrote on the NLI's official blog was about the French journalist, Simone Téry (1897-1967), who traveled to Ireland in the 1920s and wrote about it in the French press. It is available to read here.

 

Photograph of Art Ó Bríain (O'Brien) (1872-1949).

Art Ó Bríain was the London representative of the First Dáil in London from 1919 to 1922. If you are interested in finding out more about Art Ó Bríain, why not have a look at his entry on the Dictionary of Irish Biography, or take a look at the biography section of the Art Ó Bríain Papers collection list on the National Library of Ireland's website: http://www.nli.ie/pdfs/mss%20lists/150_OBriain.pdf

You could also check out the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy website, where you can easily search for documents written by, or to, O'Brien / Ó Bríain. All sorts of correspondence, including memos and letters written by and to Ó Bríain have been digitized and they give us an amazing insight into what was happening in Ireland at the time.

 

Photograph of the Manuscripts Department of the National Library of Ireland on Kildare Street, Dublin.

List of Oliver O'Hanlon's Publications and Writings, etc.

This is a list of the various book chapters, book reviews, blog posts and newspaper articles that I have written over the last couple of years. I will try to keep it updated with any new material that I write.

Image source.

ACADEMIC WRITING

Book Chapters & Case Studies:

·         Book Chapter - ‘Simone Téry, Une Française en Irlande’, in La France et l'Irlande: Destins Croisés, ed. by Catherine Maignant. (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2013). Link here

·        Book Chapter - ‘Henri Béraud’s flâneur salarié abroad in Ireland’, in The Flâneur Abroad: Historical and International Perspectives, ed. by Richard Wrigley. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). Link here
·        Case Study - ‘Press coverage from abroad’in Atlas of the Irish Revolution, ed. by John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil and Mike Murphy (Cork: Cork University Press, 2017). Link here

Book Reviews:

·        Book review of Le Récit aujourd’hui, in Irish Journal of French Studies, 13 (2013), 182-184.

     [DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7173/164913313809455648] Link here

·        Book review of Nation / Nazione: Irish Nationalism and the Italian Risorgimento, in Irish Studies Review, 23/1 (2014), 98-100. [DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09670882.2014.955952] Link here
·        Book review of The Bordeaux-Dublin Letters 1757: Correspondence of an Irish Community Abroad, in Irish Studies Review, 24/2 (2016), 230-231. [DOI: 10.1080/09670882.2016.1147138] Link here
·        Book review of Models for Movers: Irish Women's Emigration to America, in Irish Studies Review, 25/4 (2017), 518-520. [DOI: 10.1080/09670882.2017.1365573] Link here

  

OTHER WRITING

Newspaper Articles:

·        ‘Around the world in 63 days’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 27 August 2013, p. 13. Link

·        ‘A lock of hair’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 14 October 2013, p. 15. Link

·        ‘Mary Poppins – The Irish Connection’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 23 November 2013, p. 15. Link

·        ‘The Irishmen who fought for the pope’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 1 November 2014, p. 17. Link

·        ‘An Irishman’s on Friedrich Engles and Ireland’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 25 June 2015, p. 15. Link
·        ‘A Corkman’s Philanthropy, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 7 July 2015, p. 15. Link
·       ‘An Irishman’s Diary on pioneering French journalist Albert Londres’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 30 July 2015, p. 13. Link
·      ‘An Irishman’s Diary on George Bernard Shaw and the National Gallery of Ireland’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 2 September 2015, p. 15. Link
·      ‘An Irishman’s Diary: The extraordinary journey of Jules Verne’s Irish orphan’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 29 October 2015, p. 15. Link
·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary on Alexis de Tocqueville and Ireland in 1835’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 29 December 2015, p. 13. Link 
·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary on Susan Langstaff Mitchell, a pioneering Irish writer and journalist’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 4 April 2016, p. 17. Link
·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary on Edwin Lawrence Godkin, the Irish-born newspaper editor who took on Tammany Hall’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 18 May 2016, p. 15. Link
·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary on the 1911 Michelin Guide to the British Isles’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 4 July 2016, p. 15. Link
·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary about Kenelm Lee Guinness, racing driver and pioneering engineer’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 19 July 2016, p. 13. Link
·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary on Patrice Flynn, a Franco-Irish Catholic bishop who never forgot his roots’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 5 January 2017, p. 13. Link
·        ‘Faithful unto death’ - An Irishman’s Diary on the Somme’s Chinese Cemetery’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 7 February 2017, p. 15. Link
·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary on the revolutionary art of May Guinness’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 20 March 2017, p. 13. Link
·        ‘Great shakes - An Irishman’s Diary on Daly’s Bridge and sport by the Lee, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 20 May 2017, p. 15. Link
·        ‘Book shows how overseas reporters highlighted the Irish Revoilution as it happened’, Irish Examiner, 6 September 2017, p. 12. Link
·        ‘Going to France’s aid - An Irishman’s Diary on Hugh Murphy and Laleu’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 12 December 2017, p. 13. Link
·        ‘Still in the post after 260 years - An Irishman’s Diary on a treasure trove of undelivered letters’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 17 March 2018, p. 17. Link
·        ‘‘The Queen of the Air’ - An Irishman’s Diary on aviation pioneer Amy Johnson’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 5 April 2018, p. 13. Link
·        ‘Butter days - An Irishman’s Diary on the Cork Butter Exchange and the world’s largest butter market’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 15 May 2018, p. 13. Link

·        ‘An Irishman’s Diary on a place par excellence for art and pet-lovers’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 26 June 2018, p. 13. Link
·        ‘‘Full steam ahead’ - An Irishman’s Diary on the SS ‘Sirius’, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic from Europe to North America place par excellence for art and pet-lovers’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 23 July 2018, p. 13. Link
·        ‘‘A garden of gardens’ - An Irishman’s Diary on Ilnacullin (Garinish Island)’, An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times, 4 September 2018, p. 13. Link

Online newspaper article:
     ·        ‘From boulevards to barricades: a flâneur’s guide to Ireland’s War of Independence’, Irish Times online, 28 April 2015 Link. Podcast of an interview I did on the flâneur & Ireland with Hugh Linehan & Fionn Davenport of the Irish Times, Link


Magazine articles: 
     ·        ‘French bishop’s mission to Ireland, October 1916’, History Ireland, Sept-Oct 2016, p. 24-26. Link
     ·        ‘‘A Milestone’ in the Civil War’, The Revolution Papers, 20 December 2016, p. 2. Link 
     ·        ‘Carl Marstrander: Viking of the Blaskets’, Ireland’s Own, 13 July 2018, p. 31. Link

Blog Posts:

·        ‘Simone Téry, the ‘Human Question Mark’ in Ireland’. 1,200 word blog post with images on the National Library of Ireland’s official blog, published online February 2013. Link here

·      ‘It’s not all just books and letters: The Art Ó Bríain papers at the National Library of Ireland’. Blog post on the National Library of Ireland’s official blog, published online December 2014. Link here

UCC Postgraduate Student Journal article:

·        ‘Ireland through French Eyes: Reports from Ireland in French Newspapers in the 20^th Century’. Short article describing my research topic to a general audience, published online in Vol. 2 of the UCC Boolean Postgraduate Student Journal. October 2011. Link here

NPHFI 2014 Conference - University College Cork

The 2014 Annual Conference of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland NPHFI took place in University College Cork (UCC) on 21 & 22 November 2014. As Secretary of the Forum, I had a bit of work to do in organising the conference.

The conference was opened by the NPHFI Chairman, Dr Mark O'Brien and delegates were welcomed to UCC by the Head of the UCC School of History, Prof David Ryan. The Chairman of the Irish Examiner newspaper, Mr Tom Crosbie, also welcomed the conference delegates to Cork.

The conference theme was: 'Home thoughts from abroad: History, the Press and Diaspora'. I suppose diaspora is something that Irish people know a great deal about, with generations of Irish having been forced to move abroad in search of work and a better life.

Speakers came from universities in Ireland, UK, USA and Australia to present papers on how the link between Ireland and the Irish around the world was maintained over generations by means of the newspaper and the periodical.

The plenary speech was delivered by Prof. Donal McCracken, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, who spoke about Irish edited newspaper in South Africa. There's a short piece on the conference on the Evening Echo website here.

Details of the 2015 conference will be announced soon on the NPHFI website http://newspapersperiodicals.org/ and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/NPHistoryForum