Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Exposing England For Famine Wrongs, Ian Kilroy

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A critical review of The Famine Plot by Tim Pat Coogan. Coogan blames English government policy for the Irish Famline.

Horses For Discourses?: The Transition From Oral To Broadside Narrative In “Skewball”, Seán Ó Cadhla

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The well-known horse-racing ballad ‘Skewball’ (hereafter, SB) has a well-established oral tradition in Ireland, with versions documented throughout the eighteenth-,nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. The latest is a 1979 field-recording of Derry folksinger and storyteller, Eddie Butcher (Shields 2011:58-9). The ballad was also assimilated into African-American oral tradition, in which it was reconstructed and renamed ‘Stewball’ (Scarborough 1925:61-4; Lomax 1994:68-71), and was still being documented in American folk tradition as late as the 1930s (Flanders 1939:172-4). In common with countless other folk songs, SB was appropriated by broadside printers and subsequently enjoyed widespread public appeal throughout England in the early- to …

Rhyme Or Reason:That Is The Question?, Jim Roche

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Noting that “the aesthetic should not be limited merely to the way things look” the organisers of this conference sought “in part to address the discursive limitation in architecture and related subjects by broadening the aesthetic discourse beyond questions relating to purely visual phenomena in order to include those derived from all facets of human experience”.

So where does etchics come in? Well, the introductory brochure noted that most philosophical trained aestheticians will say that “the aesthetic is everything” hinting perhaps of the necessity for a more haptic experience of architecture. It also drew on Wittgenstein’s quote that “ethics and …

Coffee Culture In Dublin: A Brief History, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

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This paper discusses the history and development of coffee and coffee houses in Dublin from the 17th century, charting how coffee culture in Dublin appeared, evolved, and stagnated before re-emerging at the beginning of the 21st century, with a remarkable win in the World Barista Championships. The historical links between coffeehouses and media—ranging from print media to electronic and social media—are discussed. In this, the coffee house acts as an informal public gathering space, what urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls a “third place,” neither work nor home. These “third places” provide anchors for community life and facilitate and foster broader, …

A Virtual Home Away From Home, Ian Kilroy

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Emigration and media: “Staying in touch with home while living abroad has never been simpler, but does it make the emigration experience any easier? Emigrants and immigrants discuss the challenges of keeping up with home while living abroad.”

From Galway To Soho, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

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This is a food related recitation / poem / ballad that was learned from my father and now back in the oral tradition thanks to a my recital of it at the special food poetry and song evening at the 2012 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

Can Design Thinking Have A Social Life Through Networking?, Brenda Duggan

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‘The design process is best described metaphorically as a system of spaces rather than a predefined series of orderly steps. The steps demarcate different sorts of related activities that together form a continuum of innovation’. (Brown, 2008, 4) This paper addresses two different spaces for examining design thinking — the design research notebook and the digital space, the topic-driven blog. The premise for this paper arises from teaching digital media on a visual communication programme. I wanted to ask the question from my perspective as an educator — if the individual research notebook is a convention or vehicle for design …

Disassembly, Todd Mclellen

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My interest in the real has always been present and I try to mix my work with that. In my series disassembly, I have used old items that are no longer used by the masses and often found on the street curbs heading for disposal. All of the items in the photographs were in working order. The interesting part was the fact that they were all so well built, and most likely put together by hand. I envisioned all the enjoyment these pieces had given many people for many years, all to be replaced by new technology that will be …

Buttering Up The British: Irish Exports And The Tourist Gaze, Mary Ann Bolger

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This paper argues that the advertising of Irish exports in the 1960s provided for their consumers a form of ‘tourism without travel’. (1) This concept is borrowed from Mark McGovern, who uses it to describe the experience of the consumer of the ‘Irish pub experience’ in his article ‘”The cracked pint glass of the servant”: the Irish pub, Irish identity and the tourist eye’ in Michael Cronin and Barbara O’Connor (eds) Irish tourism: image, culture, and identity. Clevedon; Buffalo, N.Y.: Channel View Publications, 2003 In particular, Kerrygold butter acted as an especially authentic souvenir of Ireland because it was, as …

Reconsidering The Avant-Garde Through Ritual, Clodagh Emoe

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This essay seeks to challenge, albeit in a modest capacity, the ostensible understanding of the avant-garde as a failed project. While acknowledging the criticisms arguing the failure of the avant-garde to motivate a new social order by leading cultural commentators, such as Raymond Williams and Peter Bürger, this essay follows critic Hal Foster’s retroactive model of art and theory to reconsider the avantgarde under conditions of enquiry that focus on the enactment of alternate modalities — this being ritual theory. A key concern of Fosters “new articulation” of the avant-garde is an understanding of the critical capacity of art by …

Word And Place In Irish Typography, Brian Dixon

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Toponomic typography, or place-name typography, is not, in any sense a formal discipline. It is, however, common for typographers to find themselves setting the names of locations and settlements within a diverse range of projects. Wayfinding solutions, public transport information material and road signage are but some examples of the instances in which the designer is required to represent and visually interpret those words which mean so much to so many.

On Creativity, Kerry Meakin

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A review of available literature on creativity was undertaken to determine the definition of creativity, the common traits displayed by those perceived as being creative and how those traits may possibly be nurtured. The word ‘creativity’ has been used by politicians as if it is tangible commodity that must be developed in time of economic recession. Indeed, Dublin City Enterprise Board, a local government authority are in the process of staging ‘Idea Generation’ workshops, “this workshop not only shows you what ideas are good ideas but also introduces you to the concepts of thinking laterally” (Dublin Regional Authority, 2011). The …

Seeking Redemption Through Art: The Example Of Colum Mccann, Eamon Maher

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Colum McCann is rightly acknowledged as being one of Ireland’s most talented living novelists. The success of his most recent novel, Let the Great World Spin (2009), which won the National Book Award in America in 2009 and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2011, really cemented his reputation as a writer of substance. He is also one of the new generation of Irish novelists who possess few discernibly ‘Irish’ traits, their preoccupations being of a more global nature.

Motionless Monotony: New Nowheres In Irish Photography, Colin Graham

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‘But my mind was too confused … so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity … What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I thought, might not appear when I came to look into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes. I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, it seemed, built of glimmer and mist … the earth seemed very fair. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping.’ …

Declan Clarke’S Fantasies, Tim Stott

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No abstract provided.

New Tools In Improvised Music Performance., Seán Mac Erlaine

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This paper looks at the synthesis of computer technology and instrumental practice in improvised music performance. The emerging field of performers who use real-time signal processing as a technological extension of their instrument is discussed. How do new tools affect musical practice? Does the use of computers impose an associated aesthetic?

A number of key players are scrutinised including Evan Parker, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Jon Hassell, Miles Davis, Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman. The research provides a historical context to these practices and explores how pre- and post-digital technologies have shaped their work.

This article identifies an innovative and …

Women As Keepers Of Algerian And Pied-Noir Identity, Aoife Connolly

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The Algerian War (1954-1962) was arguably the most traumatic war of decolonisation fought by Western colonial powers. As the 50th anniversary of Algerian independence approaches, this “War Without a Name” remains a problematic subject in France, in which the commemoration of the war, the teaching of colonial history and issues associated with North African immigration and French identity, are hotly contested subjects. An especially neglected aspect of the Algerian war has been the one million French of Algeria, now known as pieds-noirs, who fled to France near the end of the conflict. As a symbol of a failed colonial system, …

Irish Writers And The Eucharist, Eamon Maher

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No abstract provided.

Is A Self-Catering Holiday With The Family Really A Holiday For Mothers? Examining The Balance Of Household Responsibilities While On Holiday From A Female Perspective, Ziene Mottiar, Deirdre Quinn

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The commonly cited definition of what constitutes a holiday is that it is a change from the norm, or an escape from everyday life. But is this the case if tourists are going on a self-catering holiday where many of the tasks from everyday life such as cleaning, minding children and cooking must still be undertaken? This research is specifically interested in the role of mothers, from their own perspectives, on such holidays. It explores how household responsibilities are divided between partners when on holiday and questions does this differ from the situation when at home? In so doing this …