Article Published: Visualising the Emigrant Letter

An article reporting on the first parts of the Irish Emigrant Letter projects has at last been published in the Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales (REMI)- there were many delays on the journal side, and the article finally appears with a 2014 publication date.

Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 2014, 30 (3 & 4), pp. 49-69

Emma Moreton, Niall O’Leary and Patrick O’Sullivan 

Visualising the Emigrant Letter

ABSTRACT - see below..

http://remi.revues.org/?lang=en

The article, as published, is a compact summary of much discussion, and incorporates many different kinds of expertise from the research network - notably of course the expertise of the three co-authors...

Emma Moreton

Linguistics, digitalisation and annotation...

Emma Moreton

Niall O'Leary

IT/Digital Humanities Consultancy, Visualisation

Niall O'Leary

Patrick O'Sullivan

Irish Diaspora Studies - for example at...

Patrick O'Sullivan ARCHIVE

You can see some of Niall O'Leary's visualisations at

http://development.nialloleary.ie/correspondence/correspondence.php

For me participation in the research network was part of the neverending quest for enlightenment - in this case, a better understanding of the Digital Humanities. I have written formally to Emma Moreton, thanking her for that.

So, yes, I wanted a better understanding of the technologies and the processes, but in the back of my mind there were two questions:

did the amount of effort that had to be put into a Digital Humanities project genuinely answer existing research questions, and explore research issues?

did that effort create new research questions and new methodologies for the traditional humanities?

The answer to both questions is, Yes.

This becomes very clear, easily clear, within Irish Diaspora Studies.

I am currently writing the more considered, 'Irish', version of the material, with a much larger word count, which can expand on the detail.  We like detail.

The journal, the Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, has made its entire collection, dating from 1985 to 2001, available online at Persée.fr. Since 2002 every issue published has been added to the free public portal Revues.org,

funded by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Ministry of Research, and designed to be a home for the most prestigious French journals in the field of the Humanities and Social Science.  The latest issues published are available for online sale at Cairn.info, with a three year restriction. I am sorry about that - but at least the French are making an effort.

Patrick O'Sullivan

Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 2014, 30 (3 & 4), pp. 49-69

Emma Moreton, Niall O’Leary and Patrick O’Sullivan

Visualising the Emigrant Letter

ABSTRACT 

Emigrant letters are a rich resource for teaching and learning, transcending disciplinary and methodological boundaries. They are expressive and indicative of correspondents’ identities, values, preoccupations and beliefs, providing a powerful source of information about migration issues and shedding light on processes of language change and variation. Although many emigrant letter collections have now been digitised, not all are properly archived; some are reduplicated and others are in danger of being lost. The documentation and preservation of such letters is, therefore, a particularly pressing need. In 2013, an AHRC research network was established to look at ways of improving interconnectivity between digital collections of migrant correspondence. This paper reports on work carried out so far, focusing on how emigrant letter projects might move beyond the digitisation stage to exploit text content and enhance usability and searchability through the use of visualisation tools.

Irish Community in England, ANALYSIS OF 2011 CENSUS DATA

It is wrong to be entirely cynical about the Irish Government's new publication, and its new diaspora policy...

Global Irish Ireland’s Diaspora Policy March 2015

https://www.dfa.ie/media/globalirish/global-irish-irelands-diaspora-policy.pdf

Though a web search will find much cynical, or at least cautious, comment. Here is the Irish Times...

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/generation-emigration/first-ever-irish-diaspora-policy-published-by-government-1.2124286 

And all small nations have learnt to be be cautious about relationships with diasporas...

A useful corrective is a sensible piece of analysis by Louise Ryan and colleagues......

ANALYSIS OF 2011 CENSUS DATA
Irish Community Statistics, England and
Selected Urban Areas
REPORT FOR ENGLAND
Louise Ryan, Alessio D’Angelo, Michael Puniskis, Neil Kaye
July 2014

http://www.irishinbritain.org/cmsfiles/Downloads/Reports/Irish-Census-Analysis-Report---England.pdf

Patrick O'Sullivan
March 2015

Louth Navigation Trust epetition - please sign

Louth Navigation Trust need to clarify ownership of the waterway, in order to continue the work of restoration...

1.

Louth Navigation Trust epetition

Louth Navigation Trust to have full access to restore and operate the Louth Canal

Responsible department: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

To allow the Louth Navigation Trust, a registered charity to restore the full length of the Louth canal and bring watercourse back into full operational use. This would encompass renovating or renewing existing locks and associated canal structures including banks together with an operational depth put in place for boats/craft to use as a navigable waterway.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/70914

2.

Louth Navigation Trust

http://www.louthcanal.org.uk/

The Louth Navigation Trust was formed in 1986 to promote the canal as an amenity, and has established a base in a restored canal warehouse in Louth. A feasibility study for restoring the canal for navigation was commissioned in 2004, and the Trust is hoping that this could be a reality by 2020.

The Louth Navigation Trust was formed in 1986 to promote the canal as an amenity, and has established a base in a restored canal warehouse in Louth. A feasibility study for restoring the canal for navigation was commissioned in 2004, and the Trust is hoping that this could be a reality by 2020.

3.

Louth Navigation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louth_Navigation

A gentleman and a poet

A number of times recently I have found myself acting as The Spouse at my wife's formal events.  It is not hard.  I can do it.

At one such event, a young woman came and sat next to me and said, 'Are you the gentleman who is a poet?'

Where to begin?  With John Ball, perhaps, and William Morris:

When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?

http://morrisedition.lib.uiowa.edu/dream.html

Is a gentleman simply some man who has stolen our assets?  Or, another introduction to the delicate weave of English culture around that word, Elizabeth Bennett, during that walk in the wilderness, confronts Lady Catherine de Bourgh, on rumours of an engagement:  'He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.'  Would I, by accepting that word, be claiming equality with Colin Firth?

http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv3n56.html

Many times in the day, of course, I am relieved to accept the categorisation.  Recalling, then, Jonathan Miller on that 'unpunctuated motto', 'Gentlemen lift the seat'.  'Is it a sociological description - a definition of a gentleman which I can either take or leave?'

(Kate Bassett, In Two Minds: a Biography of Jonathan Miller, 2014, reminds us that the quote comes from the monologue about trousers lost on London's railways.)

Moving along, to the second part of the question...  It is true that I have written and do write poetry.  For example, I did write an elegant villanelle when I was wooing my wife.  These things are unavoidable.

And it is true that I have published Love Death And Whiskey, a book of my song lyrics.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Death-Whiskey-Patrick-OSullivan/dp/095678240X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

In my own world I make a distinction between my song lyrics and my poems. Simply put, a song lyric is a thing of gaps, gaps for other creative people to fill.  But people have chosen to speak of my song lyrics as 'poetry'.  Terry Jones, on Amazon and on Twitter, said of my book, ' a great book for those nervous of poetry. They are simply wonderful lyrics...'   If we analyse this deeply (everything said by Terry Jones can be analysed deeply...) there seems to be some sort of problem around 'poetry' that my work addresses.

Sometimes people have said to me that they like my 'poems', and I have tried to explain my song/poem distinction - thereby, absurdly, quarrelling with people who like my work.  Some have fought back, gamely, reading out loud my own work to me, in order to prove to me that my song lyrics are 'poems'.  At this point it is clear that I have misunderstood the argument, and should just shut up.

Yet, readers of this blog will know that I am uncomfortable with some of the exercises required of a 'poet' - see below, by way of contrast, my happy encounter with Laurie Lee.

Would I be happy, then, to be called a poet?  I am, I suppose, happy with the word, a doer, a maker, a Makar - as the Scots have it.

And so, after what you might well think was insufficient consideration, I did answer the question.  'Are you the gentleman who is a poet?'  I said, Yes.

Patrick O'Sullivan
February 2015

O'Sullivan, Mercier, Notes

This is really, maybe, a 'Libraries Prequel...' I wrote these notes last month to answer some of the queries I get about my piece on Mercier's The Irish Comic Tradition...

http://www.mediafire.com/view/pdv44q6atlon2tw/2004%2C%20O'Sullivan%2C%20On%20First%20Looking%20into%20Mercier's%20The%20Irish%20Comic%20Tradition.pdf

http://www.mediafire.com/view/guug7tjjtid184k/2015%2C%20O'Sullivan%2C%20Mercier%2C%20NOTES.txt

January 2015 

Some notes on 

Article (OSulliv2004First) 

O'Sullivan, P. 

On First Looking into Mercier's The Irish Comic Tradition 

New Hibernia Review, 2004, 8, 152-157 

1. 

John Bayley
I have just heard the news of the death of John Bayley, who is mentioned in my piece. Where his name is spelt 'John Bailey'. I do not know how that happened. Might even be the Curse of Autocorrect, as the text was passed from hand to hand. For such a small piece this article needed a lot of negotiation with editors. Witness the correct academic American English usage in 'an homage'... 

 John Bayley, who was a kind and good teacher, is mentioned in my article as, perhaps, denotative of a certain approach to texts, involving close, sensitive reading. He was a decent man. 

Here is The Guardian's Obituary...

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/22/john-bayley

2. 

Kensington Library, Liverpool
is the little local library remembered with gratitude. When I was writing the piece I looked around for some pictures of the building, partly to prompt memory. I was writing for an austere academic journal - so no pictures could be used. At one point in the writing of the piece there was a danger that it would become a study of the libraries rather than of the book. Finding pictures has become much easier with the passage of time. It was, and still is, a very fine little building. There is a note about the building by Reg Towner, and a very nice drawing at 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/townerassociates/15362517188/

Reg Towner also directs us to a photograph... 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/townerassociates/6079754979/in/set-72157632645145124

Designed by Thomas Shelmerdine for Liverpool City Council, funded by Andrew Carnegie, of course. Built 1890, modified 1897 - with the addition of that bigger wing. Which I like - I like the off balance look of the building. 

The Victorian Society has a useful leaflet at 

http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/regions/LI-Liverpool_newsletter_Dec_2011.pdf

And a web search for Thomas Shelmerdine will find more odds and ends. The Everton Public Library, Liverpool - also designed by Shelmerdine - is used by Alistair Black for some general pontification. Which I do not object to...

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/victorian_review/v039/39.1.black.html

Everton Public Library 

Alistair Black 

Victorian Review Volume 39, Number 1, Spring 2013 pp. 40-44 

He summarises some of the discussion about these buildings, and these resources. All under threat, now. 

It was there, when we needed it, where we needed it... 

3.
Picton Reading Room, Liverpool, and Bodleian Library, Oxford

It is easy enough to find pictures of these places online. 

The Picton Reading Room and the surrounding buildings have recently, 2010-13, been given a make-over... 

http://www.shepherd-construction.co.uk/newsitem/full-glory-of-liverpool-central-library-picton-reading-room-re-emerges-as-work-progresses_p238_c3.aspx

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpools-new-central-library-revealed-3324449 

Hard to judge from photographs - but have they done something to the floor levels within the Picton Reading Room? 

When I gave up being a probation officer I went to the Bodleian Library - to repair my prose style. There I did the reading and the research to write 

Incollection (OSullivan1989literary) 

O'Sullivan, P. 

Swift, R. & Gilley, S. (Eds.) A literary difficulty in explaining Ireland: Tom Moore and Captain Rock, 1824 

The Irish in Britain: 1815-1939, Pinter, 1989, 239-74 

Which was given that daft title by our esteemed editors. People keep asking me what that title means - I have no idea what it means. 

The point of places like the Picton Reading Room or the Bodleian Library is that any thought, any thought, can be followed into the research record. 

4.
Do note that the two chapters from The Irish World Wide, which are mentioned in my Mercier piece, are available on that free MediaFire.

That is, Barry Coldrey on the Christian Brothers, and my own chapter, 

'The Irish joke'... 

O'Sullivan, P. 

O'Sullivan, P. (Ed.) The Irish joke 

The Creative Migrant, Leicester University Press, 1994, 3, 57-82

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ooj5btdttc9y4/Documents

Patrick O'Sullivan 

Armenians and Libraries

Some things I have been writing recently have made me think about libraries...

And I found myself sharing notes with Khachig Tölölyan, historian of the Armenian Diaspora, founder and editor of the journal DIASPORA...

A web search will find much stuff, including a video of a conversation with Robin Cohen...

http://vimeo.com/25020401

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/diaspora_a_journal_of_transnational_studies/

When we shared notes, Khachig was in Venice.  And I remarked that I must be one of the few people in the world who has visited both the library at San Lazzaro degli Armeni, in the lagoon of Venice, AND the Matenadaran in Yerevan, Armenia.  Maybe the only non-Armenian...?

Khachig emailed back, 'Colour me impressed...'

San Lazzaro degli Armeni has its own Wikipedia entry...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Lazzaro_degli_Armeni

In 1717 the Republic of Venice gave the island to the Catholic Armenian Mechitarist religious order - the monks had fled westwards after the Ottoman invasion of the Morea (the Peleponnese).  The most famous visitor to the island was most probably Byron - though the present day monks seem a little puzzled that fewer and fewer people have heard of Byron.  I was especially interested in the place of Venice, and the island, in the development of Armenian printed books.  All in all, a fascinating example of the vagaries of diaspora, and struggle for the survival of culture and knowledge...

This is the Wikipedia entry for the Matenadaran...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matenadaran

As all the world knows, I am not a happy traveller.  But whenever I do travel, and wherever I travel, I make pilgrimage to the libraries...

As a further example...  A long time ago I was travelling in the Scottish Borders. And I came across a sign, pointing sharply up a minor road:  Library.  And so, in that bleak upland place, I found the Leadhills Miners' Library...
http://www.leadhillslibrary.co.uk/

The Leadhills Miners Reading Society was founded in 1741, and is the oldest subscription library in the British Isles.  The miners bought books with their own money - the rules of the society are really worth reading.  Working class self-organisation.  Again, poignant, significant, the struggle for knowledge...

Patrick O'Sullivan
January 2015

Song: Autobiography of a Navvy

The lyric of this song can be found in my song lyric book, Love Death and Whiskey...

See, for example...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Death-Whiskey-Patrick-OSullivan/dp/095678240X

I made it my contribution to TradConnect's Songwriter Showcase with Christy Moore...

http://tradconnect.com/profiles/blogs/songs-61-65-songwriter-showcase-with-christy-moore

http://tradconnect.com/profiles/blogs/songs-56-60-songwriter-showcase-with-christy-moore?xg_source=msg_mes_network

I wanted to show support for TradConnect and Tony Lawless - this was a nice, straightforward project, clearly meant to be a service to TradConnect's members, making no attempt to exploit us.

My lyric seemed to fit within the rules of the Songwriter Showcase, as they were at the beginning of the project, or as I understood them.  We were required to put a sung version of the song on Soundcloud.  So, I did.  But I also persuaded Stephanie Hladowski to put an austere version of the song out there...

https://soundcloud.com/saltduck-1

The lyric connects with various projects to do with my development of Irish Diaspora Studies.

The title of the song is a kind of homage to Patrick MacGill (1889-1963), 'The Navvy Poet'. There is a hint, too, of the grimmer songs of work and diaspora, like An Spailpin Fanach.  It is a grim lyric

The lyric also connects with a small research project conducted by the charity, Leeds Irish Health and Homes, which looked at precisely where in Ireland the Leeds Irish come from. Mostly the Irish of Leeds come from Mayo, and have well-established links and networks.

But the charity also found a number of elderly men, from many different parts of Ireland, living isolated lives in bedsits in Leeds. These were the navvies, still living where they happened to be when the last contract ended, and when the body could no longer do the work.

My lyric uses some 1970s navvy words, like 'lump' and 'subby'.

The lyric will go to the tune that in Ireland is known as 'The Croppy Boy', and in England is known as 'Lord Franklin' - and is very like the tune used by Bob Dylan in 'Bob Dylan's Dream'. But the lyric has a very simple, strong structure, and could be set in any number of ways.

Tony Lawless's and TradConnect's Songwriter Showcase has now closed...

Patrick O'Sullivan

January 2015