SHORT FILM Paraski in Tignes, why don't you

This short film is now on YouTube.  The starting point here is very prosaic  – my wife wanted to share her holiday snaps and videos…

Paraski in Tignes, why don't you
A film by Patrick O'Sullivan
© Patrick O'Sullivan 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxy0DXVNM08


There was no time to do a detailed sound edit  – and indeed no point in going into one.  I took what sound I had been given, and in the background put a meditation by Marin Marais on a chord sequence.  And let the music seem to follow movement on the screen. 

It is a famous chord sequence which has its own name, La Folia (Madness, Folly), its own history, and its own Wikipedia entry…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folia

See also this labour of love…
http://www.folias.nl/

As well as the Marin Marais you will find versions by Lully, Vivaldi, Corelli, and so on.  But it turns up in all sorts of places – I think you can hear it in the fiddle tune that became the theme for the movie, Last of the Mohicans.

In Dm all the chords are available on a standard chromatic autoharp.  One chord per bar, except for bar 15.

Dm A7 Dm C
F C Dm A7
Dm A7 Dm C
F C Dm/A7 Dm

Patrick O’Sullivan

Autoharp in The Bourne Legacy

Autoharp sighting...

Whilst moving my boat home, from Llangollen, I had a few evenings by myself. And one night I went to the cinema, to see The Bourne Legacy - the Bourne movie without Jason Bourne, written and directed by the usual Bourne scriptwriter, Tony Gilroy. The movie has had very mixed reviews - but I enjoyed it as a further exploration of the 'Bourne world'.

Anyway... The movie has an autoharp in it, just part of the set dressing - in a cabin in the snow, propped against the wall, never explained or mentioned. There is no reason for an autoharp to be there. You have to think that maybe - because the scene IS set in a cabin in the snow - this is a cineaste's reference to the W.C. Fields short, The Fatal Glass of Beer.

view-source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDB1htp07Ms

Shortly after you see the autoharp (spoiler alert!) the cabin in the snow is blown up by a missile launched from a drone. And the autoharp too, we must suppose...

Patrick O'Sullivan

The Wharf in Castlefield Basin is up for an award

Visitors to the Castlefield Canal Basin, Manchester, on the Bridgewater, at the bottom end of the Rochdale Canal, will know that the large pub building, on the Slate Wharf, next to the Middle Warehouse, has been rescued by Rob Broadbent and his team.  It is now open as a busy upmarket pub, called The Wharf, with good food and well cared for beer.  There is more information on the very interesting web site...

http://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/thewharf/

The Wharf is up for an award and would like our support...

The Wharf has been nominated in the ‘Newcomer of the Year’ category of the Manchester Food and Drink Awards, part of the annual food and drink festival.

There are two stages to the judging process: firstly they are visited by a mystery diner, who will assess the quality, flavour and presentation of food and drink, value for money, and the standard of the furnishings and finishes etc.

No, I don't know how you get to be a mystery diner...

The second part of the judging process is where they need our help.  You can vote on the Food and Drink Festival awards page here:

http://foodanddrinkfestival.com/awards

You just add your email, scroll down to the 'Newcomer of the Year' section, and enter your vote, then click on the link in the confirmation email you will receive.

When so many canal side pubs have disappeared I think it is right to say Thank You when this one has been rescued, and is being run so well.

Patrick O'Sullivan

New Song: Sherman Tank

Sherman Tank

Tune:  Wildwood Flower

I will drive in my Sherman to the gates of Berlin,

or dance with an angel on the point of a pin.

Be you Tommy or Frenchie or Polack or Yank

you are welcome to shelter by my Sherman Tank.

If we meet with a Tiger we will hide in the wood,

for a seventy five mill won't do us much good.

We will hide in the wood, lads, and keep out of reach

till the seventeen pounders come up from the beach.

I don’t hate the German as much as I should.

I don’t love my Sherman as much as I could.

For to tell you the truth, in the midst of a war,

I would far rather be in a T34.

To cross that wide river you need a strong bridge,

To cross that high mountain just follow the ridge,

To cross that wide plain you will need a good road,

And always my Sherman to carry your load.

I will drive in my Sherman to the gates of Berlin,

or dance with an angel on the point of a pin.

Be you Tommy or Frenchie or Polack or Yank

you are welcome to shelter by my Sherman Tank.

I think it is generally agreed that we do not have enough songs about the tanks, and other armoured and tracked vehicles, of World War II.

This song attempts to fill that gap.

This song will go to the tune of Wildwood Flower, the same tune that Woody Guthrie used for his song Reuben James.  Woody Guthrie adds an extra element to the tune, a little 2 line chorus.  If we need that chorus just adapt the Tommy and Frenchie couplet.

© Patrick O’Sullivan 2012

BBC RADIO 3, Tristram Hunt on Robert Malthus

Tonight I will be listening to BBC Radio 3 - Tristram Hunt on Robert Malthus...

Below, text from the BBC Radio 3 web site, and link...

'Robert Malthus

Episode 1 of 3, Great British Ideas

DURATION: 45 MINUTES

In this new series for BBC Radio 3, historian Tristram Hunt rediscovers the stories of three ideas that emerged in Britain - and then traces how their impact has spread far beyond our shores.

In the first programme, Tristram explores how the insight of the great British economist, the Reverend Robert Malthus (1766-1834), wreaked havoc in 19th century India - and yet was later adopted by Indians themselves. Malthus argued that the number of people in the world will always tend to increase faster than the supply of food to feed them. The only way to prevent this was to act to lower the birth rate. Or to wait for famine, war and disease to intervene...'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00yrhff

In a chapter published some time ago I laid some ground rules, giving a wider context to the study of the Irish Famine, mapping out the obvious connections with British India, and exploring the ways in which Malthus' theories were put into practice.

See
O'Sullivan, P. & Lucking, R.
The Famine world-wide: the Irish Famine and the development of famine policy and famine theory
1997, The Meaning of the Famine, Volume 6 of The Irish World Wide.

I am now in the middle of writing up two research projects on the experiences of Irish Famine victims and refugees.  We will see where Tristram Hunt goes with this.


My thanks to my friend, Kenneth E. Smith, for bringing this radio programme to my attention.


Patrick O'Sullivan

Farewell H-Net

As an example of the ways in which problems can be cumulative, and you can make cumulative problems for yourself...

I had become a member of EIGHT H-Net discussion lists...

http://www.h-net.org/

'H-Net is an international interdisciplinary organization of scholars and teachers dedicated to developing the enormous educational potential of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Our edited lists and web sites publish peer reviewed essays, multimedia materials, and discussion for colleagues and the interested public...'

The 8 lists were 

H-Net List Names

      H-ALBION H-Net List for British and Irish History

      H-ATLANTIC H-NET List on the History of the Atlantic World, 1500-1800

      H-CARIBBEAN H-Net Network on Caribbean Studies

      H-CATHOLIC H-Net Discussion List on International Catholic History

      H-ETHNIC H-NET List on Ethnic History

      H-FOLK H-Net Discussion List on Folklore and Ethnology

      H-HISTGEOG H-Net Network for Historical Geography

      H-MIGRATION H-Net Network on Migration History

The list could have been even longer.  I think you can see me trying to map the interests and research areas of Irish Diaspora Studies on to the very different maps of the H-Net and the (mostly US) academic communities.  One of the tasks I had given myself was to make appropriate Irish Diaspora Studies interventions into these H-Net discussions, as need and opportunity arose.

(A background problem in the study of the Irish Diaspora is a tendency to claim too much, and offer too little - when we have much to offer...)

I will not here talk about all the wonderful work that H-Net does.  I will just note some of the problems I had created for myself by trying to track, and intervene in, 8 discussion lists.  I had given myself a lot of stuff to wade through.  Most of it was geared to the needs of career academics.  Much of it was repetitive - as the same message was passed around a number of H-Net lists.  

Especially irritating was when some student, beginning a project, would send an email to one H-Net group, asking for help with his bibliography.  And send the same email to another group.  And a third.  And our sweet innocents would helpfully pile in - and I would find that I had read the same request and very similar replies in three different places.

One recent example was a request for information, a vague request, about possible Irish involvement in the Royal Navy mutinies of 1797.  This was my reply...

It is difficult to deal with this sort of query unless we are given some idea of research already undertaken or works read.

The theme of the special role of the Irish in all the Napoleonic era mutinies rumbles along, in sources and cases at the time, and in scholarly comment since.

For opposing views see see N.A.M. Rodger, “Mutiny or Subversion? Spithead and the Nore” in 1798: A Bicentenary Perspective, ed. by Thomas Bartlett, David Dickson, Dáire Keogh and Kevin Whelan (Dublin, 2003), 549-64; and Roger Wells, Insurrection: The British Experience, 1795-1803 (Gloucester, 1983) 79-110.  More recently see Anthony G. Brown, “The Nore Mutiny – Sedition or Ships’ Biscuits? A Reappraisal,” Mariner’s Mirror 92, no. 1 (2006), 60-74.

I have found very helpful the references in Niklas Frykman, The Mutiny on the Hermione: Warfare, Revolution, and Treason in the Royal Navy, Journal of Social History (2010) 44(1): 159-187.

Mutinies are of great interest to all of us who study people hidden from history - especially using the Subaltern Studies approach.  But really, nowadays, instead of trying the patience of good-natured people, we are better off just going to Google Scholar and thinking about search terms.


So, farewell then H-Net.  I will still visit the web site to read a book review.  And read it only once.


Patrick O'Sullivan

Farewell Zetoc

Zetoc - alerts closed

Zetoc is one of the resources I would use to track developments within Irish Diaspora Studies.

Zetoc is simply a journals Table of Contents tracking and alerts system, linked to the British Library database.  The Zetoc service is provided by Mimas at The University of Manchester on behalf of the British Library and JISC.

http://zetoc.mimas.ac.uk/

Note the limitations to access.  Basically, you have to be a member of a UK Higher Education institution.  Independent scholars - nah!

This was my list of journals at Zetoc.  Whenever Zetoc became aware of a new Table of Contents for one of these journals it would send me an email.

ISSN  Title Last Issue

0790-892X   ARCHAEOLOGY IRELAND     24/03/2012  VOL 26; NUMB 1

0376-6039   BOOKS IRELAND     14/12/2010  NUMB 326

1353-0089   CAMBRIAN MEDIEVAL CELTIC STUDIES    27/01/2012  NUMB 62

0013-2683   EIRE IRELAND      20/01/2012  VOL 46; NUMB 3/4

0790-0430   FOOD IRELAND      (No longer in Zetoc)

0332-4893   IRISH ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY   25/01/2012  VOL 37

0332-3315   IRISH EDUCATIONAL STUDIES     06/04/2012  VOL 31; NUMBER 1

1649-6825   IRISH FEMINIST REVIEW -WOMENS STUDIES CENTRE-(No longer in Zetoc)

0075-0778   IRISH GEOGRAPHY   26/05/2012  VOL 44; NUMB 2/3

0021-1214   IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES      22/03/2012  NUMB 148

0790-7184   IRISH POLITICAL STUDIES 12/01/2012  VOL 26; NUMBER 4

0790-7850   IRISH REVIEW -CORK-     18/08/2011  NUMB 43

0967-0882   IRISH STUDIES REVIEW -BATH-   04/04/2012  VOL 20; NUMBER 1

0021-1427   IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW 24/05/2011  VOL 41; NUMB 1

0268-537X   JOURNAL OF IRISH ARCHAEOLOGY  31/07/2010  VOL 17

1460-8944   NATIONAL IDENTITIES     24/02/2012  VOL 13; NUMB 4

0332-1592   PERITIA -GALWAY THEN CORK THEN TURNHOUT-  (No longer in Zetoc)

0957-0756   PROCEEDINGS- HUGUENOT SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND  25/10/2011  VOL 29; NUMB 4

0035-8991   PROCEEDINGS- ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY SECTION C ARCHAEOLOGY CELTIC STUDIES HISTORY LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE    (No longer in Zetoc)

1350-9942   SOCIAL ATTITUDES IN NORTHERN IRELAND      (No longer in Zetoc)

0039-3495   STUDIES -DUBLIN-  15/05/2012  VOL 101; NUMB 401

0040-1676   TECHNOLOGY IRELAND      21/04/2012  SPR

0082-7347   ULSTER FOLKLIFE   (No longer in Zetoc)

A number of Irish interest journals have disappeared - I have left them in the list, for interest's sake. 

Important North American and Australasian journals are not listed here - remember, this is linked to the British Library database.

And most - not all - of the journals listed here now have their own web sites, and their own systems for generating Table of Contents alerts.  And there is a bit of time lag, as journals generate Tables of Contents, and they percolate through to the Zetoc system.

So, it might be felt, that Zetoc's usefulness is becoming limited. 

And yet, and yet, and yet...

Look at one journal listed there - Patrick Sims-Williams' CAMBRIAN MEDIEVAL CELTIC STUDIES. Doggedly only on paper.

In one Table of Contents, generated by Zetoc, I saw this...

`Messe ocus Pangur Ban': Structure and Cosmology.

Toner, Gregory

pp. 1-22

CAMBRIAN MEDIEVAL CELTIC STUDIES

NUMB 57; 2009

ISSN 1353-0089

The poem 'Pangur Ban' has become one of the foundation texts of Irish Diaspora Studies, not least because so many poets - including me - have produced versions.

With the help of the editor and the author I was able to read this article, a lovely, scholarly piece of work.  Gregory Toner adds new dimensions to Pangur Ban studies, to our understanding of the poem and the manuscript.

Would I have known about Gregory Toner's article were it not for Zetoc?  Perhaps?  Eventually?  I don't know.

Anyway, thank you Zetoc, and farewell.

Patrick O'Sullivan