Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Muiris Mag Ualghairg
Subject: Re: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
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"Can anyone on the List still seriously contend that the institutional
abuse previously perpetrated in other societies bears valid comparison
with what happened here or isn't rooted in a warped belief system?"

Yes, I can, and I don't want to get into a big debate on whose
depravity was the worse but when we talk about Irish institutional
abuse, without a doubt a terrible and awful situation and one that we
need to be open about, we should not in our horror assume that the
abuse conducted was some how or other unique, one only has to think
about the following:

1) The abuse perpetrated against Aboriginal children in Australia
2) The 'orphaneges' in countries such as Romania and many former
warsaw pact countries in Eastern Europe where children regularly died
of starvation or because of the poor conditions and where, so starved
of love and affection, many didn't even learn language, and where
there is ample evidence of other physical and sexual abuse. To my mind
that abuse is up there with anything of the terrible things that
happened in Ireland, so yes I will contend that Ireland was not
uniquely evil and was not uniquely bad in the things that were allowed
to happen.

I do not personally believe that we should allow this terrible abuse
to shape Ireland into a nation riven by guilt rather we should use it
to cast a light on the past and make sure that such events cannot
happen again, but to claim that we hold some kind of uniqueness in
depravity is just wrong. And I think the comparison with feeling
German is misplaced, what happened in Ireland was a failure by a state
and a society to come to terms with what was happening what happened
in Germany was a deliberate policy of mass murder on a scale never
before seen (although also going on in the Soviet Union under Stalin),
the difference between doing the bare minimum and not enough to
protect and actively going out of one's way to murder whole nations is
a very large one.

Muiris



2009/6/22 Patrick O'Sullivan :
> tom: ultancowley[at]eircom.net
> To: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
> Subject: Re: [IR-D] Roots of a warped view of sexuality
>
>
> Piaras
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Glad to see the pundits are endorsing what I - a mere lay=
person
> (who just happened to have been there), asserted via the List when the Ry=
an
> Report debate first opened - 'At the root of the depravity is the Irish
> Catholic obsession with repressing sexuality and the consequences that
> had...' (Ir.-D. List,May 21). Can anyone on the List still seriously cont=
end
> that the institutional abuse previously perpetrated in other societies be=
ars
> valid comparison with what happened here or isn't rooted in a warped beli=
ef
> system?
>
> Many Irish peoople are beginning to find out what it feels like to be
> German...
>
> Ultan
>
>
> ----- "Patrick O'Sullivan" wrote:
>> From: "MacEinri, Piaras"
>> To: "The Irish Diaspora Studies List"
>>
>> Powerful piece on the clerical sex abuse question, in Ireland and the
>> =3D
>> Diaspora, by Patsy McGarry in today's Irish Times
>> Piaras
>>
>> Roots of a warped view of sexuality
>>
>> Sat, Jun 20, 2009
>>
>> =3DA9 2009 The Irish Times
>>
>> SOURCE
>>
> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0620/1224249169562.html?=
via
>> =3Dmr
>

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: CFP Fantasy Ireland: Imaginings and Re-Imaginings,
University of Sunderland, 13-15 November 2009
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Call for Papers=20
=A0
Fantasy Ireland:
Imaginings and Re-Imaginings
=A0
An international conference held at the University of Sunderland
=A0
13-15 November 2009
=A0
Organised by the North East Irish Culture Network
=A0
Following the success of the previous six international Irish Studies
conferences, the University of Sunderland, in association with NEICN, is
soliciting papers for an interdisciplinary conference, which will run =
from
13-15th November 2009. The conference will begin with a plenary lecture =
on
13th November; there will be a book launch and wine reception on the =
Friday
evening and a ceilidh and conference banquet on Saturday 14th November.
=A0
The conference organisers hope to represent a wide range of approaches =
to
Irish culture from academics and non-academics alike. Performances,
roundtables, collaborative projects, and other non-traditional =
presentations
are encouraged in addition to conference papers. We welcome both =
individual
submissions and proposals for panels.=A0 As with previous year=92s =
conference,
we welcome submissions for panels and papers under the thematic headings =
of
Fantasy Ireland=A0: Imaginings and Re-imaginings in the following areas:
Literature, Performing Arts, History, Politics, Folklore and Mythology,
Ireland in Theory, Gender and Ireland Anthropology, Sociology, =
Geography,
Tourism, Art and Art History, Music, Dance, Media and Film Studies, =
Cultural
Studies, and Studies of the Diaspora. North American and other =
international
scholars, practitioners in the arts, and postgraduate students are all
encouraged to submit proposals to the conference organisers.=A0=20
=A0
Each session will include three or four 20-minute presentations each
followed by discussion. A selection of the accepted papers will be
subsequently published in the conference proceedings.
=A0
The University of Sunderland houses the North East Irish Culture =
Network,
established in 2003 to further the study of Irish Literature and Culture
(see www.neicn.com). It has held six previous conferences.=A0 Previous
speakers include Terry Eagleton, Robert Welch, Luke Gibbons, Ailbhe =
Smith,
Kevin Barry, Siobhan Kilfeather, Shaun Richards, Lance Pettitt, Stephen
Regan, Lord David Puttnam, Andrew Carpenter, John Nash and Willy Maley, =
with
readings from Ciaran Carson Medbh McGuckian, Bernard O=92Donoghue and =
Eilis Ni
Dhuibhne.=A0 In 2008, the English department at Durham was the recipient =
of=A0 a
Leverhulme Major Research Grant to sponsor its project =91Consumer =
Culture,
Advertising and Literature in ireland 1848-1921=92 (see =
www.ccalireland.com)
=A0
Keynote Speakers
=A0
Keynote speakers confirmed to date include:
Dr Benjamin Colbert
Professor John Strachan (second annual Leverhulme plenary speaker)
=A0
Paper Submission
=A0
Please submit your proposals (title and 300-word maximum abstract) by =
31st
July to Dr Alison O=92Malley-Younger: Alison.younger[at]sunderland.ac.uk=20
copying in Mr Colin Younger: colin.younger[at]sunderland.ac.uk=20

Slan agus beannacht
www.neicn.com=20
http://www.ccalireland.com/index.html
=A0
Alison O'Malley-Younger [Dr]
Programme Leader: English and Creative Writing
Department of English
University of Sunderland
=A0

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Joe Bradley
Subject: Re: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
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The Irish Times article is the antithesis of academic writing and little in=
it would hold where even the slightest rigour is applied =96 even if there=
are some things contained in it worth studying or that some people would r=
eadily nod their head in agreement. Its good to see that Muiris has challe=
nged what can be accepted so readily =96 and in the context of simultaneous=
ly recognising the evil that has been perpetuated.
=20=20
One (of a number) thing that has repeatedly cropped up over the past few we=
eks is the question of the types who 'sometimes' became priests or who were=
'made' to become priests =96 and also how lacking in Christianity (practic=
ing what they and their Church preached) these people have been. For the C=
hurch and its flock, that=92s a matter that it requires to address not just=
for future clergy but also for present ones too.=20=20
=20
This debate is sure to throw up many new and revealing angles over the year=
s to come. The debate is so new that there has been little time to carry o=
ut any substantial and meaningful comparative analysis (countries, time, va=
riations within Ireland, diaspora to Ireland, and in a whole range of conte=
xts =96 including those Muiris applies). To carry out such studies will be=
difficult and requires a degree of impartiality (though students need not =
lose their passion) that has not always been apparent on the part of many s=
ides so far.
=20=20
As a observation =96 at least in terms of reactions to the scandals of rece=
nt years, I have found that few people of faith have diminished in their Ca=
tholic/Christian commitments and lives =96 their relationship with their G=
od/Christ is relatively unaffected while there are many more that are quest=
ioning and critical about their Church (and in these times their Government=
s etc too) as an institution and in its proclaimed role as =91facilitator=
=92 and =91servant=92 in relation to Christ and his people.=20=20

It might also be relevant that most interested observers might agree that i=
n Britain and Ireland, at least, there are many (increasing) =91problems=92=
in relation to sexual matters. The constant stories in the media about a =
lack of/too much sex education, high abortion rates, broken relationships, =
increasing numbers with STDs, etc, etc, demonstrates this to a degree. It=
seems we live in an era or relatively high sexual =91liberation=92 and may=
be even where =91sex=92 actually shapes the lives and aspirations of huge n=
umbers of people. Is this the opposite of the repression referred to?

In this light it might be an interesting question to ask what people mean w=
hen they refer to =91sexual repression=92 =96 a concept that appears import=
ant to our understandings of what has happened and why. This is not an agr=
eed concept and people mean different things by it. It is clear from many =
of the media reports that there is a lack of clarity or agreement and it=92=
s become a casual catch-all phrase.
=20=20
It might be interesting to locate some study or aspects of the current deba=
te on the actual teachings of the Catholic Church and particularly the sex/=
body/love writings of the two most recent Popes, John Paul 11 and Benedict =
xvi. Everything we know or suspect in relation to the physical and mental =
abuses wrought on anyone by a religious person =96 or by anyone else for th=
at matter =96 is completely contrary to the teachings promulgated by these =
two people. As Muiris indirectly suggests, it might be good to locate SOME=
of the discussion/enquiry into the capacity of many/some people to inflict=
such torture/misery on their fellow human beings =96 regardless of whether=
the rationale-context, or cloak which disguises the evil, is religious, po=
litical, ethnic, racial, social or cultural.=20=20

Joe
--=20
Academic Excellence at the Heart of Scotland.
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland,=20
number SC 011159.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick Maume
Subject: Re: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
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From: Patrick Maume
Whatever may be said about the relationship between Catholicism and the
abuse scandal, the way Patsy McGarry puts it in the IRISH TIMES article
strikes me as saloon-bar stuff.
He implies (rather than stating) that all celibates must necessarily be
warped and that any form of sexual self-restraint is unnatural and
undesirable. You would think from the way that he handles the European
context that Pius IX had personally invented asceticism and clerical
celibacy (or that there were no priests in Ireland, or none who joined for
economic motives before the Famine).
What really is a post-famine development in the Irish context is the
culture of institutional impunity - not that there were individual
perpetrators, but that they were covered up for and assisted in getting away
with it by so many who were not themelselves abusers. That IMHO is the
central scandal (and one which is pretty clearly linked to the devotional
revolution), and that is what Patsy McGarry's approach lets off the hook.
Best wishes,
Patrick Maume
On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Muiris Mag Ualghairg wrote:

> "Can anyone on the List still seriously contend that the institutional
> abuse previously perpetrated in other societies bears valid comparison
> with what happened here or isn't rooted in a warped belief system?"
>
> Yes, I can, and I don't want to get into a big debate on whose
> depravity was the worse but when we talk about Irish institutional
> abuse, without a doubt a terrible and awful situation and one that we
> need to be open about, we should not in our horror assume that the
> abuse conducted was some how or other unique, one only has to think
> about the following:
>
> 1) The abuse perpetrated against Aboriginal children in Australia
> 2) The 'orphaneges' in countries such as Romania and many former
> warsaw pact countries in Eastern Europe where children regularly died
> of starvation or because of the poor conditions and where, so starved
> of love and affection, many didn't even learn language, and where
> there is ample evidence of other physical and sexual abuse. To my mind
> that abuse is up there with anything of the terrible things that
> happened in Ireland, so yes I will contend that Ireland was not
> uniquely evil and was not uniquely bad in the things that were allowed
> to happen.
>
> I do not personally believe that we should allow this terrible abuse
> to shape Ireland into a nation riven by guilt rather we should use it
> to cast a light on the past and make sure that such events cannot
> happen again, but to claim that we hold some kind of uniqueness in
> depravity is just wrong. And I think the comparison with feeling
> German is misplaced, what happened in Ireland was a failure by a state
> and a society to come to terms with what was happening what happened
> in Germany was a deliberate policy of mass murder on a scale never
> before seen (although also going on in the Soviet Union under Stalin),
> the difference between doing the bare minimum and not enough to
> protect and actively going out of one's way to murder whole nations is
> a very large one.
>
> Muiris
>
>
>
> 2009/6/22 Patrick O'Sullivan :
> > tom: ultancowley[at]eircom.net
> > To: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
> > Subject: Re: [IR-D] Roots of a warped view of sexuality
> >
> >
> > Piaras
> >
> > Glad to see the pundits are endorsing what I - a mere lay person
> > (who just happened to have been there), asserted via the List when the
> Ryan
> > Report debate first opened - 'At the root of the depravity is the Irish
> > Catholic obsession with repressing sexuality and the consequences that
> > had...' (Ir.-D. List,May 21). Can anyone on the List still seriously
> contend
> > that the institutional abuse previously perpetrated in other societies
> bears
> > valid comparison with what happened here or isn't rooted in a warped
> belief
> > system?
> >
> > Many Irish peoople are beginning to find out what it feels like to be
> > German...
> >
> > Ultan
> >
> >
> > ----- "Patrick O'Sullivan" wrote:
> >> From: "MacEinri, Piaras"
> >> To: "The Irish Diaspora Studies List"
> >>
> >> Powerful piece on the clerical sex abuse question, in Ireland and the
> >> =
> >> Diaspora, by Patsy McGarry in today's Irish Times
> >> Piaras
> >>
> >> Roots of a warped view of sexuality
> >>
> >> Sat, Jun 20, 2009
> >>
> >> =A9 2009 The Irish Times
> >>
> >> SOURCE
> >>
> >
> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0620/1224249169562.html?via
> >> =mr
> >
>

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick Maume
Subject: Re: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
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From: Patrick Maume
Quite apart from anything else, what I have read about the
nineteenth-century French Catholic subculture suggests it strongly resembled
(and indeed influenced) Irish Catholicism of the same period,
including heavly clerical recruitment from the peasantry for orders such as
the De La Salle Brothers on whom the Irish Christian Brothers are
modelled. I might add that French anti-clericals did conduct regular exposes
of Magdalen asylums and similar institutions. (I know about this because
they were taken up by English-language ultra-Protestant commentators who
campaigned against such institutions out of a general antipathy to monastic
institutions. I am surprised by the way that nobody has yet picked up on
the Protestant take on this to some extent; the Independent Orange Order was
founded in part because its members complained the official Order was
insufficiently zealous in campaigning for the closure of convent laundries -
i.e. Magdalen asylums - and in the 1950s Ian Paisley organised a lecture
tour by the ex-catholci Monica Farrell who campaigned against the
laundries.)
Best wishes,
Patrick

On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 7:11 PM, Muiris Mag Ualghairg wrote:

> Hmm, I don't think that this is a very good article for a number of reasons
>
> "Irish names are prominent wherever in the English-speaking world
> clerical child sex abuse has been spoken of. Even allowing for the
> uniquely high number of Irish men among Catholic priests and religious
> worldwide, this phenomenon is striking."
>
> 1) Really? Do we have figures to back this up or do we have vague
> feelings brought about by media coverage of the situation? The media
> naturally tends to cover certain types of crimes and those which have
> a connection to the local community tend to have more coverage than
> those with no connection, this is only natural but it means that Irish
> newspapers will give more column inches to abuse by a Catholic priest
> in New York than it might to abuse by an 'Elder' in a protestant
> church in Atlanta.
>
> 2) The tendency to Irish names is only natural if the Catholic church
> receives more coverage as the Catholic church in most of the English
> speaking world was basically planted and developed in those countries
> by Irish people, having said this, I would also question how 'Irish'
> some of the names listed are, I don't think of 'Cox' and 'Taylor' as
> particularly 'Irish' names at all. Taylor is quite common in the north
> east of England as a group of 'English' families that kept their faith
> through the centuries of persecution - although one, Rowland Taylor
> did embrace protestantism and was 'martyred' under Queen Mary in 1555
> - he was from Northumberland, (there are a fair number of these 'old
> English catholics' in north east England, my first two parish priest
> were 'Old English Catholics' with no Irish connections at all, as was
> the head of my sixth form college). Cox is a west country name and is
> prevalent in Bristol, south Wales, none of the Coxes that I know are
> Catholics and it had never occurred to me to think of them as having
> an 'Irish name'.
>
> 3) Any list of names which has been edited to just pick out a
> particular ethnic group can only give a skewed view, I've had a look
> on the website http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org/ which has a long
> list of the clergy, taking the section A-B (and removing the few
> obviously Irish names) we get the following names
>
> "Ainsworth, Aitchison, Ayles, Ayres, Baker, Bazely, Bellemore,
> Beninati, Best, Bongiorno, Booth, Bosse, Brazier, Briscoe, Browning,
> Burgess, Burton, Cakacaka, Carter, Cattell, Christian, Cole, Collison,
> Comensoli, Coote, Cotton, Crombie, Crump, Curnuck, Daniel, D'Astoli,
> Day, Deal, Denham, Derriman, Dick, Down, Duffield, Durham, Dyson"
>
> This short list based only on A-D shows that clerical abuse was not
> restricted to those with Irish names but seemed to have been committed
> by those with English and Italian names as well (I assume other
> ethnicities as we go through the list), it is also striking that while
> many were catholics, many were not.
> A recent independent report published in Australia showed that there
> were 191 complaints against 135 members of the Anglican clergy,
> averaging out as nearly one a month over the period 1990 to 2008. One
> wonders how many of these Anglican priest have 'Irish' names? I would
> assume that the situation will be broadly similar in other English
> speaking countries.
>
> I know that it is fashionable in certain circles in Ireland to assume
> that we Irish have always been failures, everything we have done has
> not been as good as that done abroad and we must, in some way, have a
> society which is sick and needs to be reformed (generally along the
> lines of a larger island to the east!) but I find it disturbing how we
> are now being fed this kind of rubbish, that somehow or other the
> Irish were a particularly repressed society, we were particularly
> psychologically unfitted for the world (and by extension much of what
> we did from the famine onwards was caused by our collective psychosis,
> including breaking free from that other island). The reality is much
> more complex than that, for example the simplistic argument that only
> one son inherited and the rest either became priests or left the
> country is false, anyone who spent more than a couple of hours
> studying Irish genealogy knows this only too well - I have relatives
> in Ireland who are descended from brothers and sisters going back a
> hundred and more years - how could this be if only one brother could
> stay in Ireland and the rest became priests or left the country? The
> reality is that economic necessity did drive many thousands to leave
> Ireland (as it did also to many thousands of Italians) however it
> didn't drive everyone out of the country and once Ireland was English
> speaking the natural linguistic barrier to movement was removed - as
> they could speak English then it was easy to move within the English
> speaking community and so they did, as did the millions of English who
> moved to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and within the UK.
>
> I really hope that the perceptions of Patsy McGarry do not enter into
> the historical record as a true reflection of what really happened,
> and that Ireland does not respond to this article by assuming that
> Irish priests were all bad (and many were) or that the claim that the
> Irish had a greater tendency to abuse is true. The data from Australia
> doesn't seem to support this, however as Ireland is one of the few
> countries which has set about dealing with this in an honest manner
> doesn't mean that Ireland (or Irish people) were the only people who
> did this or that Irish names are particularly more prevalent in these
> cases!
>

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: "MacEinri, Piaras"
Subject: Re: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
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I must beg to disagree, respectfully, with the overall tenor of Muiris' =
argument.=20
=20
I argued some time back that there is nothing uniquely Irish, uniquely =
Catholic, or uniquely Irish Catholic, about certain aspects of this =
abuse. In other words where people (OK, usually men) have absolute, =
untramelled power and control over other people's lives, in the type of =
closed environments where there is no accountability and ultimately no =
ethical yardstick, abuses will occur, whether in a prison, concentration =
campus or whatever. Even then there are degrees of abuse and degrees of =
ethical breakdown. In German POW camps 'western' POWs were treated =
better than their Russian counterparts; the Japanese POW camps were more =
abusive than anything in Europe. Jews, Roma, homosexuals and others, by =
contrast, were almost totally dehumanised by the prevailing German =
ideology and thus treated as not fully human and therefore expendable. I =
think we can all agree that depravity is not confined to any one nation, =
ethnic group or religion.=20
=20
The point at issue in McGarry's article, it seems to me, is the =
specifically sexual aspects of parts of this abuse. This is not to say =
that the other forms of abuse were not also extreme and inexcusable.=20
=20
The examples given by Muiris (and myself) are significant in that =
regard. I mentioned wartime camps and prisons. Muiris mentions (a) =
Aboriginal children in Australia (b) Romanian and other Eastern European =
orphanages.=20
=20
Let's think about these examples. Wartime is obviously a situation where =
the conventional rules of behaviour and ethical principles can and do =
break down.=20
=20
In the case of Aboriginal children the abuse was driven by a poisonous =
mixture of colonial and racist attitudes, part of the whole 'White =
Australia' ideology whichh led to the extermination of large numbers of =
Aboriginal people in the first place.
=20
In the case of Romania the ideology of the Ceaucescu regime - let's =
remember if was a particularly odious dictatorship - was such that =
contraception was forbidden, children neglected, individual rights were =
largely non-existent and an impoverished and repressive state treated =
its own people in unspeakable ways, uprooting entire villages, =
imprisoning large numbers of people and enforcing a repressive and =
intolerant culture through an omipresent system of informers and secret =
police and the total absence of due process.=20
=20
In Ireland, by contrast 'we' (in the Australian case the Aboriginal =
people were not regarded as part of the 'we') did it to 'ourselves', in =
the context of a newly independent, liberal, western, parliamentary =
democracy. The problem was that some - the privileged who had inherited =
this State - were more part of the 'we' than the downtrodden and =
landless who were just as Irish but not just as privileged. It seems to =
me that this is not comparable with Romania or Australia and that a =
greater degree of culpability accordingly attaches to those responsible. =
And that's without even taking into account that those responsible =
professed to be following the principles of a God of love.=20
=20
But to get back to the point about sexual abuse, which is the core of =
McGarry's article, Muiris mentions the 'failure by a state and a =
society'. But the primary failure here was a failure by a church - =
specifically, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, although I readily =
concede that in certain respects the ideology of church in Ireland did =
reflect the social realities in Ireland mentioned by Patsy. I find his =
arguments (while a more detailed analysis would be needed ) a convincing =
exploration of the likely reasons for the specific variant of =
self-hating, body-hating, sexuality-hating, present-hating religion with =
which so many grew up in Ireland. This is not an anti-Catholic point at =
all, nor is it about guilt, but we do need to understand the specificity =
of Irish Catholicism (yes, it has partly French roots, but at least =
there is was balanced by a strong secular republicanism), not as an =
explanation for all of the abuse, but as a key factor in some of the =
more abberant features of that abuse.=20
=20
Piaras
=20
=20

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: "micheal.ohaodha"
Subject: Re: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
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You're absolutely right there Patrick =3D and there were Irish priests =
who fought against the Jansenist movement in France and Belgium and who =
preferred a Jesuit-style humanism.=20

As I understand it - someone please correct me if I'm wrong - the =
first-generation of teachers/"theologians" in Maynooth (and by far the =
most-influential for the generations of Irish priests which came =
afterwards) were Jansenists from Belgium whose theology was subsequently =
declared heretical.=20

For anyone wishing to check out the amount of similar scandals that have =
been/continue - in Britain just type in "abuse" and "care homes" etc. =
into Google - you won't be able to cope with the amount of results that =
come back!=20

Quote from a blog I was reading below.=20

=20

Beannachta=ED=20

=20

Dr. M=EDche=E1l =D3 hAodha=20

Dept of History=20

University of Limerick=20

Ireland=20

=20

=20

Irish novelist John Banville said everyone knew =
=20

Ireland from 1930 to the late 1990s was a closed state, ruled -- the =
word is not too strong -- by an all-powerful Catholic Church with the =
connivance of politicians and, indeed, the populace as a whole, with =
some honorable exceptions. The doctrine of original sin was ingrained in =
us from our earliest years, and we borrowed from Protestantism the =
concepts of the elect and the unelect. If children were sent to =
orphanages, industrial schools and reformatories, it must be because =
they were destined for it, and must belong there. What happened to them =
within those unscalable walls was no concern of ours.=20

We knew, and did not know. That is our shame today.

The discussions are raging about this tragedy and crime. Of interest to =
me are discussions on Traditionalist forums are at this moment tending =
to blame Jansenism, which is an interesting thought, considering the =
other systemic similar type of abuse exposed in the last couple of =
decades has been in Canada - but then, perhaps not, because the abuse =
there was not limited to the French Canadian end of things and (you know =
if you have followed this) it was not just the Catholics who were =
guilty. Anglican institutions were implicated as well. So perhaps the =
Jansenist angle only gets you so far.

=20

=20

=20

=20

-----Original Message-----
From: The Irish Diaspora Studies List [mailto:IR-D[at]JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On =
Behalf Of Patrick Maume
Sent: 22 June 2009 11:07
To: IR-D[at]JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [IR-D] Roots of a warped view of sexuality

=20

From: Patrick Maume

Quite apart from anything else, what I have read about the

nineteenth-century French Catholic subculture suggests it strongly =
resembled

(and indeed influenced) Irish Catholicism of the same period,

including heavly clerical recruitment from the peasantry for orders such =
as

the De La Salle Brothers on whom the Irish Christian Brothers are

modelled. I might add that French anti-clericals did conduct regular =
exposes

of Magdalen asylums and similar institutions. (I know about this =
because

they were taken up by English-language ultra-Protestant commentators who

campaigned against such institutions out of a general antipathy to =
monastic

institutions. I am surprised by the way that nobody has yet picked up =
on

the Protestant take on this to some extent; the Independent Orange Order =
was

founded in part because its members complained the official Order was

insufficiently zealous in campaigning for the closure of convent =
laundries -

i.e. Magdalen asylums - and in the 1950s Ian Paisley organised a lecture

tour by the ex-catholci Monica Farrell who campaigned against the

laundries.)

Best wishes,

Patrick

=20

On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 7:11 PM, Muiris Mag Ualghairg wrote:

=20

> Hmm, I don't think that this is a very good article for a number of =
reasons

>=20

> "Irish names are prominent wherever in the English-speaking world

> clerical child sex abuse has been spoken of. Even allowing for the

> uniquely high number of Irish men among Catholic priests and religious

> worldwide, this phenomenon is striking."

>=20

> 1) Really? Do we have figures to back this up or do we have vague

> feelings brought about by media coverage of the situation? The media

> naturally tends to cover certain types of crimes and those which have

> a connection to the local community tend to have more coverage than

> those with no connection, this is only natural but it means that Irish

> newspapers will give more column inches to abuse by a Catholic priest

> in New York than it might to abuse by an 'Elder' in a protestant

> church in Atlanta.

>=20

> 2) The tendency to Irish names is only natural if the Catholic church

> receives more coverage as the Catholic church in most of the English

> speaking world was basically planted and developed in those countries

> by Irish people, having said this, I would also question how 'Irish'

> some of the names listed are, I don't think of 'Cox' and 'Taylor' as

> particularly 'Irish' names at all. Taylor is quite common in the north

> east of England as a group of 'English' families that kept their faith

> through the centuries of persecution - although one, Rowland Taylor

> did embrace protestantism and was 'martyred' under Queen Mary in 1555

> - he was from Northumberland, (there are a fair number of these 'old

> English catholics' in north east England, my first two parish priest

> were 'Old English Catholics' with no Irish connections at all, as was

> the head of my sixth form college). Cox is a west country name and is

> prevalent in Bristol, south Wales, none of the Coxes that I know are

> Catholics and it had never occurred to me to think of them as having

> an 'Irish name'.

>=20

> 3) Any list of names which has been edited to just pick out a

> particular ethnic group can only give a skewed view, I've had a look

> on the website http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org/ which has a long

> list of the clergy, taking the section A-B (and removing the few

> obviously Irish names) we get the following names

>=20

> "Ainsworth, Aitchison, Ayles, Ayres, Baker, Bazely, Bellemore,

> Beninati, Best, Bongiorno, Booth, Bosse, Brazier, Briscoe, Browning,

> Burgess, Burton, Cakacaka, Carter, Cattell, Christian, Cole, Collison,

> Comensoli, Coote, Cotton, Crombie, Crump, Curnuck, Daniel, D'Astoli,

> Day, Deal, Denham, Derriman, Dick, Down, Duffield, Durham, Dyson"

>=20

> This short list based only on A-D shows that clerical abuse was not

> restricted to those with Irish names but seemed to have been committed

> by those with English and Italian names as well (I assume other

> ethnicities as we go through the list), it is also striking that while

> many were catholics, many were not.

> A recent independent report published in Australia showed that there

> were 191 complaints against 135 members of the Anglican clergy,

> averaging out as nearly one a month over the period 1990 to 2008. One

> wonders how many of these Anglican priest have 'Irish' names? I would

> assume that the situation will be broadly similar in other English

> speaking countries.

>=20

> I know that it is fashionable in certain circles in Ireland to assume

> that we Irish have always been failures, everything we have done has

> not been as good as that done abroad and we must, in some way, have a

> society which is sick and needs to be reformed (generally along the

> lines of a larger island to the east!) but I find it disturbing how we

> are now being fed this kind of rubbish, that somehow or other the

> Irish were a particularly repressed society, we were particularly

> psychologically unfitted for the world (and by extension much of what

> we did from the famine onwards was caused by our collective psychosis,

> including breaking free from that other island). The reality is much

> more complex than that, for example the simplistic argument that only

> one son inherited and the rest either became priests or left the

> country is false, anyone who spent more than a couple of hours

> studying Irish genealogy knows this only too well - I have relatives

> in Ireland who are descended from brothers and sisters going back a

> hundred and more years - how could this be if only one brother could

> stay in Ireland and the rest became priests or left the country? The

> reality is that economic necessity did drive many thousands to leave

> Ireland (as it did also to many thousands of Italians) however it

> didn't drive everyone out of the country and once Ireland was English

> speaking the natural linguistic barrier to movement was removed - as

> they could speak English then it was easy to move within the English

> speaking community and so they did, as did the millions of English who

> moved to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and within the UK.

>=20

> I really hope that the perceptions of Patsy McGarry do not enter into

> the historical record as a true reflection of what really happened,

> and that Ireland does not respond to this article by assuming that

> Irish priests were all bad (and many were) or that the claim that the

> Irish had a greater tendency to abuse is true. The data from Australia

> doesn't seem to support this, however as Ireland is one of the few

> countries which has set about dealing with this in an honest manner

> doesn't mean that Ireland (or Irish people) were the only people who

> did this or that Irish names are particularly more prevalent in these

> cases!

>=20

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Book Review, Keough,
The Slender Thread: Irish Women on the Southern Avalon, 1750-1860
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Willeen G. Keough. The Slender Thread: Irish Women on the Southern
Avalon, 1750-1860. New York Columbia University Press, 2008. xiv +
542 pp. $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-13202-2; (e-book), ISBN
978-0-231-50693-9.

Reviewed by Jane Nicholas (Lakehead University)
Published on H-Women (June, 2009)
Commissioned by Holly S. Hurlburt

Irish Women

_The Slender Thread_ explores the lives of Irish plebeian women on
Newfoundland's southern Avalon Peninsula from 1750 to1860. Working from a
wide range of sources, Willeen G. Keough pieces together important aspects
of these women's lives from work to the regulation of sexuality with a
careful consideration of expressions of agency. Situated at a critical
juncture between different streams in the historiography, Keough's book
adds to the history of the Irish diaspora, the colonial history of
Newfoundland, and women's history. I have focused my review on her
contribution to women's history given my own area and the shared interests
of this listserv. Other reviewers will, no doubt, be better able to
comment on Keough's contributions to different areas.

Keough's book is an excellent addition to women's history, and she has
done an enormous amount of meticulous research that has yielded many
important insights. Piecing together diverse sources, like parish
records, newspapers, diaries, court cases, census reports, missionary
reports, and commercial account books, the author has uncovered the lives
of women who were often marginalized in records and subsequent histories.
In addition to documentary evidence, Keough has skillfully interwoven the
local oral tradition into her narrative. As she recounts in the book,
that oral tradition hinged on male-centered narratives that frequently
began "Two brothers came from Ireland or England" (p. 2). Working to
provide a corrective to this idea, which had been mirrored in the academic
literature to date, Keough manages to uncover the richness of these
women's lives and their social and economic contributions. The result is
a fascinating and highly readable book, which deals with a wide range of
topics, including migration, work, family and community, justice, and
sexuality, that will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and will
be useful in both undergraduate and graduate courses in women's history.

_The Slender Thread_ begins with two chapters that outline the reasons for
migration from Ireland to Newfoundland, the difficult journey that ensued,
and migrants' reception in the colony. Chapter 2 is a short and at times
speculative given the paucity of sources recording Irish plebeian women's
experiences, but it provides an important overview of the existing
tensions regarding race and religion that crossed the Atlantic. Here,
Keough carefully maintains a balance between highlighting the discursive
constructions of femininity and the limited, but important, evidence of
women's actual lived experiences. As Irish Catholics, these women were
part of a community seen as problematic by British officials. Shifts in
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British colonial policy from
encouraging migratory fishery practices to supporting resident ones may
have changed ideas about permanent settlement, but Irish migration
remained a point of concern. Keough notes that the reception of Irish
immigrant women was shaped by existing discourses that held them as
feckless, promiscuous, and morally and socially threatening. As she aptly
demonstrates in chapter 3, however, women were integral to community
formation and economic production, which would establish an Irish colonial
society on the Avalon Peninsula. Through intermarriage, community
formation, and production in the salt fish market in the early to
mid-nineteenth century, women ensured the continuation of the Irish
Catholic community and the transition to family production in the
fisheries.

Keough takes up the point about women's essential work in chapter 4. This
is an important and strongly argued chapter that provides a wealth of
information on women's lives as a group with individual lives highlighted
throughout. Women's work was essential to family and community survival
on the Avalon Peninsula, and Keough finds that, while there were
continuities in women's work extending from the home country, the colonial
context of the fishery and subsistence agriculture varied their work.
Irish Newfoundland women participated in both waged and unwaged labor that
required them to perform often arduous tasks. In the period the author
covers in the study, the cod fisheries increasingly depended on family
production, which replaced the hiring of male transient workers. Women's
role was key here. They were largely responsible for the curing and drying
of the cod, which required skill, judgment, and strength. Heavy lifting
and other acts that required a good deal of strength were thus valued and
formed a sort of barrier to the burgeoning gendered ideal of women's
fragility. Apart from family production, Keough has also managed to
uncover evidence on a small number of women, mostly widows, who were
fishing proprietors and employers. In addition to the fishery,
subsistence agriculture in a challenging climate, and household
production, women were also involved in various other means of work. As
part of a varied survival strategy, women participated in expanding family
resources, attaining new ones, and working for a wage. This chapter also
includes a suggestive section on women's involvement in the wreaking and
salvaging of ships. As members of a group, Keough notes, women were
involved in stripping ships and salvaging useful goods that had washed
ashore. Keough also discusses women who took on paid domestic work and
were involved in teaching and midwifery and leaves the reader with a
thorough impression of women's varied experiences in work.

Keough argues that Irish plebeian women on the Avalon Peninsula existed in
a world separate from the rigidly defined gendered spheres emerging in
England and British colonies in the period. Keough finds that the
specific regional context provided protection for Irish plebeian women
against the burgeoning British, middle-class, domestic ideology premised
on gendered separate spheres and notions of female dependence. She argues
that the status of "helpmate," for example, seems not to have taken hold
in the way it did in colonies like New England or Upper Canada. Further,
she suggests that the notion of "helping" crossed gendered lines, so that
men performed women's tasks and women men's, although the latter remained
more common. Keough convincingly demonstrates the significant work women
performed and how their economic role bolstered families and community,
and also helped to shield the women from middle-class notions of
respectability.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 are where Keough most readily engages with discussion
regarding women's agency. Here, she eschews the more standard
interpretation of a patriarchal justice system silencing and penalizing
women to the point of reducing their access to formal justice in favor of
showing how women exercised agency in both formal and informal ways in
homes, communities (largely in regard to gossip), and courtrooms. The
spaces of home and courtroom appear to have been connected in ways that
sometimes strengthened women's position. Since work in the fishery
demanded that men would be gone for long periods of time, women gained a
certain authority on their own. The regional context also shaped Irish
Newfoundland women's lives as well. While Ireland industrialized and
women and their work were marginalized in the process, Newfoundland
remained preindustrial, which meant they kept their economic status.
They also played a significant role in terms of spirituality and the
maintenance of Catholicism. In regard to the legal system, Keough argues
that women did have a presence in the courtroom, although it seems that
single women and widows had greater access than their married
counterparts. While Keough has found evidence of women's agency, in
places in this chapter, the argument that "the courtroom was more often a
site of their empowerment than their oppression" seems slightly overstated
(p. 218). The chapter discusses the wide variety of roles women took on
in court (e.g., as litigants, defendants, witnesses, and petitioners), but
the issue of crimes like rape are not discussed in this section. In a
chapter loosely connected by the subtitle "The Regulation of Irish Women's
Sexuality on the Southern Avalon," we learn more of issues related to
rape, abuse, and prostitution. While the evidence here is extremely
limited and the author notes that instances of abuse were likely
underreported, this discussion seems distant from the overwhelmingly
positive portrayal that Keough presents in earlier chapters in regard to
formal justice. An expanded discussion on the ongoing role stereotypes of
Irish, Catholic, plebeian women played (or not) would have been welcome.

Methodologically, Keough describes her work as blending "elements of
poststructuralism and empiricism," which she notes are "strange bedfellows
indeed" (p. 9). Keough, however, seems to attribute many of the insights
of women's history solely to poststructuralism and the discussion in the
introduction essentially boils down to her positioning the work in part as
a reading of "hegemonic discourses" (p. 10). As such, the methodological
(and I would add theoretical) discussion seems too contracted given the
broad references to what has become nuanced discussions on these issues.
Another methodological issue arises with the use of what Keough calls
"oral informants." The use of oral tradition blended with more
traditional sources is fascinating and provides an interesting perspective
on women's roles in colonial development. In the introduction, she argues
that she has used oral sources to supplement and fill in the documentary
evidence using "the _common sense_ test" (p. 13). While Keough is aware
of the issues related to memory and the literature on memory as a field of
study, a more sustained discussion on the politics of memory would have
been a good addition to the book.

_The Slender Thread_ is published as part of the Gutenberg-e online
history series at Columbia University Press in conjunction with the
American Historical Association, and represents a new direction in
scholarly publishing: the online monograph. Reviewing this work for
H-Women (an online forum) seems especially appropriate, and, as a
reviewer, I feel compelled to review the print and digital text(s). The
Gutenberg-e project began with the aim to help overcome the "crisis" in
scholarly publishing and the emergence, but continued suspicion, of online
publishing. To attract scholars, but especially emerging ones, the
project offered $20,000 fellowships to exceptional dissertations. The
intended outcome was to be high-quality, scholarly e-books. The project
later decided to publish both online and print versions of the books. An
insert included with the usual package sent to H-Net reviewers explains
the online series as "history monographs that were originally created as
online only electronic works of scholarship. The print book is meant to
be a partial representation of the much greater work that resides online."
The letter also explains that the books published in the series are
available in an open access version (available since November 2007) or
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities e-book version
that requires an institutional subscription. I chose to read the print
version and then consult with the online version to read/view/listen to
other aspects of the work due to the length of the work. There are some
differences between the two online versions in regard to how user friendly
they are, especially the search functions. The ACLS version allows for
precise searches where readers can enter a word or phrase and be directed
toward specific instances of its appearance in the text. The open access
version, however, yields much more frustrating results. Once a search
term is entered readers are pointed toward the chapter in which the word
or phrase can be found, but not a specific location within it. Overall,
access and reader preference may dictate which site a reader chooses to
use.

Digital publishing has become increasingly accepted in scholarly fields,
and there are strengths including ecological impact (less paper as long as
you read from the screen) and the inclusion of multimedia, such as audio
samples, slide shows, and video clips. These are excellent additions that
will be beneficial to those interested in the work for either teaching or
research. There are still a few kinks that need to be worked out in both
online publishing and the connection between digital and print versions of
the same text. Some of the awkwardness of the print version of _The
Slender Thread_ is due to the publisher's choices of what to include in
print. For example, the print version of _The Slender Thread_ contains
the same text and four out of five of the appendices. The print version,
however, does not contain an index. (There is, in fact, no index that I
could find in either of the online sites, and, given the limitations of
the search function in the open access site, this is a concern.) The
print version also seems to be an almost exact replica of the online one,
and this leads to some minor frustrations for readers. I admit to being a
bit confounded when I came across phrases like "Audio Sample" and "Web
Link" parachuted in between two sentences. It was obvious they would be
online, but where? Tracking down the correct audio files and Web links
when they are not specifically cross-referenced was more challenging and
time consuming than it should be. In other places in the book, "Audio
Sample" was followed by a particular number, which made it much easier to
find online. In the online version, these phrases also stand out as they
are hyperlinked, but they are not even italicized in the printed text.
Similar issues occur with the tables and figures, which are integral to
Keough's argument, but not included in the book. While some of the
materials included in the appendices are very interesting, they did not
seem as directly important to the argument and the figures would have been
a useful addition to the print version. A good section of the
historiographical discussion is relegated to appendix A, but parts of it
are printed verbatim from the main text. The reader must then negotiate
between two versions of the same text in different places in the book,
although the extended discussion in the appendix essentially amounts to
ten pages of additional text (excluding the rather lengthy endnotes).
These are not meant to be criticisms of Keough's book, which deserves a
wide audience, but the publisher still needs to work out issues related to
readability in different formats.

Like any good work of scholarship, I was left wanting to know more, and
Keough has clearly charted out paths for further study. _The Slender
Thread_ is an important contribution to women's history as it adds a
critical perspective on the significance of gender to Irish women's
immigration and colonial development. Issues of ethnicity and work also
provide insights into the complex workings of these categories in
connection to gender. Keough does an excellent job of working from her
sources to balance the discussion regarding discursive constructions and
lived experiences. It is a clearly written and a fascinating book.

Citation: Jane Nicholas. Review of Keough, Willeen G., _The Slender
Thread: Irish Women on the Southern Avalon, 1750-1860_. H-Women, H-Net
Reviews. June, 2009. URL:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23653

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Jansenism
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From: Patrick O'Sullivan [mailto:P.OSullivan[at]bradford.ac.uk]=20

You will find the words Jansenism and Maynooth already linked, often, in =
online and in newspaper discussions of the Commission to Inquire into =
Child Abuse.

And an interesting example earlier is in an article that Thomas Keneally =
wrote, in 2002, about the emerging child abuse scandals...

COLD SANCTUARY
How the Church lost its mission.
by Thomas Keneally
JUNE 17, 2002
New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/06/17/020617fa_fact

'...St. Patrick=E2=80=99s was situated on a beautiful headland above the =
Pacific in several faux-Gothic buildings whose Jansenist gloom belonged =
more to the great Irish seminary of Maynooth than to the antipodean =
subtropics...

Six years ago, St. Patrick=E2=80=99s closed down for lack of applicants, =
and it is now an international school for hotel management. Yet I am =
astonished that all the gothic aspects of the place that I knew so many =
years ago seem to have been reproduced in the way that the Church has =
chosen to treat the most vulnerable members of its flock=E2=80=94the =
children who have been sexually assaulted by priests, and the parents =
who entrusted their children to the care of the predators...'

I think you can see there that whatever the word 'Jansenist' means in =
that context it has become a kind of shorthand.

These are my impressions of the scholarly state of play...

There is an entry in

The Oxford Companion to Irish History, 2007....

'Jansenism, a 17th=E2=80=90century current of Catholic theological =
thought, originating in the Low Countries and associated with Cornelius =
Jansen (1585=E2=80=931638), characterized by a pessimistic religious =
anthropology. Many Irish scholars, such as Florence Conry =
(1560=E2=80=931629), contributed to the early theological phase of =
Jansenism. However, because of its divisiveness, Jansenism was viewed =
with great suspicion by Rome, and 17th=E2=80=90century Irish synods toed =
the Roman line. Indeed, while its moral rigorism made it attractive to =
elements of the Counter=E2=80=90Reformation church, Jansenism's =
theological and political radicalism alienated both local hierarchies =
and Catholic monarchs. This was especially the case in France and most =
Irish clerical students there associated with milieux hostile to the =
movement. Indeed their anti Jansenist opinions were singled out for =
criticism by the pro Jansenist journal Nouvelles eccl=C3=A9siastiques, =
Irish clerics, in general, being more attracted to Jesuit style =
humanism. The success of the anti Jansenist bull Unigenitus (1713) =
marginalized the movement but it survived as a popular =
millenarian=E2=80=90cum=E2=80=90miracle cult. Neither as a theology nor =
as a political attitude did Jansenism recommend itself to the Irish =
Catholic community, either at home or abroad. The frequent claim that =
Irish Catholicism was Jansenist influenced springs from the tendency to =
confuse Jansenism with mere moral rigorism.'
Thomas O'Connor

In this Thomas O'Connor is basically citing the conclusions of...

Turner, Michael. "The French Connection with Maynooth College, =
1795-1855." Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Spring, 1981 1981, =
70(277), pp. 77 - 87.

And

Corish, P. J. "Gallicanism at Maynooth : Archbishop Cullen and the royal =
visitation of 1853," in Art Cosgrove and Donal, McCartney, eds., Studies =
in Irish history : presented to R. Dudley Edwards. Dublin: University =
College Dublin, 1979, pp. 176-89.

The extent and nature of French influence in the early years of Maynooth =
is still there for discussion - in particular what is called =
Gallicanism, the suggestion that the Catholic Church should be subject =
to the local monarch.

There is now a knot of research on Irish connections with Jansenism in =
the C17th...

Eg Thomas O'Connor's book - I'll send out a separate note about that...

Irish Jansenists, 1600-70
Religion and politics in Flanders, France, Ireland and Rome
Thomas O'Connor

Publisher web site...
http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=3D115

and
O'Leary, J. S. 'The Irish and Jansenism in the seventeenth century'. In =
The Irish-French connection, 1578-1978, ed. SWORDS, L. (Paris, 1978), =
21-43.

And see also
http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/the_irish_and_j.html

Going back to the shorthand...

And a quite different knot of literature...

A good introduction and an attempt to unpack Irish use of the word =
'Jansenism' is...

Wilson, J. M. "Poetic Jansensim: Religious and political representation =
in Denis Devlin's poetry." EIRE-IRELAND, FAL-WIN 2007, 42(3-4), pp. =
35-59.

Wilson cites in particular Sean O'Faolain, The Irish - and argues that =
O'Faolain either did not understand or conflated the differences between =
Jansenism, Gallicanism and ultramontanism. I have to add that I cannot =
find the section in O'Faolain where Wilson says this happens - but the =
book went through various versions and the Devin-Adair publication might =
be different.

Wilson also cites Patrick Kavanagh...

'The sharp knife of Jansen
Cuts all the green branches...'

Wilson also looks to Terence Brown's unpacking of the discourse.

So what Wilson calls "'Jansenism' in the realist broque" is - he uses a =
nice phrase - a 'lexical entryway', an Irish way of talking about sex, =
without talking about sex.

Wilson then goes on to read Denis Devlin as a genuinely Jansenist =
poet...

The 'lexical entryway' has a life of its own...

See for example...
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. "Virgin Mothers: The Impact of Irish Jansenism on =
Child Rearing and Infant Tending in Western Ireland," in Margarita =
Artschwager Kay, eds., The Anthropology of Human Birth. San Francisco: =
F.A. Davis, 1982, pp. 267-288.

P.O'S.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Book Noted, Thomas O'Connor Irish Jansenists, 1600-70 - + review
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From: Patrick O'Sullivan [mailto:P.OSullivan[at]bradford.ac.uk]

Irish Jansenists, 1600-70
Religion and politics in Flanders, France, Ireland and Rome
Thomas O'Connor

This is the story of the founding phase of one of the most significant
political and religious movements in 17th-century Ireland, France and
Spanish Flanders. This book looks at the cultural, political and religious
environment which provided a home for Jansenism in Ireland. It examines
Irish contributions to Belgian and French versions of Jansenism and traces
the fortunes of Irish Jansenists, their friends and their foes in the
troubled 1640s. It offers an assessment of the import and influence of the
movement on Irish political, religious and cultural identity.

Thomas O'Connor lectures in history at the National University of Ireland,
Maynooth. He is the author of An Irish theologian in Enlightenment France,
1714-96: Luke Joseph Hooke (1995) and editor of The Irish in Europe,
1580-1815 (2001) and Irish migrants in Europe after Kinsale, 1602-1820
(2003).

http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=115

There is a Review
Julia Fleming
Irish Theological Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 1, 97-99 (2009)
Which will be particularly useful to non-theologians.

P.O'S.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Article, Wilson,
Poetic Jansenism: Religious and Political Representation in Denis
Devlin's Poetry
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Wilson, James Matthew.

Poetic Jansenism: Religious and Political Representation in Denis =
Devlin's
Poetry

=C9ire-Ireland - Volume 42:3&4, F=F3mhar/Geimhreadh / Fall/Winter 2007, =
pp.
35-59

James Matthew Wilson - Poetic Jansenism: Religious and Political
Representation in Denis Devlin's Poetry -=20

EXTRACT
Although the epithet "Jansenist" once served as a fashionable means of
condemning Ireland's struggle between Catholic and national =
consciousness,
no contemporary historian would -- in the interest of describing Irish
culture after the famine or in the years following the Civil War -- =
fasten
on the term. In his cultural history of Ireland, Terence Brown felt =
obliged
to explain away its use as misapplied to the "strange marital
abstemiousness" of Irish society in the half-century and more after the
famine. One could martial forth many reasons for these and other strict
moral, marital, and religious practices, Brown admits, but the theology =
of
Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) or his great disciple, Saint Cyran =
(1581-1643)
is not among them. What might be set aside as a curious historical
misapprehension of Irish cultural historians actually provides a lexical
entryway by which to explore the struggle of Irish intellectuals with =
the
problems of early twentieth-century modernity. For Irish realist writers =
in
the 1940s, "Jansenism" denoted a sense of Irish inferiority in the face =
of
other European cultures that had entered with far less trauma onto =
the...

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Carmel McCaffrey
Subject: Re: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
In-Reply-To:
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I have read the article again and must say that I stand by what I
previously said. I did not respond initially because I disagreed with
the author, specifically, I disagree with his lack any method of
analysis. The credentials of the author notwithstanding it reads like a
personal screed against Irish Catholicism without any attempt to put it
all in a world context of Roman Catholicism. Taking a list of surnames
for the US is absurd - many of those with Irish surnames, for example,
would have Italian or German named mothers. Or does the female line
not count? To single out Ireland in this way is absurd in my opinion
and experience.
But just to answer the tenuous issue of only looking at surnames - a
survey of 58 Catholic priests accused here in Baltimore reveals many
French, German and Italian names. I have a copy of the list and I count
15 Irish names [ with 3 Smiths that I am not sure where to place]. This
does not seem to be out of proportion to their overall representation in
the Priesthood.

Carmel

Patrick O'Sullivan wrote:
> From: MacEinri, Piaras [mailto:p.maceinri[at]ucc.ie]
>
>
> I do not think it's fair comment to use words like 'junk' to describe
> views of an informed journalist with whom one happens to disagree. I
> have a number of clerical friends who would agree 100% with Patsy's
> analysis. His case may remain to be proved in all the detail but it at
> least provides a potential starting-point.
>
> Regards
>
> Piaras
>
>
>
>>>> Roots of a warped view of sexuality
>>>>
>>>> Sat, Jun 20, 2009
>>>>
>>>> =3DA9 2009 The Irish Times
>>>>
>>>> SOURCE
>>>>
>>>>
>> =
>>
> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0620/1224249169562.html
>
>
> .
>
>

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Roots of a warped view of sexuality
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From: MacEinri, Piaras [mailto:p.maceinri[at]ucc.ie]

In reply to comments on Ir-D yesterday, Patsy McGarry is the religious
correspondent of the Irish Times for several years, a respected
commentator with a wide knowledge of Church affairs who has the ear of
people at many levels of the Catholic Church and an insider's
appreciation of these debates. I don't think he is a hostile critic or
has a hidden agenda. I declare a certain interest here, as I know him
slightly.

I do not think it's fair comment to use words like 'junk' to describe
views of an informed journalist with whom one happens to disagree. I
have a number of clerical friends who would agree 100% with Patsy's
analysis. His case may remain to be proved in all the detail but it at
least provides a potential starting-point.

Regards

Piaras


>>> Roots of a warped view of sexuality
>>>
>>> Sat, Jun 20, 2009
>>>
>>> =3DA9 2009 The Irish Times
>>>
>>> SOURCE
>>>
> =
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0620/1224249169562.html

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Obituary, John Murphy, Leading figure in the construction industry
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The Guardian has finally found someone to write John Murphy's =
obituary...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/23/obituary-john-murphy

Obituary
John Murphy
Leading figure in the construction industry who founded his own civil
engineering firm
Gerry Harrison
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 June 2009

In the tradition of an Irish hiring fair, the men who stood on the grim
pavements of Camden Town and Cricklewood Broadway in the early mornings =
of
the 1950s and 60s were looking for a day's work. They had left Ireland,
where unemployment was rife, in search of a job. Mud-stained =
construction
lorries would park in the street, while agents or sub-contractors made =
their
selections; judging by fitness and strength, they scooped up labourers =
to
work on sites at Heathrow airport or the Isle of Grain power station in
Kent. Among those who might employ such men was John Murphy, who has =
died
aged 95.

His company, J Murphy and Sons, was responsible for countless major
construction projects over many decades, from second world war runways,
through to preparations for the London 2012 Olympics. At the time of his
death he was one of Britain's wealthiest men, worth around =A3190m, and =
a
yearly fixture on the Sunday Times Rich List, but he was also =
notoriously
secretive, and an air of mystery surrounded him to the end.

Murphy was born into a large family in Loughmark, near Cahirciveen in =
County
Kerry, Ireland; speculation surrounds his date of birth, which is =
thought to
have been in 1913. He left a depressed Ireland in search of work,
disembarking at Holyhead in the late 1930s. During the second world war, =
he
was contracted to remove obstacles from the English Channel, and from =
this
he developed larger contracts, becoming involved in airfield =
construction.
By 1946, he was an ambitious builder who had seen an opportunity.


He was followed to England by his brother Joseph, who died a tax exile =
in
Guernsey in 2000. They worked together for 10 years, before splitting =
into
"the Green and the Grey". Those vehicles that were painted green were =
the
vans of John Murphy, and those that were grey belonged to Joe. The green
Murphy's men tended to work at ground level or above, while the greys =
worked
underground. John Murphy leased a large yard in Kentish Town, north =
London,
where for a long time he was one of the first to arrive each morning, =
and
even in later years was to be seen sweeping the yard, his large =
builder's
hands protruding from an ill-fitting suit. Inside the office were two
beehives, a gift from a Kerry friend, a reminder of the swarming
industriousness of the firm. From this yard, Murphy employed thousands =
of
men and soon made a mark in brick and concrete on the London scene.

In this era of little regulation, the labour the Murphys took on was "on =
the
lump", that is, hired directly off the street. In the wider construction
industry of that time, it was common for there to be a verbal agreement
about pay, often by the hour and in cash, with nothing being signed. =
True
identities were not divulged, so "Eamonn Andrews" could be working on a
hundred different sites in one day. With the anonymity came no tax or
national insurance deductions. But also came no responsibility if a man =
was
injured; when one died, his name was sometimes unknown. It was a brutal
system. That said, remittances sent home by Murphy employees and others
helped to build the Irish economic boom.

In 1976, J Murphy and Sons was targeted by the fraud squad, which
investigated its tax practices. At the time, it was estimated that, =
across
the building industry, tax evasion was costing the exchequer =A3100m a =
year.
Two directors and the company secretary received prison sentences, and =
the
company was fined a sizeable sum, but Murphy himself escaped =
prosecution.

Meanwhile the company's contracts increased in size. Customers included
British Rail, the Greater London Council, the Post Office, the Broadgate
development in the City of London, pipelines for North Sea oil and gas
companies, and the Channel tunnel rail link. Currently the Murphy name =
is
present on the London Olympics site. Various companies that Murphy
controlled have interests in shipping, hotels and property.

Publicity shy, Murphy spent the last years of his life in Hampstead, =
where
he lived with his second wife, Kathy. Dancing and golf were his =
pastimes.
Occasionally he ventured to mass, in particular to the Sacred Heart of =
Jesus
in Kilburn, where he kept a modest profile. He rarely flaunted his =
wealth:
racehorses and private planes were not for him. In later years, industry
awards came his way and he won an Irish Post award in 2007 for his
charitable donations.

He is survived by Kathy, and their son James and daughter Caroline, as =
well
as a son, Bernard, from his first marriage (another son predeceased =
him).

=95 John James Murphy, building contractor, born 5 October 1913; died 7 =
May
2009=20

SOURCE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/23/obituary-john-murphy

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Article, Frank Neal,
A Statistical Profile of the Irish Community in Gateshead
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A Statistical Profile of the Irish Community in Gateshead - The Evidence of
the 1851 Census
Frank Neal
Immigrants & Minorities, 1744-0521, Volume 27, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 50 - 81

Abstract
By the mid-nineteenth century, the north east of England was home to the
fourth largest Irish settlement in England. The 1851 census makes it
possible to identify key features of this post-famine community and provides
a basis for the exploration of non-quantitative sources. The Gateshead Irish
community was the third largest in the north east, behind Newcastle and
Sunderland. The census data can establish such key features as the spatial
distribution of the Gateshead Irish, their occupational profile, age
distribution, household size, marital status and the extent of intermarriage
between the Irish and the host community. It will be shown that the concept
of the ghetto does not apply to the Irish; that they were overwhelmingly
employed in unskilled work; that they were, in general, older than the host
community; and that there were a significant number of cases of
intermarriage between the Irish and English.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: Article,
The Contribution of Irish Immigrants to the Quebec (Canada) Gene
Pool
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The Contribution of Irish Immigrants to the Quebec (Canada) Gene Pool: =
An
Estimation Using Data from Deep-Rooted Genealogies
La contribution des immigrants irlandais au pool g=E9nique du Qu=E9bec =
(Canada)
: une estimation =E0 partir de donn=E9es g=E9n=E9alogiques

Journal European Journal of Population/Revue europ=E9enne de =
D=E9mographie
Publisher Springer Netherlands
ISSN 0168-6577 (Print) 1572-9885 (Online)
Issue Volume 25, Number 2 / May, 2009

Pages 215-233

Marc Tremblay1, 2 , Maude Letendre1, Louis Houde1, 3 and H=E9l=E8ne =
V=E9zina1, 2

(1) Interdisciplinary Research Group on Demography and Genetic
Epidemiology, Quebec, Canada
(2) University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada
(3) University of Quebec at Trois-Rivi=E8res, Quebec, Canada
Received: 27 March 2008 Accepted: 8 September 2008 Published online: =
26
September 2008

Abstract European settlement in Quebec (Canada) began in the early 17th
century, with the arrival of French pioneers. After the British Conquest =
in
1760, immigrants from the British Isles began to settle in some parts of
Quebec. Many of these immigrants were Irish Catholics. Historians and
genealogists have identified several names of Irish origin in the French
Canadian population, and many scholars have wondered about the =
importance of
the integration of Irish migrants and their descendants within this
population. The purposes of this study are to identify and characterize =
the
founders of Irish origin to estimate the importance of their genetic
contribution to the contemporary Quebec population, and to measure the
variability of this contribution according to the founders=92 period of
arrival and county of origin in Ireland. Data was obtained from a set of
2,223 ascending genealogies going back as far as the early 17th century. =
The
average genealogical depth is a little more than 9 generations, with =
many
branches reaching 16 or 17 generations. Although Irish founders explain =
less
than 1% of the total Quebec gene pool, results show that nearly 21% of =
the
genealogies contain at least one Irish founder. These founders =
contributed
to the peopling of all regions of Quebec, but there are some important
variations from one region to another. A majority of the Irish founders
immigrated during the 19th century, and most of them came from the =
counties
of Southern Ireland.
Keywords Irish immigrants - Quebec population - Genealogies - Genetic
contribution - Founders

R=E9sum=E9 Le peuplement d=92origine europ=E9enne au Qu=E9bec (Canada) =
a commenc=E9 au
d=E9but du 17e si=E8cle avec l=92arriv=E9e de pionniers venus de France. =
Suite =E0 la
conqu=EAte anglaise de 1760, des immigrants en provenance des =EEles
britanniques se sont install=E9s sur le territoire qu=E9b=E9cois. =
Plusieurs de ces
immigrants =E9taient des Irlandais catholiques. Des historiens et
g=E9n=E9alogistes ont identifi=E9 de nombreux patronymes d=92origine =
irlandaise
parmi la population canadienne-fran=E7aise et certains chercheurs se =
sont
interrog=E9s =E0 propos de l=92int=E9gration des immigrants irlandais et =
de leurs
descendants au sein de cette population. L=92objectif de cette =E9tude =
est
d=92identifier les fondateurs d=92origine irlandaise et de =
caract=E9riser leur
contribution g=E9n=E9tique =E0 la population contemporaine du Qu=E9bec, =
ainsi que de
mesurer la variabilit=E9 de cette contribution selon la p=E9riode =
d=92arriv=E9e et
le comt=E9 d=92origine en Irlande. Les donn=E9es proviennent d=92un =
corpus de 2223
g=E9n=E9alogies ascendantes remontant jusqu=92au d=E9but du 17e =
si=E8cle. La
profondeur moyenne des g=E9n=E9alogies est d=92un peu plus de 9 =
g=E9n=E9rations,
plusieurs branches atteignant 16 ou 17 g=E9n=E9rations. Les fondateurs =
irlandais
expliquent moins de 1% du pool g=E9nique qu=E9b=E9cois, mais pr=E8s de =
21% des
g=E9n=E9alogies contiennent au moins un fondateur irlandais. Ces =
fondateurs ont
contribu=E9 au peuplement de toutes les r=E9gions du Qu=E9bec, avec =
toutefois
quelques variations importantes d=92une r=E9gion =E0 l=92autre. La =
majorit=E9 des
fondateurs irlandais identifi=E9s ont immigr=E9 au 19e si=E8cle et =
provenaient
principalement des comt=E9s du sud de l=92Irlande.
Mots-cl=E9s Immigrants irlandais - Population du Qu=E9bec - =
G=E9n=E9alogies -
Contribution g=E9n=E9tique - Fondateurs

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Julie Gough
Subject: The Irish in Australia - exhibition
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{decoded}The National Museum, Canberra is developing an exhibition on the Irish in
Australia (2011): Call to colleagues for relevant material and leads in research
phase.

"The National Museum of Australia is developing a temporary exhibition looking
at the story of the Irish in Australia, 1788 to the present. This exhibition will
open in Canberra on St Patricks Day, March 2011 and is proposed to travel
nationally.

As part of developing the exhibition were interested in discovering what Irish
Australian material culture regional museums, galleries, archives, libraries and
historical societies hold that we could potentially loan for the exhibition.

The main themes of the exhibition are:
" Emigration
" Convicts
" Settlement of rural areas
" Settlement of cities
" Nationalism
" Public Life
" Irish and Indigenous Australians
" Religion
" Legends
" Survivals of Irishness (Irish in Australia today)

If your institution has material (even if not available for loan) that could be
relevant to the Museum's exhibition, please contact Senior Curator Richard
Reid, Rreid[at]nma.gov.au or Curator Cinnamon van Reyk, cvanreyk[at]nma.gov.au.
T (02) 6208 5107

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: End of weekly Irish language newspaper, Foinse
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Forwarded on behalf of
Maria Horan [mailto:mariahoranx[at]gmail.com]=20

End of last Irish language newspaper

21/06/09
A chairde,
Is d=F3cha go bhfuil fhios agaibh nach mbeidh ach dh=E1 eagr=E1n eile =
den nuacht=E1n
seachtaini=FAil Foinse mar gheall ar easpa airgid anseo in =C9irinn. =
Rinne
m=92fhear c=E9ile agus m=E9 f=E9in iarratas idirl=EDn chun iarracht a =
dh=E9anamh an
nuacht=E1n agus na postanna a sh=E1bh=E1il. Ceapaimid go bhfuil s=E9 =
an-t=E1bhtachtach
an nuacht=E1n deireanach a choime=E1d beo, go h=E1irithe toisc go bhfuil =
an
nuacht=E1n laeth=FAil L=E1 Nua imithe anois. T=E1 an t-iarratas le =
f=E1il ar:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/SaveFoinse09/
n=F3 is f=E9idir libh dul tr=ED blag m=92fhear c=E9ile: =
http://patrickjames.ie/blog/
Freisin, t=E1 leathanach le f=E1il ar Facebook mar gheall ar =93Cairde =
Fhoinse=94 :
http://tinyurl.com/la7kp7

T=E1imid ag iarraidh an oiread sini=FA a bhaili=FA agus is f=E9idir =
linn, go dt=ED an
26=FA de Meitheamh. Le bhur dtoil, cuirig=ED bhur n-ainmneacha ar an =
iarratas
agus seolaig=ED an nasc chuig bhur gcairde, clann, n=F3 =E9inne a =
cheapann sibh go
mbeidh suim acu cabhair a thabhairt don nuacht=E1n a sh=E1bh=E1il!
Go raibh m=EDle maith agaibh.=20
Le meas,
Patrick agus Maria U=ED =D3r=E1in.=20
=A0
21/06/09
To whom it may concern,
It=92s likely that you have heard that there will be only be two more =
editions
of the weekly Irish language newspaper, Foinse, due to a lack of funding
here in Ireland. My husband and I created an online petition in an =
attempt
to save the paper and the jobs involved. We believe that it is extremely
important to keep the last Irish language newspaper alive, especially =
now
that the daily paper L=E1 Nua is gone. The petition can be found on:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/SaveFoinse09/

or you can go through my husband=92s blog http://patrickjames.ie/blog/
There is also a =93Friends of Foinse=94 page on Facebook:
http://tinyurl.com/la7kp7

We are trying to collect as many signatures as we can, up to the 26th of
June. Please sign the petition and pass on the link to your friends, =
family
or anyone who you think will be interested in helping to save the paper!
Thank you very much.

Yours faithfully,
Patrick and Maria Horan.

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Matthew Barlow
Subject: Redevelopment in Derry City
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I am posting this on behalf of a colleague, I will forward any
responses on to her:

Is anyone aware of any research on the contracting and hiring
practices for the construction of new housing in Derry during the
urban redevelopment initiatives of the late 1960s and 1970s?
Specifically, I am trying to find out whether the construction boom
that followed the replacement of the Londonderry Corporation with the
Development Commission in 1969 allayed any of the unemployment
problems facing residents of the city at that time. How were the
construction projects for housing in the Shantallow/Ballyarnett
estates put out to bid? Were there any stipulations or regulations
for the hiring of workers? Thank you for any suggestions you may have
for where to look for this information.

Many thanks,
Matthew Barlow

Sender: The Irish Diaspora Studies List
From: Patrick O'Sullivan
Subject: CFP Ireland and Wales: Correspondences, 17 September 2009, Cardiff
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Ireland and Wales: Correspondences
Call for Papers

A one-day interdisciplinary postgraduate symposium to be held at Cardiff
University on Thursday 17 September 2009 and hosted by the Wales-Ireland
Research Network

Keynote speaker: Professor Luke Gibbons

In Corresponding Cultures: The Two Literatures of Wales (1999), M. Wynn
Thomas suggests that we might understand and conceptualise the =
relationships
between the Welsh-language and English-language cultures of Wales as
=91correspondences=92 =96 an idea which is amenable to a number of =
different
interpretations and which supports a wide range of scholarly approaches. =


This one-day interdisciplinary postgraduate symposium aims to extend =
this
idea of =91correspondence=92 to the burgeoning field of Welsh and Irish
comparative studies. In keeping with the aims and objectives of the
AHRC-supported Wales-Ireland Research Network, this event seeks to bring
Welsh and Irish studies into dialogue with each other. To what extent, =
and
in what ways, do the cultures and societies of Wales and Ireland =
=91speak=92 to
each other? How might comparative approaches towards Wales and Ireland
illuminate our understanding of these two nations? How are these
correspondences figured in the imagining of Welsh and Irish national
consciousness?=20
We welcome 200- to 300-word abstracts for twenty-minute papers focusing =
on
any aspect of Welsh or Irish studies from the early modern to the
contemporary periods. Papers which place the cultures and societies of =
Wales
and Ireland within a comparative context are particularly encouraged.
=A0
Accommodation and travel bursaries will be available to all speakers.
The deadline for abstracts is 31 July 2009.
Email: PGIrelandWales[at]Cardiff.ac.uk

Website: www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/research/networks/wales-ireland

=91Ireland and Wales: Correspondences=92 forms part of the Ireland-Wales
Network=92s =91Nations and Knowledges=92 symposium to be held on 18-19 =
September
2009.=20
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Wales, Ireland and the world: international =
contexts=20
=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Celticism, Pan-Celticism, mythology =A0=20
=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Medievalism, Romanticism, Modernism, Postmodernism =

=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Nationalism, transnationalism, postnationalism, =
postcolonialism=20
=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Nation and religion=20
=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Feminist and gender approaches=20
=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 The languages and literatures of Wales and Ireland =

=95=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Correspondences across disciplines and genres: =
literature; history;
visual art; journalism and media; cultural studies; architecture=20

Conference Organisers: Tomos Owen, Laura Wainwright, Lowri Rees, Rhodri
Glyn.