Centre for Irish and Scottish Studieshttp://hdl.handle.net/10523/3002024-02-05T01:17:06Z2024-02-05T01:17:06ZIrish in Aotearoa: Mapping the Irish Community and People of Irish heritage in New ZealandTiernan, Sonjahttp://hdl.handle.net/10523/106292021-07-07T02:14:19Z2021-01-19T23:12:48ZIrish in Aotearoa: Mapping the Irish Community and People of Irish heritage in New Zealand
2020-12
Tiernan, Sonja
The connections between Ireland and New Zealand are burgeoning. To better understand and recognise the shape of these connections, research on the Irish in Aotearoa was commissioned by the Embassy of Ireland, Wellington. This is an exciting project mapping Irish citizens and community across all 16 regions of New Zealand. This is also an ambitious project, encompassing such a large geographical spread. The research findings and associated interactive maps of the Irish in Aotearoa New Zealand are just the beginning of possibilities for future research. The results of this project are well placed to enable further connections to be made among Irish immigrants, community groups and government representatives. Indeed, like the census data, these results may also have an impact on business connections. Figures already highlight that Ireland and New Zealand have a developing trade network.
There are two distinct aspects to the following research. In the first part, the New Zealand census returns have been analysed to account for people of Irish ethnicity currently living in New Zealand. Figures prove that the number of Irish immigrants moving to New Zealand and staying long term has been steadily increasing over the last four census returns from 2001 to the most recent returns in 2018. Analysing these figures in more detail, it is possible to gain a deeper insight to the contemporary Irish population in Aotearoa New Zealand. The regions in which Irish populations mainly reside continues to change with an evolving economic climate. This report provides evidence of the increase in numbers of skilled Irish immigrants moving to the Canterbury region since the 2011 earthquakes to help with the rebuild of Christchurch, for example.
Due to the high number of Irish among the early New Zealand settlers, it is estimated that approximately one in every six people in New Zealand has Irish heritage. These figures have yet to be confirmed by statistics. Therefore, this research project includes the use of online surveys to glean more information about New Zealanders of Irish heritage or with an affinity for Ireland. The first survey sought details from individuals and saw an impressive response with 2,932 people included in this research. Over 65 percent of the total responses are from people of Irish heritage. These results are therefore the most detailed information gathered to date on New Zealanders of Irish heritage. It is significant that the majority of those, 84 percent, have family bonds closely related to their Irish ancestors, ranging from an Irish born parent to an Irish born great grandparent.
2021-01-19T23:12:48ZThe Reception of Sean O'Casey's Early Works in New Zealand (1924–47): A Social, Cultural, and Political Reading of the ArchiveSutherland, Iainhttp://hdl.handle.net/10523/84482022-09-01T04:04:26Z2018-10-17T01:27:42ZThe Reception of Sean O'Casey's Early Works in New Zealand (1924–47): A Social, Cultural, and Political Reading of the Archive
2018
Sutherland, Iain
This thesis recovers the New Zealand reception history of Sean O’Casey, the Irish working-class playwright who rose to prominence at the Dublin Abbey Theatre in the aftermath of the Irish revolutionary period. Until now, the New Zealand response to O’Casey and his early plays — ‘The Shadow of the Gunman’ (1923), ‘Juno and the Paycock’ (1924), ‘The Plough and the Stars’ (1926), and 'The Silver Tassie’ (1929) — has been left unexamined, and largely ignored, by both Irish and New Zealand scholars. Focusing on the years between 1924 and 1947, this thesis utilises press reports, performance reviews, theatrical records, and other archival ephemera to reconstruct O’Casey’s reputation as it had begun developing within the country’s amateur theatrical societies, educational associations, and cinemas. This history argues that each society implicitly constructed and limited their interpretation of O’Casey’s plays to suit their own social, political, and cultural biases.
Chapter One argues ‘Juno’s’ early association with the Hawthornden Prize, the Irish Players, and English cultural elites cultivated an exotic fascination with O’Casey’s celebrity and class status, which had been influenced by New Zealand’s close alignment with the British press. Chapter Two analyses the shifting focus away from persona towards performance as the Workers’ Educational Association began including O’Casey on its modern drama syllabuses across the country. Particularly in Christchurch, Sir James Shelley’s solo readings of ‘Gunman’ and ‘Juno’ attracted large, entertainment-starved crowds and were designed, in part, to fulfil Shelley’s pioneering mission to offer rural New Zealanders, whose lives he considered “intellectually barren,” a cultural update closer in line with British standards.
Chapter Three argues the introduction of ‘talkies,’ the effects of the Great Depression, and the end of professional touring theatre in New Zealand caused amateur theatrical societies to frame their activities as a “re-colonial” alternative to American popular culture. In the 1930s, when the first cinema adaptations of O’Casey’s plays began to appear from Hollywood and Elstree, the Wellington Repertory Society also staged their “milestone” production of ‘Juno’; however, from this most contested period of O’Casey’s reception, the voice of New Zealand amateur societies proved the most enduring. Taking Wellington Repertory’s production of ‘Juno’ as a case study, Chapter Four argues the play’s international performance legacy further entrenched the belief in O’Casey’s “genius” and was a sign of his place in British high culture.
Chapter Five examines Wellington Unity Theatre’s post-war productions of ‘Juno’ and ‘The Plough’ which somewhat recovered the missing political dimension of O’Casey’s reception in New Zealand. This chapter argues the two plays saved the theatre from financial crisis precisely because they satisfied Unity’s desire both to appeal to popular audiences, and to maintain its philosophical focus on producing socially conscious theatre. These five chapters demonstrate how the New Zealand perspective on O’Casey shifted to reflect the socio-cultural context of each theatrical group the plays encountered, although there is a common British high-cultural bias which remains central to the reception as a whole.
Most significantly, this thesis brings the periphery into focus, and not only retrieves a new audience and context for studying O’Casey’s plays, but also recasts New Zealand’s theatrical landscape from the viewpoint of the amateur and the enthusiast.
2018-10-17T01:27:42ZSeallagain: Gaelic Grammar at a GlanceParsons, Catrìona NicÌomhairhttp://hdl.handle.net/10523/77322024-02-04T22:02:32Z2017-11-12T22:07:30ZSeallagain: Gaelic Grammar at a Glance
2016
Parsons, Catrìona NicÌomhair
Hirt, Aindrias
A native Gaelic speaker born in the Isle of Lewis and a graduate of Edinburgh University, Scotland, Catrìona NicÌomhair Parsons has been involved in the teaching of Gaelic language and song in North America for decades. For thirty summers, she taught Scottish Gaelic at the Gaelic College, St. Ann’s, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she was commissioned to prepare Gàidhlig troimh Chòmhradh, a Gaelic course in three volumes with recorded text. For many years, she taught in the Celtic Studies Department of St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia; after retiring, she spent six years working for the newly constituted Nova Scotia Office of Gaelic Affairs. She has written well over a hundred Gaelic-English articles for local newspapers. Her poetry has been published in Scottish Gaelic periodicals GAIRM and GATH, and she has produced her solo CD of Gaelic songs entitled “Eileanan mo Ghaoil” in tribute both to Cape Breton and Lewis. From Seattle, Washington, to Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina; from Toronto to Nova Scotia, Canada; from Sydney, Australia, to Dunedin, New Zealand, Catrìona has been privileged to share her beloved language and culture with motivated students, many of whom are now instructors themselves.
This, her most recent work, is a synthesis of all of the grammatical insights garnered from decades of experience teaching Scottish Gaelic to learners around the world. It clearly demonstrates in easy-to-read chapters, tables, and examples how the Gaelic language is structured. Rules, forms, pronunciation, and a host of other issues are all logically and systematically explained. Furthermore, this book can act as a handy reference for either the beginner or native speaker.
2017-11-12T22:07:30ZThe Songs of Fionn mac Cumhaill: An Historical and Musicological Analysis of Indo-European Musical Poetics in Ireland, Scotland and Nova ScotiaHirt, Aindriashttp://hdl.handle.net/10523/74062022-09-01T03:36:43Z2017-06-30T02:44:03ZThe Songs of Fionn mac Cumhaill: An Historical and Musicological Analysis of Indo-European Musical Poetics in Ireland, Scotland and Nova Scotia
2017
Hirt, Aindrias
The purpose of this study was to investigate through archival and musicological analysis the audio recordings of Fenian lays made in the middle of the last century. These recordings were made from informants who learned the material orally; they contain cultural elements that assist in comprehending the musical mechanics of Fenian lays at a time when their performance practices were being extirpated by foreign musical influences. These elements include Indo-European (IE) thematic material, poetics, language register, pitch structuring, rhythm, and vocal techniques.
Audio recordings of Fenian lays from Ireland, Scotland, and Nova Scotia, Canada were analysed in terms of their linguistic-musical material. Results show that the rhythm of the lays did not display a repetitive musical metre but the more complex structure of speech. However, rhythmic patterns did alter with volume. Also, resonance tuning was apparent. Many characteristics associated with volume in lay recordings exist in declaimed speech as well; both may be seen to act as a bridge between speech and metered song.
Lay poetry appeared to be syllabic, which is unusual for a stress-timed language; this reflects an Indo-European genesis that is supported by the presence of oral-formulaic language. Both stress and accent shifted pitch by poetic line to match spoken characteristics. A high language register was present, which does not indicate composition by the intelligentsia for use at court, but rather a fear-induced protective linguistic device apparent in all social classes. Moreover, the addition of delineated pitch to spoken declamation may be seen as an attempt to further increase the communicative register. The pitch structure was seen to be anachronistic, matching the linear scales played by pastoral instruments, particularly that of wooden shepherd trumpets used since at least the beginning in the Early Neolithic Age.
2017-06-30T02:44:03ZRedress as a Construct in Seamus Heaney's Poetry and ProseMacklin, Ruth Elizabethhttp://hdl.handle.net/10523/50082022-09-01T03:44:24Z2014-10-01T19:47:26ZRedress as a Construct in Seamus Heaney's Poetry and Prose
2014
Macklin, Ruth Elizabeth
This thesis explores redress in Seamus Heaney’s poetry and prose. I argue that redress is a deeply considered intellectual construct that facilitates the process of writing and unwriting. Due to its dynamism and flexibility, redress is significant as a central construct throughout Heaney’s career.
The first chapter considers how redress facilitates composition. In the early poetry, spatial metaphors indicate that redress functions as the creation of an alternative space or place in which to explore poetry. An examination of the rhetorical strategies and diction Heaney employs to describe this function indicates that his contemplation of the construct acts as an impetus for poetry throughout his career.
In the second chapter I consider the deconstruction of the created space or place and the necessary unwriting of what has been written. I examine several corrective operations of redress, which I suggest enable Heaney to negotiate the complexities of his literary and linguistic inheritances early in his career.
In the final chapter, I examine the restorative nature of redress by considering Heaney’s lifelong interest in ritual. An examination of his treatment of the Nationalist funeral and of several domestic rituals which feature in the later poetry indicates that redress restores specificities that ritual, through familiarity and regular performance, can occlude. Redress rescues specificities from ritual, restoring meaning and setting it to rights. It is my suggestion that in a parallel linguistic process, redress restores the sacramental value of language.
Redress remains a central construct throughout Heaney’s career. By investigating some of the ways in which redress incites, facilitates and renews creativity, this thesis proposes new insights into Heaney’s exploration of the creative mind in dialogue with itself.
2014-10-01T19:47:26ZPost-Catholic Ireland in literature and popular cultureMcGonigle, Lisahttp://hdl.handle.net/10523/43142022-09-01T03:46:34Z2013-10-01T20:17:49ZPost-Catholic Ireland in literature and popular culture
2013
McGonigle, Lisa
This thesis proposes the concept of turn-of-the-millennium Irish culture as “post-Catholic”. It outlines how the Catholic Church had occupied so powerful a position in the post-independent Irish State, but recent decades have seen such profound changes in the moral and political authority ceded to the Church. This thesis therefore argues that the dissolution of the Church’s hegemony constitutes a paradigm sociopolitical and cultural shift, which it defines as the move from a Catholic to post-Catholic society.
It also argues that this shift has been both reflected in and effected by literature and popular culture, focusing in particular on issues of gender and sexuality in selected cultural texts. Chapter One examines how Marian Keyes uses the chick-lit novel to write back against conservative Catholicism and the maternalisation of Irish women, supplanting the “Irish Catholic Mammy” with a younger, sexually active generation of Irish women who do not define their subjectivity in terms of their maternal duties. It argues that Keyes’ hostility towards the Catholic Church affects, indeed directs, the sexual politics and frankness of her work and her treatment of topics such as abortion and divorce.
Chapter Two investigates how popular novelist Maeve Binchy explores female sexuality and desire in opposition to a traditional Catholic discourse of sin and virtue. It analyses the changes in socio-sexual mores throughout Binchy’s work, and evaluates Binchy’s attempts to find a continued role and relevance for the “good” clergy in post-scandal Ireland.
Chapter Three explores how television sitcom Father Ted satirises and thereby subverts Irish gender norms and Catholic doctrine on issues such as contraception and homosexuality. It argues that the sitcom format of Ted variously allows for satire, ribald farce and comic set-pieces, all of which undermine the Church’s authority further.
Chapter Four examines Aisling Walsh’s television drama Sinners (2002), Gerard Mannix Flynn’s dramatic monologue James X (2003) and Bruce Beresford’s “family values” film Evelyn (2002). It explores how all three texts foreground and indict the role of the Irish State in both the Magdalene laundries (Sinners) and the industrial schools (James X, Evelyn). It also investigates the differing attitudes to Catholic iconography and archetypes throughout the texts, from Sinners’ rejection of the Marian tradition to Evelyn’s recuperation of the figure of St Joseph.
Chapter Five turns to Arthur Mathews’ Well-Remembered Days: Eoin O’Ceallaigh’s memoir of a twentieth century Catholic life (2001). It argues that this mock-lament for the Church’s demise simultaneously parodies the late Nineties “memoir boom” and rejects the entire narrative of post-independence Irish identity in which, as indicated in the title of the text, Irishness and Catholicism were synonymous. It examines how “Catholic” does not operate in the title and body of Well-Remembered Days in the small-case “catholic” sense of wide-ranging and inclusive; in terms of the form of cultural Catholicism promulgated by O’Ceallaigh, “Catholic” is a byword for intolerance, prejudice and exclusion. The deliberate sexual hysteria of Well-Remembered Days is also examined, consolidating the argument that issues of gender and sexuality are key in cultural expressions of post-Catholicism.
2013-10-01T20:17:49Z