Some journals are not online, some will only be available in an archive later, and some are simply far more attractive in their paper form.  Besides, visiting the Periodicals Room and browsing through your subject area, you discover many articles that you would never have deliberately searched online.

I went looking for History Ireland, in search of a particular photograph (Frances Browne, which is in a 2010 issue), and ended up noticing quite a number of interesting articles, all in the Irish history area of DA 910 to DA 995.

The current issue of History Ireland is devoted to the Lockout of 1913 (of course).  Within the pages “Emmet O’Connor casts a cold eye on the turbulent career of the Lockout’s hero”, John Gray writes about Larkin and the Belfast dock strike of 1907, and there are many other articles about the 1913 and other lockouts.  We are brought up to date with articles on the effect of the Dublin Lockout on the Irish labour movement and the story of the monument to Jim Larkin that stands in O’Connell Street.

Our latest issue of the Dublin Historical Record includes an article very interesting to anyone familiar with the houses and roads all around the  Killester DART Station.  ‘Houses for Heroes: Life in the Killester Colony 1919-1945’ by Jan O’Sullivan uses interviews with families of servicemen who lived in the largest housing scheme for ex-servicemen in Ireland.

The most recent issue of The Irish Review (Autumn 2012) includes a substantial review section in addition to the following articles:

Bankers, Bureaucrats, Booms and Busts / L. M. Cullen.

‘What Else?’ On Dublin Contemporary / Declan Long.

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry and the Saville Report: Declaring Innocence, Attributing Blame and the Limitations of Public Inquiries / Charlotte Barcat.

Lines of Dissent: Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘Shancoduff’ / Thomas O’Grady.

It’s a long way to Tipperary: Globalization and tradition in Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland / Stanley Van Der Ziel.

The Periodicals Room is now on the second floor of the Hesburgh Library.  If you have questions about Irish Studies periodicals, I will be happy to help.

The Fall/Winter 2012 issue of Études Irlandaises is in the Periodicals Room (2nd floor: DA 925 .E86)

Enjeux féministes et féminins dans la société irlandaise contemporaine

Feminist and Women’s Issues in Contemprary Irish Society

Études Irlandaises Feminist Issue

Contents:

Women of Ireland, from economic prosperity to austere times: who cares?  Marie-Jeanne Da Col Richert.

Gender and electoral representation in Ireland / Claire McGing and Timothy J. White.

The condition of female laundry workers in Ireland 1922-1996: a case of labour camps on trial / Eva Urban.

Ireland’s criminal conversation / Diane Urquhart.

Women’s art in Ireland and Poland 1970-2010: Experiencing and experimenting on the female body / Valérie Morisson.

“Nobody knows what is in them until they are broken”: Medbh McGuckian’s feminist poetry / Shane Alcobia-Murphy.

Representation of madness in Irish society in the drama of Brian Friel / Michelle Kennedy.

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne: féminisme et stratégie d’indirection / Chantal Dessaint-Payard.

Contemporary Caitlín: Gender and society in Celtic Tiger popular fiction / Sorcha Gunne.

I’m experimenting with the Hathi Trust’s Digital Library to see how its list features might be used for teaching and research.  Apparently it is possible to make a list and then do full text searching within that collection of digital texts.  To see how it works, I’ve compiled a list of descriptions of Ireland.

When I saw the search capability, I thought the results might all appear together, but it is still a multi-step process.  When you perform a word search, you get a list of the books where that word appears, no indication of the frequency, and you then select each book in turn and hit the “find” key.  However, the resulting information is a very nice little snippet that shows the word in context.

A search for “criminal” brought up a list of books; this is the result for John Carr’s A Stranger in Ireland (1806).

I think this will be a very useful tool though it would have been nice if all the “criminal” snippets from all the books in the collection were displayed together.

Information on Hathi Trust:     Hesburgh Libraries: Hathi Trust FAQ http://eresources.library.nd.edu/databases_docs/hathitrust_FAQ.shtml

We have just added a new collection of online Oxford Bibliographies, the British and Irish Literature Collection. 

Bibliographies include the following:

1916, by Clair Wills

Censorship, by Cyndia Susan Clegg

Irish Modernism, by Lauren Arrington

Literature of the Bardic Revival, by Mary-Ann Constantine

Post-war Irish Drama, by Eva Urban

Laurence Sterne, by Paul Goring

Yeats, W. B., by Lauren Arrington.

Bibliographies advertised as Forthcoming (Spring 2013, so I expect to see them soon):

Chorographical and Landscape Writing, by Bridget M. Keegan

Eco-criticisim, by Richard Pickard

James Joyce, by Anne Fogarty

Northern Irish Drama, by Eva Urban

Seamus Heaney, by Bernard O’Donoghue

Our next shipment from Ireland includes a number of books in Irish.  Watch the catalog or let me know if you want to be the first to read any of them:

Fill Arís: Oidhreacht Sheáin Uí Ríordáin/ Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith & Liam Mac Amhlaigh.  Cló Iar-Chonnacht.

Deargadaoil i mBád fó Thoinn/  Pádraic Breathnach.  Cló Iar-Chonnacht.

Damhsa / Bríd Dáibhís.  Coiscéim.

Gaeil faoi Bhratach Eureka /Mícheál de Barra.  Coiscéim.

Dea-chaint John Gráinne agus a cháirde / John Hodgins.  Coiscéim.

Féilscríbhinn do Chathal Ó hÁinle / Eoin Mac Cárthaigh & Jürgen Uhlich. Cló Iar-Chonnacht / An Clóchomhar.

Bróga Johnny Thomáis / Jackie Mac Donncha.  Cló Iar-Chonnacht.

Anam na Teanga: Géarscagadh ar ghlac gearrscéalta. / Seán Mac Labhraí.  Cló Iar-Chonnacht.

Go dtí an Lá Bán: An focal labhartha.  Éabhlóid.

Sealbhú an Traidisiúin / Niamh Ní Shiadhail, Méidhbhín Ní Urdail, Ríonach Uí Ógain.  Coimisiún Bhéaloideas Éireann.

Cathair mar a Thuairisc agus Póirsí Eile/ Bernadette Nic an tSaoir.  Coiscéim.

Garret Fitzgerald agus Paddy Hillery: Beirt a chuir an Ghaeilge dá boinn/ Maoilsheachlainn Ó Caollai.  Coiscéim.

Conamara agus Boston: Tríocha Bliain Anonn is Anall.  / Máirtín Ó Catháin.  Cló Iar-Chonnacht.

Oilithreacht/ Ciarán Ó Coigligh.  LeabhairCOMHAR.

Scathlán Bus / Ciarán Ó Dornáin.  Coiscéim.

Ó Roinn go Sáil 2: Dialann Tuaithe / Diarmuid Ó Gráinne.  Coiscéim.

Obair Baile / Seán Ó Leocháin.  Coiscéim.

Fuaimeanna na Gaeilge: Cúrsa tosaigh foghraíochta agus fóineolaíochta i dtrí chanúint Ghaeilge / Brian Ó Raghallaigh.  Cois Life.

Macallaí na Cásca 9 : 1916 agus mar sin de / Pádraig Ó Snodaigh.  Coiscéim.

Cosa Gréine / Diarmaid Ó Súilleabhain.  Coiscéim.

There are excellent online sources for biographies of Irish people no longer living.   Here, for what it’s worth, are some of the sources of Irish biography:

The Dictionary of Irish Biography: This is available to the Notre Dame community through the library’s catalog.  If the link doesn’t work, go to the Library’s website, select the Databases tab, and find the Dictionary.

In addition to searching for people by name, you can search by place, dates, occupation and even by free text which means you can find any words occuring in the text.  For example “Hunger strike”, “slavery”,  “philanthropy” all yield lists of names.  Biographies are added all the time and at this point new additions include people who died in 2005 and 2006.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Also a subscription, this has been around far longer than the Irish one, and includes many biographies of Irish people. It is “the national record of men and women who have shaped British history” so while there is no entry under “Haughey”, for example, Irish people from earlier centuries such as Aogán Ó Rathaille, or born in Northern Ireland, such as Siobhán McKenna, or whose career was largely in the UK, are included.

There are also websites freely available to all.  Those I know about and use frequently are Ainm.ie, Ricorso.net and the Dictionary of Ulster Biography.

All kinds of people associated with the Irish language are included in Ainm.ie, the digital version of the multi-volume Beatháisnéis.  Ricorso is mainly a bibliographic database but includes a short biographic summary of each Irish writer. Biographies from the whole province of Ulster are included in the Dictionary of Ulster Biography.

As far as I know, Ricorso is the only one of all the sources I mentioned that includes people who are still living.  It is worth remembering also that writers in this database are not only literary authors but people who have written on many subjects.

Ainm = Name

Beatháisnéis = Biography

Atlantic Currents/ Sruthanna an Aigéin thiar: Essays on Lore, Literature and Language/ Aistí ar Sheanchas, ar Litríocht agus ar Theanga.
Essays in honour of Séamas Ó Catháin / Aistí in onóir do Shéamas Ó Catháin.

Edited by Bo Almqvist, Liam Mac Mathúna, Séamus Mac Mathúna, Criostóir Mac Carthaigh, Seosamh Watson.
UCD Press.

Clara Cullen.  Elsie Henry’s Irish Wartime Diaries, 1913-1919.  Merrion.

M. P. McCabe.  For God and Ireland. The fight for moral superiority in Ireland 1922-1932.  Four Courts Press.

Anthony Roche.  Synge and the making of modern Irish drama.  Carysfort Press.

At the Anvil: Essays in honour of William J. Smyth.  Editors: Patrick J. Duffy and William Nolan.  Geography Publications.

Infanticide in the Irish Crown Files at Assizes, 1883-1900.  Edited by Elaine Farrell. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Alan F. Parkinson.  Friends in high places: Ulster’s resistance to Irish Home Rule, 1912-14.  Ulster Historical Foundation.

The above list is a sampling of the latest books.  As they are processed, many of them will be displayed in the new book area on the first floor of the Hesburgh Library.

The strangest, most eye-catching book of this shipment is the graphic version of Myles na  gCopaleen’s An Béal Bocht .

Myles na gCopaleen. An Béal Bocht.  Cóirithe ón mBunGhaeilge ag Colmán Ó Raghallaigh.  Illustrated by John McCloskey; Edited by Breandán Ó Conaire.  Cló Mhaigh Eo.

These are some of the contents of the next shipment coming from Ireland:

The men will talk to me: Galway interviews by Ernie O’Malley.
Edited by Cormack K.H. O’Malley and Cormac Ó Comhraí.
Mercier Press.

Nicola Gordon Bowe. Harry Clarke: The life and work.  New edition.
The History Ireland Press.

Ciaran Carson: Exchange Place. 
Blackstaff Press.

Tomás O’Crohan. The Islander: A translation of An t-Oileánach by Gerry Bannister and David Sowby.
Gill and Macmillan.

Elizabeth Prendergast and Helen Sheridan.  Jubilee Nurse: Voluntary district nursing in Ireland, 1890-1974.
Wolfhound Press.

Prompted by a bookseller’s email, I checked to see if we had a first edition of Moore’s Irish Melodies illustrated by Daniel Maclise.  Ours is later than the beautiful 1847 edition for sale, but very ornate and interesting.
Though the catalog states 1853 for our copy, a glance at other copies on the Internet Archive makes me wonder if it might be an 1858 edition — after Moore’s death.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) published his Melodies between 1808 and 1834.

Daniel Maclise (1806-70) is well-known as the painter of ‘The Marriage of Eva and Strongbow’ which hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.
Moore has this to say in his preface to the illustrated edition:

I shall only add, that I deem it most fortunate for this new Edition that the rich, imaginative powers of Mr. Maclise have been employed in its adornment; and that, to complete its national character, an Irish pencil has lent its aid to an irish pen in rendering due honour and homage to our country’s ancient harp.

(Note: I use the Dictionary of Irish Biography to check on all biographical details.  This is available to ND students through the Library’s website.)

The following report will be linked from the Library catalog:

Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries.

From the introduction, by Senator Martin McAleese:

This Report has established that approximately 10,000 women are known to
have entered a Magdalen Laundry from the foundation of the State in 1922
until the closure of the last Laundry in 1996.