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Language and migration in rural areas: Experiences of migrants and refugees with language learning and use in Ireland’s rural communities
No full textThe present report seeks to contribute to our understanding of migrants’ experiences in different rural communities, across different regions of Ireland. The study had a specific focus on language and its impact on the everyday lives of migrants in these areas.
This report is part of a four-year (2022-2026) research project titled “Rural Villages, Migration, and Intercultural Communication” (VICO), funded under the Irish Research Council. The VICO project explores different aspects of migrant integration and intercultural communication in rural communities, which have received comparatively less attention than urban areas in migration research, but that nevertheless present unique challenges and opportunities (Morén-Alegret and Wladyka 2020; Patuzzi, Andriescu and Pietropolli 2020; Skaptadóttir et al. 2024; Woods 2016).
Between May 2023 and June 2024, VICO researchers conducted fieldwork in 11 counties of Ireland, through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, reaching 165 migrants and refugees. This particular study concentrated on the languages spoken by migrants in rural areas, both at home and in the community. It underscores the importance of English language education as a vehicle for better employment opportunities, and for creating connections in the community. The study also underlines some of the challenges that derive from migration in rural areas, such as the lack of infrastructure, or difficulties in accessing translation and interpreting services, which makes accessing other services, like healthcare, more difficult.This report is part of a four-year (2022-2026) research project titled “Rural Villages, Migration, and Intercultural Communication” (VICO), funded under the Irish Research Council.non-peer-reviewe
Degradation characteristics of 3D printed continuous fibre-reinforced PA6/chopped fibre composites in simulated saltwater
No full textThis paper investigates the performance of continuous fibre-reinforced 3D printed components in salt water medium at room temperature. Markforged® Mark Two 3D printer was employed to fabricate standard specimens made of Onyx and reinforced Onyx specimens with continuous carbon, high-strength high-temperature glass, and Kevlar fibres. Aging process was conducted to characterize the long-term effect of salt water on the mechanical behaviour of fibre-reinforced 3D printed samples. Several mechanical tests including tensile, 3-point bending test and indentation testing have been carried out on the dry and aged standard samples to evaluate tensile strength, flexural strength, micro-hardness, and modulus of elasticity in micro-scale. The mechanical tests revealed the degradation and loss in mechanical properties of the printed samples after aging in salt water. The data highlighted that Onyx samples without continuous fibres experienced the most significant reduction in both tensile (33.54%) and flexural (63.47%) strengths after 1 year, while continuous carbon fibre-reinforced Onyx samples showed comparatively lower strength reductions (28.46% in tensile strength and 18.73% in flexural strength). Optical and scanning electron microscopy were performed to investigate the fracture behaviour of the tested specimens. In addition, the DSC assessment showed a slight change in the thermal properties of aged specimens.Open Access funding provided by the IReL Consortium.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 847402. This publication has also emanated in part from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number 16/RC/3872 and 21/RC/10295_P2. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. This research was also supported by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and administered by Enterprise Ireland under the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund, MI-DRONE Project (Contract Ref: DT 2020 0221)
The new tax credit regime for digital games production in Ireland
Get PDFTax credit and incentive regimes for creative production are increasingly a feature of the production landscape in many jurisdictions. Historically, Ireland has provided significant opportunities for both international and national audiovisual production, including through the provision of a generous tax credit regime of up to 32% of eligible expenditure for film and TV production. However, the digital games/videogames sector has not been considered as part of the audiovisual industries but as forming part of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Until now. The recent introduction of a digital games tax credit in Ireland has, in part at least, framed the digital games sector as part of the cultural and creative industries, given the need for European Commission approval for the tax credit as a cultural state aid under EU Treaty provisions. This article addresses the impact of the contested framing of the digital games sector as simultaneously part of the industrial and cultural industries. It does so through interrogation of framing of games as both industrial and cultural in both EU state aid and Irish taxation policy.peer-reviewe
Using information retrieval techniques to automatically repurpose existing dialogue datasets for safe chatbot development
No full textThere has been notable progress in the development of open-domain dialogue systems (chatbots) especially with the rapid advancement of the capabilities of Large Language Models. Chatbots excel at holding conversations in a manner that keeps a user interested and engaged. However, their responses can be unsafe, as they can respond in an offensive manner or offer harmful professional advice. As a way to mitigate this issue, recent work crowdsource datasets with exemplary responses or annotate dialogue safety datasets, which are relatively scarce compared to casual dialogues. Despite the quality of data obtained from crowdsourcing, it can be expensive and time consuming. This work proposes an effective pipeline, using information retrieval, to automatically repurpose existing dialogue datasets for safe chatbot development, as a way to address the aforementioned challenges. We select an existing dialogue dataset, revise its unsafe responses, as a way to obtain a dataset with safer responses to unsafe user inputs. We then fine-tune dialogue models on the original and revised datasets and generate responses to evaluate the safeness of the modelsThis publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number SFI/12/RC/2289_P2 (Insight), co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund
What is the relationship between remote rural island place and perspectives on ageing of mid-life women?
No full textThis article makes an original contribution to social gerontology and nissology by addressing a knowledge gap on contemporary gendered ageing in remote, rural island places. Drawing on empirical data gathered through in-depth interviews with 12 mid-life (48–69 years old) women living in the Uist islands of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, the relationship between ageing and remote rural island place is examined. Reflecting the participant narrative, this study discusses personal and place identities, while exploring place attachment and its relationship with gendered island ageing. This qualitative work adopts a lifecourse framework in order to acknowledge lived experience and cultural context from childhood to adulthood. Data were gathered and analysed through the prism of constructivist grounded theory, a methodology well placed for exploratory research of topics about which relatively little is known. Rich participant insight and analysis eschew island mono-culturalism, instead extending the discourse around remote rural island ageing as distinct from mainland rural ageing. Empirical data informs substantive theory, and fresh considerations on gendered mid-life ageing and remote island place are offered for academia. Findings from this study indicate diverse relationships between ageing and place amongst mid-life women living in the Outer Hebridean regions of North Uist, South Uist, Benbecula and Berneray. The connection between ageing and island place is experienced through place attachment, and is influenced by a range of geographic, demographic and socio-economic factors: primarily of relevance to this study is that of the natural environment. Perspectives on ageing reflect lived lifecourse experience and vary between those native and non-native to the Outer Hebrides; those who live with a partner or alone; those who have children and those child-free; and between those who enjoy socio-economic stability and those who do not.This research received funding in the form of a Charlemont Grant from the Royal Irish Academy,
Dublin, Ireland. The RIA played no part in the collection of data or in the writing of this study.peer-reviewe
Léirmheas ar an scannán An Cailín Ciúin
No full text‘Ní raibh de dhíth uirthi ach giota peataireachta’, a dúirt Eibhlín, an mháthair altrama, sa scannán An Cailín Ciúin agus í ag labhairt ar Cháit a bhí ag stopadh aici agus ag a fear Seán ar feadh míosa. Is iad Carrie Crowley agus Andrew Bennet a ghlac ról na dtuismitheoirí altrama agus tá moladh mór tuillte acu as an aisteoireacht shéimh nádúrtha. Tháinig an scannán amach sa bhliain 2022, ach tá an scéal féin suite sa bhliain 1981. Tá an scannán bunaithe ar an leabhar Foster (2010) le Claire Keegan agus is é Colm Bairéad a scríobh agus a stiúir. Dúirt Bairéad le Cathy Clarke in alt in The Guardian (2022) gur thit sé i ngrá leis an leabhar láithreach, agus go raibh sé ag sileadh na ndeor agus é á léamh. Bhí sé cinnte go mbeadh na cearta ag duine éigin eile le scannán a dhéanamh de ach, ar an dea-uair dósan, ní raibh. Cuireann Bairéad ábhar sa scannán nach bhfuil i scéal an bhunleabhair, saol Cháit sa bhaile, cuir i gcás, an claonadh atá inti an leaba a fhliuchadh agus an claonadh atá inti dul ar strae. Is í Cáit an príomhcharachtar agus is í Catherine Clinch a ghlac an ról sin. Is é seo an chéad ról a bhí aici agus fóireann a stíl aisteoireachta go hiontach maith don ról céanna. Go deimhin, ainmníodh an scannán do Ghradam Oscar don Scannán Idirnáisiúnta Lánfhada is Fearr.peer-reviewe
Cell type-specific genome stability in the non-ageing animal Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus
No full textThe marine cnidarian Hydractinia is highly regenerative, does not age, develops no spontaneous neoplasia, and is highly resistant to ionizing irradiation (IR). These features are thought to depend on a population of adult pluripotent stem cells, called i-cells. I hypothesized that these features are supported by a highly stable genome in some or all Hydractinia cell types. Studying the mechanisms that underlie genome stability in this animal was the main aim of my PhD. As a first step, I show that Hydractinia possesses no unique protection against IR-induced DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). Furthermore, DSB repair occurred within 24, in line with other organisms. However, in contrast to other animals, Hydractinia stem cells (i-cells) are not more sensitive to IR when compared to differentiated cells. Following irradiation, i-cells exited the cell cycle for an extended period but remained alive as demonstrated by flow cytometry. Eventually, cell cycle re-entry was observed, followed by the animals complete resumption to clonal growth and sexual reproduction. To explore genome stability at single cell level, high quality omics resources are required. I participated in the chromosome-level genome assembly and analysis for male clone 291-10. An additional chromosome-level assembly was generated for the female clone 295-8. A male cell type atlas of 200,000 cells was generated by mapping barcoded RNA reads from single-cell ACME SPLiT seq to the reference genome. All known cell types and some novel ones were identified, including a stolon enriched type. An additional female single cell dataset was generated and merged with the male atlas, identifying an oogenesis-specific cluster with novel marker genes. To assess IR response, I generated a single cell dataset from animals at 1- and 9-days post exposure to 50 Gy. I merged the post IR libraries with the reference atlas and found that all major cell types were captured in the IR dataset. I demonstrate, on a single cell level, that the mutational load decreases significantly between 1- and 9-days post IR, and is generally lower in i-cells, indicating the presence of a post DSB repair mutation elimination (PRiME) mechanism in some or all cell types. Such a mechanism has never been recorded previously in any organism. I identified Hydractinia homologues for 163 genes implicated in DNA damage response in humans, including all genes required for canonical homologous recombination and non-homologous end joining. I searched for genes involved in PRiME by assessing differential expression of genes between specific cell types during recovery from high dose IR, providing candidate genes for future functional studies. Understanding the mechanisms involved in PRiME could provide insight into cnidarians' overall resilience to age-related degeneration and cancer, and have future applications in human disease research.2026-05-2
Cumann na mBan in Clare, 1916-1923
No full textCumann na mBan was founded in 1914 as an auxiliary force to the Volunteers. However, not until recently has the true value of their activity been appreciated. The decade of centenaries saw the publication of many books about women, whose role in the revolutionary period, starting with the Rising, was relatively unknown. As well as these books the Military Archives’ continuous digital release of pensions applications, has revealed even further the part played by women in the revolution. The role Cumann na mBan played in this period had become lost or overshadowed. However, these publications and digital releases have triggered the realization that women played a bigger part in achieving the independence of Ireland than was acknowledged before now. Consequently, it is possible to delve into the question of what Clare Cumann na mBan contributed to the struggle. This study has probed hundreds of Clare women’s pensions’ applications. Clare Cumann na mBan’s involvement in every element of the struggle during the revolutionary period was revealed. This started with the East Clare by-election in 1917, continuing with the anti-Conscription Campaign in 1918 and continuing through the War of Independence and the Civil War thus providing a more rounded picture of the conflict. The bravery and ingenuity shown by these women is remarkable. This study aims to place Clare Cumann na mBan in their rightful place – at the heart of the revolution.2026-03-1
Pulsed electric field ablation of epicardial autonomic ganglia: Computer analysis of monopolar electric field across the tissues involved
No full textBackground and objectives: Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) ablation has been proposed as a non-thermal energy to treat atrial fibrillation (AF) by epicardial ablation of ganglionated plexi (GP), which are embedded within epicardial fat. Our objective was to study the distribution of the electric field through the involved tissues (fat, GPs, myocardium and blood) during epicardial PEF ablation. Methods: A two-dimensional model was built considering different tissue layers below the ablation device which consists of an irrigated electrode. The 1000 V/cm threshold was used to estimate the `PEF-zone¿. Results: The PEF-zone was almost 100% circumscribed in the epicardial fat layer, with very little incidence in the myocardium. The presence of the saline on the epicardial fat causes the PEF-zone to spread laterally around the electrode from ~5 mm to ~15 mm, relatively independently of how embedded the electrode is in the saline layer. For a saline layer well spread over the tissue surface and an electrode fully embedded in the saline layer, the PEF-zone width decreases as the fat layer thickens: from ~15 mm for fat thickness of 1 and 2 mm, down to ~10 mm for fat thickness of 5 mm. The presence of a GP in the center of the fat layer hardly affects the size of the PEF-zone, but significantly alters the distribution of the electric field around the GP, resulting in progressively lower values than in the surrounding adipose tissue as the fat layer thickness increased. Conclusions: Our results suggest how some procedural (irrigation) and anatomical parameters (fat thicknesses and presence of GPs) could be relevant in terms of the size of the tissue area affected by pulsed field ablation.This research was funded by Government of Ireland, Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund (DTIF), grant number DT20180123.peer-reviewe
Magnetoactive asymmetric mechanical metamaterial for tunable elastic cloaking
No full textWe propose a magnetic field-induced asymmetric mechanical metamaterial for tunable transformation-based elastic cloaking. The metamaterial is designed by integrating hard-Magnetic Active Elastomers (hMAEs) and combining zero-stress collapse modes to produce a unique asymmetric behavior controlled by an external magnetic field. The relationship bridging the microstructure and the desired cloaking performance is presented. This magneto-metamaterial design is applied to achieve tunable static elastic cloaking. The theoretical predictions, together with the numerical tests under various static loads, demonstrate encouraging cloaking performance. The study also highlights the impact of magneto-mechanical coupling and offers the first remotely-controllable hMAE-based cloaking solution, with promising potential in various applications including stress shielding and stealth technologies.QZ thanks the support of the European Union's (EU) Horizon Europe research and innovation funding program through the Marie Skodowska-Curie Actions (Grant No. 101106301- MetaMagic). GH thanks the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China through Grant No. 11991030. SR thanks for the support of the European Research Council (ERC) through Grant No. 852281- MAGIC.peer-reviewe