6,918 research outputs found
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Timothy O'Neill : Life and Tradition in Rural Ireland
No full textJoannon Pierre. Timothy O'Neill : Life and Tradition in Rural Ireland. In: Études irlandaises, n°3, 1978. p. 137
A review of perennial ryegrass variety evaluation in Ireland
No full textpeer-reviewedOfficial National List (NL) testing of perennial ryegrasses commenced in Ireland at
the start of the 1970s with Northern Ireland (NI) having one site as part of the UK NL
testing network, and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) using 5 sites. The different testing
strategies adopted to achieve sufficient precision for regional Recommended Listing
in ROI from a multi-site system and from a single-site system in NI were considered,
including the test protocols, use of sequential sowings, timeframes and ‘merit scores’. The precision with which varieties can be discriminated for yield potential was shown to decline at lower trial plot yields. Furthermore, reducing the number of data sets used for decision making was shown to increase the ‘breeder’s risk’ of having an improved variety incorrectly rejected but not the ‘tester’s risk’ of erroneously recommending a variety that was not a clear improvement, because statistical analysis expanded confidence limits. These variety lists initially assessed only yield and persistency, giving a progressive improvement in recommended varieties and despite high genotype-x-environment
interaction effects was most clearly evident in spring productivity improvements. The
lists have been highly influential in both jurisdictions as almost all agricultural grass seed sales were recommended in ROI or NI, but the overuse of late maturing varieties in the ROI market and declining reseeding levels across Ireland indicated the current limits of this influence. This, and increasing requirements from Irish farmers for improvement in the nutritive value of varieties to support greater dependence on grass for animal production, has led to increased testing for digestibility and other quality parameters. While there is valid scientific evidence that shows that improvements in perennial ryegrass varieties has increased milk and meat production, more detailed information is required to satisfy the specific needs of local farmers. Consequently, a research initiative has been instigated to develop an index that will incorporate all the yield, persistence and quality performances of each recommended variety into a ranking score for a specific herd management system. This guidance should simplify recommendations and better quantify variety improvements in financial terms. It is envisaged that this will encourage an increase in the renewal of Irish pastures, promote selection of varieties based on enterprise-specific value and will continue to enhance the profitability and sustainability of grass-dependent Irish farming as has been achieved
since recommended lists were first introduced in Ireland
The Fertility of the Irish in America in 1910
No full textIn most western societies, marital fertility began to decline in the nineteenth century. But in Ireland, fertility in marriage remained stubbornly high into the twentieth century. Explanations of Ireland's late entry to the fertility transition focus on the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Irish society. These arguments are often backed up by claims that the Irish outside of Ireland behaved the same way. This paper investigates these claims by examining the marital fertility of Irish Americans in 1910 and produces three main findings. First, the Irish in America had smaller families than both the rural and urban Irish and their fertility patterns show clear evidence of fertility control. Second, despite the evidence of control, Irish-Americans continued to have large families, much larger, in fact, than the U.S. native-born population. The fertility differential between these populations was not due to differences in other population characteristics. Rather it was due to the fact that conditional on characteristics, Irish-Americans chose to have larger families. Third, the differential fertility patterns of Irish-Americans were not just due to the effects of being immigrants. Germans and English immigrants also had higher fertility than the native-born population, but to a much larger extent than for the Irish, this higher fertility could be explained by the population characteristics of these groups.Ireland, United States, Fertility, Demography, Immigration
Ethnic identity, political identity and ethnic conflict: simulating the effect of congruence between the two identities on ethnic violence and conflict
No full textThis thesis outlines and presents an alternative hypothetical process to the emergence of ethnic conflict. Ethnic conflicts, rather than being dependent upon pre-existing 'ancient hatreds', are instead the result of a congruence between ethnic and political identity which grants individuals the ability to use ethnicity to identify and eliminate political threats. This hypothesis is formed by the examination of three case studies of ethnic conflict: Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Croatia. This hypothesis is then formalised and tested using an agent based simulation in which agent interactions are dependent upon ethnic and political identity and the congruence between the two. As predicted there was a strong positive correlation between how accurately ethnic identity reflected political identity and the level of ethnically motivated violence in the simulation, although the relationship was not linear. Furthermore the effect of a shift in congruence was found to be roughly comparable to the effect of initialising agents with a moderate level of pre-existing ethnic antagonism
Money piece by Timothy P. Agnew, chief executive officer of the Finance Author
No full textMoney piece by Timothy P. Agnew, chief executive officer of the Finance Authority of Maine, about the increased availability of credit for Maine\u27s small businesses
Trust: A Concept Too Many
No full textResearch on "trust" now forms a prominent part of the research agenda in history and the social sciences. Although this research has generated useful insights, the idea of trust has been used so widely and loosely that it risks creating more confusion than clarity. This essay argues that to the extent that scholars have a clear idea of what trust actually means, the concept is, at least for economic questions, superfluous: the useful parts of the idea of trust are implicit in older notions of information and the ability to impose sanctions. I trust you in a transaction because of what I know about you, and because of what I can have done to you should you cheat me. This observation does not obviate what many scholars intend, which is to embed economic action within a framework that recognizes informal institutions and social ties. I illustrate the argument using three examples drawn from an area where trust has been seen as critical: credit for poor people.Trust, Social Capital, Credit Cooperatives, Uniform Laws
Requirements of future grass-based ruminant production systems in Ireland
No full textpeer-reviewedThere is a renewed interest in grazing systems in many temperate and subtropical regions of the world. This results from lower inflation-adjusted prices, the proposed removal of some subsidies and tariffs, and rising labour, machinery and housing costs. The utilization of grass by grazing should provide the basis of sustainable livestock systems as grazed grass is the cheapest source of nutrients for ruminants. This is very important in the Irish context as there are approximately 130 000 farmers involved in primary production in Ireland and the value of the goods produced was €5.8 billion in 2008. For the future, the key objective for grazing systems is to ensure high grass utilization,
allowing increased output per hectare for all sectors. The primary emphasis in grass
breeding needs to be focused on (i) seasonal growth pattern as well as overall annual
growth, (ii) nutritive value, including digestibility, particularly in the mid-season period, (iii) ensuring a sward canopy structure that is suitable for grazing, and (iv) development of persistent cultivars that perform under farm conditions. Evaluation programmes should also consider including an estimate of production potential at the field as well as at plot level, and evaluation under grazing management systems as well as under mixed grazing/silage management systems. It is difficult to accurately quantify the breeding achievements for grass mainly because its value, whether grazed or conserved, must be indirectly realised through the output of animal product. Grass evaluation and breeding need to better accommodate the requirements of the grazing ruminant. This will necessitate the application of new approaches and knowledge, which will ultimately enable further increases in animal output per hectare to be achieved
P stones and provos : group violence in Northern Ireland and Chicago
No full textAlthough the government of the United States of America was established to protect the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness among all American citizens, this thesis argues intractable gang violence in inner-city Chicago has persistently denied these rights, in turn undermining fundamental (and foundational) American political values. Thus, gang violence can be argued to represent a threat to both civil order and state legitimacy. Yet, where comparable (and generally lower) levels of community-level violence in Northern Ireland garnered the sustained attention and direct involvement of the United Kingdom's central government, the challenge posed by gang violence has been unappreciated, if not ignored, by the American federal government. In order to mobilise the political commitment and resources needed to find a durable resolution to Chicago's long and often anarchic 'uncivil war', it is first necessary to politicise the problem and its origins. Contributing to this politicisation, this thesis explains why gang violence in Chicago has been unable to capture the political imagination of the American government in a way akin to paramilitary (specifically republican) violence in Northern Ireland. Secondly, it explains how the depoliticisation of gang violence has negatively affected response, encouraging the continued application of inadequate and largely ineffective response strategies. Finally, it makes the case that, while radical, a conditional agreement-centric peace process loosely modelled on that employed in Northern Ireland might offer the most effective strategy for restoring the sense of peace and security to inner-city Chicago lost over half a century ago
Rewriting history : postmodern and postcolonial negotiations in the fiction of J.G. Farrell, Timothy Mo, Kazuo Ishiguro and Salman Rushdie
No full textThis thesis is a study of the rewriting of history in the work of four novelists: J. G. Farrell, Timothy Mo, Kazuo Ishiguro and Salman Rushdie. I argue that their work occupies a particular position that is both within contemporary British fiction, yet at one remove from it.
Their work is situated within the context of critiques of history that are the source of a conflict between postmodernism and postcolonialism. I suggest that each writer engages with postmodemist aesthetics often in an attempt to produce critical histones that bear witness to the voices of those hitherto silenced in conventional historiography. However, these novelists remain anxious as to the potential consequences of mobilising postmodernist models of history, particularly as to the problems this creates concerning historical reference. The thesis aims to
identify the range of related attitudes to postmodernist critiques of history at this particular juncture of contemporary fiction in English.
I approach the specific position of the novelists under study through Homi Bhabha's work on the confluence of the postmodern and the postcolonial, focusing in particular on his suggestion that the postmodem refutation of Western epistemology enables a postcolonial space where a new range of histories emerge. Because each writer works between at least two cultures, and primarily within Britain, they negotiate from within received epistemology in an attempt to locate a space at its boundaries where conventional forms of knowledge no longer have efficacy. However, in contrast to Bhabha, these writers struggle to reach this space and remain sceptical as to the usefulness of postmodernism in making available new forms of
historiography. Ultimately, their work enables a critique of current ways of theorising the relationship between the postmodem and the postcolonial in literary studies
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