This thesis examines the Scottish Presbyterian Churches anti-Irish campaign in the inter-war period with particular emphasis on the governmental response. It can, and has been, argued that the Church campaign was driven more by sectarian sentiment than by any other motive, however, the Church made a determined attempt to make their case on racial grounds. Discredited as those theories now are this thesis will carefully examine intellectual basis of the Church’s case. It has not thus far been considered how much the Church’s arguments were influenced by academic opinion in the United States and by the American experience of immigration restriction. It has also been argued that politically the campaign was a failure as no measures to restrict Irish immigration were ever imposed. Equally, it has been held that politicians of all parties were either hostile or indifferent to the Church campaign. It will be demonstrated here that this was far from the case and that the Church had its supporters on all sides of the political divide and that at various times the issue was seriously considered by Governments whether Unionist, Labour or National and that arguments for restriction did not emanate solely from the Scottish Churches or indeed solely from Scotland.

<p> In this thesis, I expand considerations of diaspora as not only a migration of people and cultures but a migration of thought. Specifically, I demonstrate that literary representations of diaspora produce what I consider to be an epistemological migration, challenging the idea that race and culture are stable and impermeable and offering instead racial and cultural fluidity. I assert that this causal relationship is best exemplified by narratives of racial passing written by diasporic writers. Using Homi Bhabha&rsquo;s concepts of mimicry, hybridity, and ambivalence, I analyze Helen Oyeyemi&rsquo;s <i> Boy, Snow, Bird</i> and Zo&euml; Wicomb&rsquo;s <i>Playing in the Light</i>, arguing that <i>Boy, Snow, Bird</i>&rsquo;s narrative form is a form of mimicry that repeats European and African literary traditions and subverts Eurocentrism, while <i>Playing in the Light</i> is a &ldquo;Third Space&rdquo; in which to accept notions of the non-categorical fluidity of race. Through this analysis, I draw particular attention to Oyeyemi&rsquo;s and Wicomb&rsquo;s unique abilities to refract notions of race, rather than presumably reflect a system of strict categories, and, ultimately, I argue that these novels transcend the realm of literature, existing as empowering calls for society&rsquo;s modifications of its racial perceptions.</p><p>

The only attempt at a systematic analysis and classification of Irish accentual verse -metres available to scholars remains that of Prof. Tadhg 6 Donnchadha ('T?rna') , the most recent editions of whose work are half a century old. The present thesis represents a second attempt at the same task, taking into account the contributions of Irish scholars and editors since 6 Donnchadha's time as well as those of more recent metrical scholarship generally. Following a survey of 6 Donnchadha's work and an assessment of its influence upon later editorial practice, an attempt is made to summarise the various schools of metrical scholarship which have emerged in the context of English poetry, with the aim of discovering what principles, if any, might be useful in the construction of a metrical theory for Irish accentual verse. This examination of foreign metrical models is justified on the grounds of the rhythmical similarity between English and Irish, both of which may be described as strongly 'stress -timed' languages. Linguistic phenomena are, indeed, central to the choice of an appropriate theoretical model, and Ch. 3 is devoted to a phenomenologically -based discussion of the role of rhythm in spoken Irish and its implications for verse -structure. Chapters 4 through 10 represent the central part of the thesis and are given over to a taxonomical survey of Irish verse -types, in which the principal criterion for inclusion in a given category is the number of stressed syllables in a line. Chapter 11 discusses the various stanzaic forms, both simple and complex, used by Irish poets, as well as certain supra -stanzaic organisational devices such as refrains and ceangal ver- ses. In this context also the form known as tri rann agus amhr?n, often likened to an Irish sonnet, is examined. The ornamentation of verse is the subject of the following chapter, with emphasis placed as much upon the position and function of ornament within the line /stanza as upon the character and linguistic significance of the types of ornament employed. A final chapter is devoted to discussion of the musical context of verse, with particular attention paid to the ways in which musical metre differs from verse -metre, and the implications of such differences for a system of versification primarily transmitted through a musical medium.

In spite of the widely perceived importance of suspended particulate material (SPM) , its distribution in the shelf seas and the processes controlling its variation are little known. This thesis reports an exploratory study of the spatial and time dependant variability of SPM in an area of the northern Irish Sea. SPM was determined both directly by gravimetric methods and via measurements of beam attenuation (c). Spatial distributions were determined from grid surveys using a profiling transmissometer. In addition a six month record of beam attenuation and current velocity was obtained from a site off the north coast of Anglesey. A clear spatial pattern in the surface distribution of c was observed which was similar to the distribution of h/ta, suggesting that concentrations of SPM are determined by the availability of TKE from tidal stirring. A strong seasonal cycle of c was observed in mixed water, with values decreasing in June, July and August which suggested a reduction in the supply of SPM during summer. In stratified water, high concentrations of SPM remained confined to the dense layer below the thermocline. The seasonal cycle was observed in the time series from the mooring, but in addition there was a marked response to tidal currents in the spring and in autumn. Close analysis of the record in April and May-showed signals at M% and M4frequencies. These variations in c were attributed to a local response to tidal currents causing erosion of the sea-bed and to the oscillation of a horizontal gradient in c in the region. A regression model was found to explain 35% of the variance in data from a5 week time series. 70% of the variance was explained for four day time series, near spring tides. The relationship between c and tidal flows was more marked at spring tides than at neaps.

This thesis examines the influences on Irish identity articulation within Melbourne and Chicago during the nineteenth century. Bringing together ethnicity and religious devotion, this thesis argues that the foundational identities encouraged by religious orders within parish schools and societies were fundamental to the shape of nationalist politics that emerged in each city. While the imperial and republican contexts of Melbourne and Chicago presented specific opportunities and restrictions on Irish cultural and political identity articulation, the ethnic pluralism of the Catholic Church in each city influenced the networks established between Irish migrants across class, occupation, and gender. In turn, the Catholic parish structures of each city altered how Irish identity was articulated at a local and global level. While focusing on Irish Catholic identity, this thesis also examines the establishment of secular and ethnic Irish institutions utilised by middle-class culture brokers within Melbourne and Chicago to promote a civic Irish identity. It explores the ways that Irish migrants interpreted British imperial and American values to encourage diasporic Irish identities shaped by Irish and local contexts. Using comparison, this work identifies similarities between two cities previously dismissed as divergent and transnational links between Ireland, Australia and Chicago. Examining these societies over a fifty-year period allows for the interrogation of identity influencers over numerous generations, addressing the evolving shape of two cities and the Irish communities therein.

No description available.

abstract: This dissertation addresses the representation of women in the poetry of the Irish poet Thomas Kinsella. Using a variety of theoretical approaches, including historical criticism, French feminist theory and Jungian psychoanalytical theory, I argue that although women are an integral part of Kinsella's ongoing aesthetic project of self-interrogation, their role in his poetry is deeply problematic from a feminist perspective. For purposes of my discussion I have divided my analysis into three categories of female representation: the realistically based figure of the poet's wife Eleanor, often referred to as the Beloved; female archetypes and anima as formulated by the psychologist C.G. Jung; and the poetic trope of the feminized Muse. My contention is that while the underlying effect of the early love and marriage poems is to constrain the female subject by reinforcing stereotypical gender positions, Kinsella's aesthetic representation of this relationship undergoes a transformation as his poetry matures. With regard to Kinsella's mid-career work from the 1970s and the 1980s I argue that the poet's aesthetic integration of Jungian archetypes into his poetry of psychic exploration fundamentally influences his representation of women, whether real or archetypal. These works represent a substantial advance in the complexity of Kinsella's poetry; however, the imaginative power of these poems is ultimately undermined by the very ideas that inspire them - Jungian archetypal thought - since women are represented exclusively as facilitators and symbols on this male-centered journey of self-discovery. Further complicating the gender dynamics in Kinsella's poetry is the presence of the female Muse. This figure, which becomes of increasing importance to the poet, transforms from an aestheticized image of the Beloved, to a sinister snake-like apparition, and finally into a disembodied voice that is a projection of the poet and his alter-ego. Ultimately, Kinsella's Muse is an aesthetic construction, the site of inquiry into the difficulties inherent in the creative process, and a metaphor for the creative process itself. Through his innovative deployment of the trope of the Muse, Kinsella continues to advance the aesthetics of contemporary Irish poetry. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2013

<p>LeJeune, Jeff. Bachelor of Science, McNeese State University, 2001; Master of Arts, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2017. Major: English Title of Thesis: ?The Violent Take It by Force?: Heathcliff and the Vitalizing Power of Mayhem in Wuthering Heights Thesis Chair: Dr. Christine DeVine Pages in Thesis: 92; Words in Abstract: 284 ABSTRACT In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte employs the character Heathcliff as both a real and mythic being in order to challenge class conventions in Victorian society. She shares this societal contention with other Victorian novelists, but where her contemporaries are typically realistic in their works, Bronte creates a concurrent mythic realm alongside the real in order to allow Heathcliff the space and license to be a Revenant, a symbol used in the folk tradition of the Scots, which I contend was a likely influence on Bronte?s work. Heathcliff?s real nature clashes with this symbolic one, especially when reality will not allow him to be with Catherine, the woman he loves. Her rejection of him serves two central purposes: 1) for the author to spotlight the arbitrary nature of the class system and the decisions individuals make inside it; and 2) for the author to provide a pivot point in the story at which she transforms Heathcliff from a real character to a mythic one. Heathcliff spends the latter half of the novel exacting redemptive punishment on all who have wronged him (and the marginalized he represents), including Catherine herself, a reality he struggles with because he still loves her despite her class-motivated marriage to the hated Edgar Linton. In the end, Heathcliff transgresses his symbolic purpose by going too far in punishing the innocent Hareton, at which point Bronte has him die as unceremoniously as she did Catherine earlier in the novel. Young Hareton and Cathy?s relationship is the fruit of the Revenant Heathcliff?s redeeming work, an ending that, for Bronte, seems to merge more than just the two houses; it seems to also reconcile divergent and conflicting ways of thinking inside the class system.

Recent new historicist accounts of the theatricality of power in early modern culture have often neglected issues of gender and sexuality despite the fact of four decades of female rule and the pervasiveness of images of female sexuality in cultural discourses on theatricality and power. This study of four early Jacobean Shakespearean tragedies--Othello, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus--reveals intimate connections between early modern culture's conceptions of power and its notions of female sexuality. Specifically, early modern constructions of the state as a family together with the concept and practice of a theatrical monarchy aligns the women in these tragedies with contemporary definitions and practices of power. In addition, reading these plays against a variety of other cultural discourses on women reveals glaring contradictions between various discourses on women and the possibilities for female power signalled by those inconsistencies. Reversing current notions of discontinuous identity or postmodern subjectivity as disempowering in denying agency, this dissertation seeks to redefine female agency and asserts that the intrinsic contradictions in representations of women open up the possibilities for female power. By highlighting their constructedness as theatrical creations, the discontinuities inherent in female characters in these plays signals a subversive site for empowerment in a culture which saw inconsistency and theatricality as constitutive of power.

Both legal and literary discourses register the conflicts and issues current in a culture. However, while law is written to order society, literary narratives, especially drama, are often disruptive, offering subversive alternatives to the dominant hegemony. English Land Law prescribed all land tenures, inheritance practices, and distribution of marriage property provisions in England throughout the Renaissance and early modern years. William Shakespeare used England's "most native law" to structure plot, to represent character, to redefine genre, and to orient his earliest audiences to their own milieu within the world of the play. For Shakespeare's contemporary playgoers Land Law functioned as a signifying system, grounding these audiences in familiar territory while the play transported them to other cultures, other times. For example, Shakespeare's use of Land Law in Antony and Cleopatra--a play of forty-seven scenes that move from Egypt to Rome and back--directed his seventeenth-century playgoers to identify their own fierce land market in the barter of countries and continents by the triumvirate. Using Land Law as an integral discourse in his texts, Shakespeare was able to make all politics--from the marriage market of Padua to Caesar's world conquests--local politics for his contemporary audience. Land Law functions clearly in Shakespeare's construction of female characters, defining them according to the legal material laws that restricted actual early modern English women. Some female Shakespearean characters, such as Isabella in Measure for Measure, conform to the economically passive role that Land Law prescribed. Others do not. Early in the pastoral As You Like It, Rosalind recognizes the legal alternatives she must act on to regain her inheritance and direct it to her line of descent. Understanding Land Law, the discourse so integral to the legal material culture that produced Shakespeare's plays, culminates in this study's fresh readings of five Shakespearean texts: As You Like It, Measure for Measure, King Lear, The Taming of the Shrew, and Antony and Cleopatra.