No description available.

No description available.

The object of this study is to discover whether Joyce's many allusions to events and personages from Ireland's history and mythology are incidental to the main narrative of Finnegans Wake, or whether they serve an intrinsic thematic and structural function. Chapter 2 examines the general theories which underlie Joyce's use of the past in his novel. From Vico he derived his conception of the cyclical progress of history, and from Bruno a notion of conflict based on the confrontation of opposites. In the writings of Quinet Joyce discovered a metaphor for recurrence in the image of flowers which continue to flourish regardless of the rise and fall of civilizations. These general concepts found in Irish dimension in the work of Stefan Czarnowski. He examined the process of mythologization by which St. Patrick became absorbed into the cultural mould of the earlier Celtic heroes, and provided a parallel for Joyce's identification of his characters which corresponding figures in the past. Furthermore, Czarnowski's concept of provisional death, in which heroes were preserved by a commemorative rites, reinforces the significance of the wake as a symbol of the hope of renewal. Joyce began work on Finnegans Wake by isolating certain themes from Ireland's past, and incorporating them into the fictional frame-work of six preliminary sketches. These sketches are studied in their earliest and final forms in chapter 3. The figures of Rodrick O'Connor, Tristan and Isolde. Kevin, Bishop Berkely and Patrick are the focus of the first four, while the theme of invasion is prominent in "Nannelujo", and the relationship of subjugated people to a conqueror in "Here Comes Everybody." By tracing the original themes to their inclusion in Finnegans Wake Joyce's treatment of his subjects is seen to develop from a mood of simple parody towards the juxtaposition of a multiplicity of parallel themes. The main emphasis of the novel went beyond the initial interest in history, as the concerns revealed by the isolation of themes from the past were developed in a fictional framework designed to be archetypal and representative, rather than historical and particular. Chapter 4 examines the relationship that Joyce set up between the brothers Shem and Shaun and their past. First as Mutt and Jute and later as Muta and Juva, they observe respectively the Battle of Ciontarf and the confrontation of the Archdruid and Patrick. Throughout the novel the oppositions of Shem and Shaun are frequently given an Irish dimension. Furthermore, in the chapters of Finnegans Wake devoted to Shaun, he adopts many attitudes associated with an insular Irish point of view. As Shaun the post, he is associated with Victorious, the messenger sent by the people of Ireland in a time of crisis to recall St. Patrick. Shaun does not succeed in his mission, but dreams of usurping Patrick's position himself. He is also the adovcace of violent means to achieve national aspirations, and, through his slogans are popular, they are also suspect. HCE himself, therefore, is forced to rise from his slumbers to propose an alternative, more tolerant, prospect from Ireland. Joyce's depiction of HCE has a consistent Irish dimension, studied in chapter 5. He is shown as an outsider, associated with the many invaders of Ireland, whose wider view of reality enables him to point a new way forward. He is the founder of a city culture, which object of suspicien for many. His roles include not only the hero Finn and Saint Patrick, but also Parnell, whose personality deeply divided the country. The lose of public confidence, which paralyses HCE's creativity, is expressed in Finnegans Wake by the image of the grave, in which HCE must sleep in the state of provisional death, awaiting the popular acceptance of a broad concept of national-hood, and the establishment of a new era by mutual consent. The themes which intersected Joyce at the outset of his novel developed through his adaptation of ideas gleaned from Vico, Bruno and Czarnowski into a theory of history which re-enacts conflict as part of its onward progression, but in which reconciliation is the necessary prerequisite for the institution of each new era. This theory influenced his selection of events from Irish history, which become a model for the parallel operation of recurrence in world history. Irish history, therefore, is a sustained level of significance in Finnegans Wake, absorbed into the novel's structure, and providing a wealth of detail to illustrate its thematic concerns. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

The thesis is a study of the relationship between Ireland and England as portrayed in Irish post-primary history school textbooks, dealing with the period 1800 to the present day, and published or in use since 1922. The thesis identifies two distinct categories of texts and these are referred to as purist texts and moderate texts. The purist texts are characterised by their strong pro-Irish, and anti-English biases in their presentation of Irish history. The moderate texts, by contrast, are generally without such biases and present more neutral accounts of Irish history. The central thesis of the work is that the relationship between Ireland and England as portrayed in the purist texts is fundamentally different from the relationship portrayed in the moderate texts. Close examination of the texts revealed that the presentation of Irish history fell into three large divisions, military and revolutionary history, political history and social history. For this reason the thesis, apart from introductory and concluding chapters, is comprised of three large central chapters, dealing in turn with each of these three aspects of Irish history. Thus, Chapter II looks at the treatment of the military and revolutionary history in the texts. Chapter III deals with the political history of Ireland and Chapter IV treats of the social history of Ireland. Each of these three chapters elaborates on how the topics dealt with contribute to the overall portrayal of the relationship between Ireland and England, as presented in the texts. The thesis concludes that the relationship between Ireland and England portrayed by the purist texts is a negative and hostile one, while the relationship portrayed by the moderate texts is a positive one. Hence, a fundamental difference in the portrayal of the relationship between the purist and moderate texts is established.

No description available.

No description available.

The focus of this thesis is on two pioneering organisations that were at the forefront of the provision of ‘rational’ holidays for the working-class during the early twentieth century: the Co-operative Holidays Association (CHA) and the Holiday Fellowship, founded by Thomas Arthur Leonard in 1893 and 1913 respectively. This research seeks to establish how these pioneers of recreative and educational holidays for working people dealt with the far-reaching changes in social, economic and cultural conditions during the period 1919-2000. It makes a significant original contribution to twentieth-century leisure and tourism history, especially that of the outdoor movement. Utilising important original source material, the research analyses the continuities and changes in these two organisations during the period 1919-2000 and the linkages and differences between them. The thesis explores the way the CHA and Holiday Fellowship dealt with the often conflicting demands of altruism and commercial necessity as the twentieth century progressed and assesses the extent to which they drifted away from their original ideals in order to combat the challenges of consumerism. The research takes a cultural history perspective, contextualising both organisations within a wider history of leisure, with specific reference to ‘rational’ recreation and the Victorian principles of respectability, co-operation and collectivism, and voluntarism. The research shows that the CHA and Holiday Fellowship were distinguishable from other ‘rational’ holiday providers; they had a distinct rural focus and the emphasis of their holidays was on healthy recreation and quiet enjoyment. They were almost unique in that they were equally attractive to women and men. However, both eventually served the middle classes rather than the working class for whom they were originally intended. Nevertheless, these pioneers of recreative and educational holidays unquestionably made a significant contribution to the democratisation of the countryside as a leisure space.

This thesis is an exploration of Irish literary emigration to London in the nineteenth century, with particular reference to the 1880s and 1890s. These two decades witnessed a conflict between two generations of Irish emigrant writers and it is this conflict which forms the basis of the thesis. On the one hand were those emigrants - T.P. O'Connor, Justin McCarthy and R. Barry O'Brien - who typified the Irish literary defection to London in the nineteenth century, moving to England for a mixture of political, social, economic and cultural reasons. They were nationalists, but, like most Irish literary emigrants before them, they integrated themselves with British political and cultural life, developing a 'mixed' political-cultural identity in which British elements - principally Liberalism - were at play as well as Irish ones. By the 1880s they were well established in the world of Liberal London and played a prominent role in the Liberal Home Rule campaign of 1886-92. In these years, however, a new generation of Irish literary emigrants arrived in London - men like W.P. Ryan and D.P. Moran - and they were to be influenced by the Irish cultural revival rather than British Liberalism, becoming involved in the Southwark Irish Literary Club, the Irish Literary Society and the London Gaelic League during the 1880s and 1890s. Coming into contact with the 'Home Rule' writers, this 'Revival' generation would see their forerunners, with their 'mixed' identities, as Irishmen who had compromised culturally, who were essentially Anglicised. These cultural 'warnings' helped stimulate the cultural nationalism of the younger men, who, in the early 1900s, rejected the example of the 'Home Rule' generation and the longstanding pattern of cultural assimilation that they represented, by returning to Ireland and working for the Gaelic revival there. In doing so they illustrated the contrasting ways in which emigration to London could affect Irish litterateurs in the late nineteenth century.

No description available.