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November Document of the Month

The Commissioners for National Education (National Education Board) were established in 1831 for the purpose of administering a fund of £30,000 placed at the disposal of the Lord Lieutenant for the education of the poor in Ireland. Their powers were based on a set of instructions drawn up by Chief Secretary Stanley and were not defined in any enactment.

Teachers were expected to be proficient in reading and explanation; penmanship; spelling; grammar and parsing; geography; arithmetic and needlework for females.

Needlework is not what one would normally expect to find in our National Education collection. However, many of the ED 9 category of records relating to individual schools contain the needlework samples and examination papers with result marks provided by teachers.

This partially completed piece of needlework bears the name of Mary O’Connor and the date (18)51.  It is contained on the file from Pery Square Female National School in Limerick (ref. ED9/4341).

More information on what is contained within our National Education collection can be found here.

 

New in the online catalogue 2020

The following series of archives have been added to the online catalogue, a direct link to the records can be found below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Scenes: Talk-‘Archival Activism: Community-Centred Approaches to Archives’

A collaborative webinar, organised by the National Archives and Digital Repository of Ireland was held online on Thursday, 22nd October 2020. The second event in our online autumn evening lecture series, ‘Archival Activism: Community-Centred Approaches to Archives’, reached an international audience of 156 people.

The event consisted of speakers who discussed the concept of archival activism; that is to say the work of community archivists and community initiatives formed to fill the space or gaps that traditional archives do not cover. The topic is hugely relevant today, as some of these initiatives have formed as direct responses to movements such as the Black Lives Matters in the United States, and even wider topics like Covid-19.

The first speaker of the evening was Dr Sharon Webb, a digital humanities professor, whose research focuses on community archives and digital preservation. She put into context the term “archival activism” and explained how it is important to consider those who shape archives and who choose their content. The double erasure of marginalised communities from the archival record was also emphasised.

The second guest speaker of the evening was Boni Odoemene, co-founder of ‘Black and Irish’, a social media community page on Instagram. The page was founded in June 2020 in response to the Black Lives Matters movement in the United States. Boni and his two co-founders, Femi Bankole and Leon Diop, created the page as a safe space for people to share their experiences of the black Irish community; in effect capturing an unofficial history of the black and Irish experiences in Ireland. The account is now administered and researched by a team of 16 people, all working voluntarily to create and share content.

During Black History Week and throughout Black History month their Instagram page created a number of posts exploring little known events and facts from throughout history, such as the story of Rachael Baptist, an Irish singer from 18th century. Boni explained that inclusivity is at the heart of what they do for the ‘Black and Irish’ Instagram page and they want to continue sharing their collective story.

The final speaker of the evening was digital archivist, Zakiya Collier. She began her presentation by raising the point that black and Irish people are not being represented in the traditional archival collections or in school curriculums. She underlined the importance of self-curated, collaborative practices that have been developed by community archivists, specifically mentioning Boni’s work with the ‘Black and Irish’ Instagram page and the importance of empowering people to do this work.

Zakiya noted the use of Instagram and social media as a platform to bridge gaps in archival collections, that people are turning to novel means to archive their lives. She explained that social media gives voice to ongoing conversations which wouldn’t normally occur in a traditional archive. However, these online communities are extremely vulnerable; social media platforms are not created with the intent of being an archive. According to Zakiya, this is where traditional archives can help to form partnerships to adopt and archive more diverse cultural collections.  She commended the Digital Repository of Ireland for their support of community-based projects and initiatives by creating community awards in order to provide resources and basic needs.

Femi Bankole, a co-founder of the ‘Black and Irish’ Instagram page, joined the question and answer session which ended with a touching quote from Boni Odoemene stating “if fear was darkness, information is light”.

For those unable to attend the webinar event, it was recorded and will be available to view on the Digital Repository of Ireland’s website shortly.

Suzanne Bedell

Archivist

 

 

October Document of the Month

This month sees the 100th centenary of the death of the revolutionary Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney.

To mark this anniversary we share a file from the Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers relating to MacSwiney’s internment in the wake of the 1916 Rising. MacSwiney had been active in the fight for Irish independence having helped set up the Cork Brigade of Irish Volunteers in 1913. According to the file, MacSwiney ‘organised nearly all the Irish Volunteer Branches in Cork W.R. [West Riding]. He was arrested in the house of Robert Hales, Knocknacarra, Bandon, on 3/5/16 with other dangerous Sinn Feiners after apparently evading arrest in Cork City’.

This file ref. CSO/RP/1918/16628/A125 is the application for the release of Terence MacSwiney from custody. In seeking the release of internees, local police were asked their opinion. In response, the District Inspector, CF Walsh, states that MacSwiney ‘was always an extremist. He took a very active part in promoting and organising the Irish Volunteers in Cork and was constantly travelling round by train and bicycle visiting country district and stirring up sedition. He contributed articles to Sinn Fein papers and wrote seditious pamphlets and songs. He is possessed with a fanatical hatred of all things British and is at the same time an able and highly educated man’. In a further opinion, he outlines how MacSwiney was found in possession of seditious literature and cipher codes, including discussion of the ‘desirability of shooting John Redmond’. He concludes by stating that ‘there are many enemies of England in Cork who may be regarded without concern as they possess neither the resolution nor the ability to be really dangerous. McSweeney has both the will and the ability’. His application for release was refused.

MacSwiney was elected to the First Dáil in 1918 and became Lord Mayor of Cork in March 1920, following the murder of Tomás Mac Curtain. He was arrested and tried by court martial in August 1920 and sentenced to two year’s imprisonment in Brixton jail in England, where he died on October 25th after 74 days on hunger strike.

The full CSORP file can be viewed here.

 

Behind the Scenes: Talk-‘Treating shellshock and severed limbs: WWI veterans at Leopardstown and Blackrock hospitals’

As we all know outreach and educational events primarily occur online at the moment and arguably the talk by Dr. Eoin Kinsella, held online on 30th September 2020, reached a wider audience than may have been achieved in person. Over 121 people logged in to hear his talk on ‘Treating shellshock and severed limbs: WWI veterans at Leopardstown and Blackrock hospitals’ which was held as a joint National Archives and Royal Irish Academy contribution to the Dublin Festival of History.

The image of the shellshocked soldier is one that epitomises the horror of World War One. It was a mental illness unseen before but was rife among returning soldiers traumatised by the conflict.

Dr. Kinsella began by explaining that between 1914 and 1919 over 20,000 wounded men arrived in Dublin leaving the hospital system totally overwhelmed. This lead to more than 100 auxiliary hospitals being established by organisations such as the Red Cross.

In response to this situation Gertrude Dunning made an extraordinary act of generosity in gifting her estate of Leopardstown Park House, which was left to her on the death of her husband, to the Office of Military Pensions on 16 October 1917 ‘for the use of the army and navy for as long as is needed’.

Both Leopardstown and Blackrock hospitals were in the ownership of and administered by the British Ministry of Pensions up until the closure of Blackrock hospital in 1931 and, curiously, up until 1979 for Leopardstown Hospital.

Treatment for shellshock, which at the time was termed neurasthenia, was woefully inadequate but the tranquil grounds of the 100 acre Leopardstown Estate were allocated for this specialised treatment. Opening to the first patients in March 1918 there were beds for only 32 patients suffering from mental trauma.

While Blackrock Hospital, formerly the Meath Industrial School on Carysfort Avenue, catered for the medical treatment of eventually over 500 patients. It became a centre of excellence in the treatment of injuries incurred in conflict, applying innovative medicine in bone grafts, tendon transplants and the specialisation of fitting artificial limbs. Dr Kinsella shared this silent clip from the British Pathé archive featuring the hospital: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihh9EluajBY

By 1921 the waiting list for treatment at Leopardstown Hospital had reached 762 patients in need, showing that the specialist treatment for shell shock victims was woefully inadequate. By 1925 over £25,000 had been spent on expansion of the hospital which increased the facility to 134 beds, however, with the closure of Blackrock Hospital in 1931 the situation was made worse as medical conditions other than shell shock were then treated at Leopardstown.

In fact the patient profile changed so considerably at Leopardstown with far fewer shell shock victims being treated after 1931, it can be surmised that the specialist treatment for this condition was no longer available to ex-servicemen and that the patients were subsumed into mental asylums.

World War Two ensured a new wave of war pensioners in need and consequently the British government continued to fund the hospital for concern that ex-servicemen of the British forces would not receive appropriate treatment by the Irish government. Discussions on handing over the hospital to Irish administration continued throughout the 1970s and were finally resolved in 1979 when it was transferred.

Dr. Kinsella explained that there is a dearth of records for Blackrock hospital but that Leopardstown has more extensive archives which better reveals the history of the institution. He proved that both hospitals provided innovative care for their patients whether their ailment was physical or mental.

Leopardstown Park House is still in use today and stands as a tribute to the generosity of Gertrude Dunning who had the foresight to gift it for ‘as long as is needed’ over 100 years ago.

 

Dr. Kinsella has written extensively about the hospital in his book Leopardstown Park Hospital, 1917–2017: A Home For Wounded Soldiers (2017). 

 

Natalie Milne, Archivist