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a new history of Anglo-Irish anthropology marks the centenary of the Haddon Library in Cambridge

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on September 25, 2020 – 9:48 am
Filed under Curatorial Projects, History of Anthropology

old tropes & new histories: an “Irish” reading of the Haddon Papers

is the theme of a 15 minute presentation by Dr Ciarán Walsh marking the centenary of the establishment of the Haddon Library. The event is part of Cambridge University’s Alumni Festival 2020 and is especially significant given that Walsh’s groundbreaking study of Haddon’s role in anglo-Irish anthropology started at the Alumni Festival in 2013.

The Irish section of the Haddon Library in 2013

Aidan Baker, the Haddon Librarian, invited Walsh to curate an exhibition of photographs from the Irish Ethnographic Survey as part of Alumni Festival 2013. The photo above captures the low level of interest in Ireland at the time, but, in preparation for the opening, Aidan searched the “locked room” for Haddon’s personal copy of the seminal “Ethnography of the Aran Islands, County Galway”, which the Royal Irish Academy published in 1893. For some reason Haddon didn’t keep a copy, but Aidan found his file on the Aran Islands, which had been ‘missing’ for a century or so.  

Aidan Baker, Haddon Librarian, with Haddon’s file on the Aran Islands, which was separated from the main body of his papers in 1913 and found in the Haddon Library in 2013.

That file contained ten pages from a journal that Haddon kept during his first visit to the islands in 1890, a manuscript of a commentary for the ethnographic slideshow that he performed on his return to Dublin, a sketchbook, photographic plates from “Ethnography of the Aran Islands, County Galway,” a map and other documents.

This triggered a sustained reading of the Irish component of the Haddon Papers in Cambridge University Library, guided initially by Dr John Pickles. That began in 2014 and culminated in a radical review of Haddon’s contribution to the development of Anglo-Irish anthropology in the 1890s: a major piece of doctoral research (funded by the Irish Research Council) that has just been completed.,

A small part of that research will be presented in this exploration of new facets of the life and career of Alfred Cord Haddon:

https://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/festival/events/the-haddon-library-at-100-–-new-facets-of-alfred-haddon

Research Update | October 2018

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on October 3, 2018 – 1:59 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Research

 

 

 

Reading Haddon …

Four years ago, I was given the job of finding out what exactly was going on in the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory, which was established in TCD in 1891. My research has focussed on the Laboratory’s programme of ethnographic surveys in the west of Ireland, which were conducted by “head-hunters” Alfred Cort Haddon and Charles R. Browne between 1892 and 1900.

The main question is this: what do the surveys tell us about the development of (1) social documentary photography in Ireland and (2) a western imaginary based on island life in the west of Ireland? My research also considers the ethical and practical implications of placing material from the laboratory–including anatomical specimens–into the public domain, especially in the context of debates about the relation between body, image, and identity in contemporary Ireland.

 

BBC Northern Ireland on location in “Old” Anatomy TCD in 2018. Brendan Holland and Martina Hennessy, TCD School of Medicine, discuss the relevance of historic anatomical/anthropological specimens to current medical research (see the Giant Gene)

 

Four years on the project is entering its final phase. The tricky task of converting extensive  work on primary sources in Dublin and Cambridge is well underway and slowly taking shape as a text. This text is structured around the idea of murderous, little facts from the hidden spaces of anthropology in Ireland. These facts have produced some interesting results; not least the need for some radical new thinking about the history of anthropology as a whole.

 

Ugly Little Facts: Aidan Baker, Librarian of the Haddon Library in Cambridge, with a collection of papers relating to the Aran Islands. The documents were placed in an envelope in 1913 and “lost.” They were rediscovered in 2013 in a search for Haddon’s notes and/or other papers relating to “The Ethnography of the Aran Islands, County Galway” (Haddon &  Browne 1893). 

 

Murderous Little Facts

The origin of this trope–ugly little facts–comes from an unlikely source. Thomas Henry Huxley is credited with coining the phrase in a conversation recalled by Francis Galton in his memoirs (1908).  Herbert Spencer revealed in conversation that he once wrote a tragedy. Huxley declared that the ‘catastrophe had to be a ‘beautiful theory killed by a nasty ugly little fact.’

My theory–or historiographical framework perhaps–is that the disciplinary history of anthropology operates around a foundational trope. Haddon is represented as taking anthropology out of the armchair and into the field in 1898; after he had escaped from the Darwinian backwater that was Dublin in the 1890s. That claim is not supported by facts in the Haddon papers and related sources but, repeated often enough, it has become a form of disciplinary folklore that has compressed the history of anthropology and circumscribed narratives like that of the  Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory.

 

Reading Haddon: A small section of the Haddon Papers in Cambridge University Library.

 

The strategy I have adopted in response is to use overlooked primary sources as “tropocidal” facts; using ugly, little facts gleaned from the forgotten spaces of anthropology to kill off the armchair trope and suggest some alternative narratives. The Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory, in this scenario,  becomes  (1) the site of a  struggle for disciplinary authority between conservative (biological) and radical (sociological) elements within “organised” anthropology in the 1890s, (2) an agent of the development of an equally radical, photo-ethnographic practice in fieldwork associated with the Laboratory and (3) the starting point for John Millington Synge’s exploration of peasant life in the West of Ireland.

 

 

Photography as ethnography: a photograph taken by Browne on the Great Blasket Island in 1897.  The man in the middle is Tomás Ó Criomhtain, An tOileánach, one of the most celebrated figures of the Blasket Island Community and an important figure in folklore studies in Ireland. Photograph courtesy of the Board of TCD.

 

Forgotten Spaces

This study is  grounded in the discovery of artefacts,  records, and photographs associated with the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory, which prompted a new reading of Haddon’s association with it. In 2014 Siobhán Ward of TCD started unpacking tea chests containing a substantial collection of historical material from the School of Anatomy.  This material included specimens, instruments, records, paper and a spectacular collection of glass plate negatives dating from 1890. This material had ‘disappeared’ in 1948 when it was placed in long-term storage under the theatre in the “Old” Anatomy Building.

Reconstruction of the anthropological collection began in February 2016 and the contents of the tea chests have since been recorded, sorted, and tallied with related material in other collections in Ireland and UK. It wasn’t long before a gap opened up between the conventional history of pre-modern anthropology in Ireland and the ugly little facts —documentary and material— that had  emerged from “Old” Anatomy.

 

“Unpacking” the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory in 2016. An early photograph showing the anatomical and anthropological material discovered in the “Old” Anatomy building in 2014. The records of the Laboratory and associated artefacts are visible in the foreground. They include the schedules of measurements taken in the Aran Islands in 1892, Daniel J. Cunningham’s cast of the cranial topography of a chimpanzee, and some of the psychometric instruments designed by Francis Galton.

 

Finally …

“Unpacking” the Laboratory has become, unexpectedly, a confrontation with the historiography of anthropology. This has meant spending just over two years reading what Haddon wrote – rather than reading about what Haddon was thought to have done – and this  has produced some interesting new narratives.

 

This part of the project will conclude in 2019 … hopefully.

 

Ciarán Walsh | Oct 3, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

Jane W. Shackleton: Pioneering Photographer and Unsung Hero of the Gaelic Revival

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on October 28, 2015 – 8:12 pm
Filed under Journalism, Photography, Research

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Jane W.  Shackleton’s singular contribution to the Gaelic Revival has been seriously undervalued. Ciarán Walsh takes another look at the work of this pioneering photographer. In his latest post on the Ballymaclinton blog Walsh questions why Shackleton’s career as a pioneer of social documentary photography been seriously undervalued.

 

 

Appalling vistas: TG4 broadcasts series on social documentary photography in Ireland in the 1890s

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on October 24, 2015 – 3:37 pm
Filed under Curatorial Projects, Journalism, Photography, Research

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About 10 years go I came across this photograph. The caption suggests that it was taken during the Famine of 1845-9 in Ireland.  It wasn’t. True, it is very similar to the scenes recorded in cabins throughout the west of Ireland and graphic illustrations of such scenes were published in illustrated newspapers at the time. There is no record, however, of any photograph of people dying of starvation in the 1845-9 famine.  Indeed a photograph like this would have been impossible in the early stages of photography – invented less than a decade before the famine. As a result he photograph has been dismissed by some people as a fake, the harsh pool of light suggesting a studio staging.

I set out to look for the original and test its authenticity. I never found it, but I found the next best thing – the original document in which the photograph was first published.  The photograph is entitled ‘A Sick Family Carraroe’ and is one of 18 photographs that were published in a pamphlet entitled  ‘Relief of Distress in the West and South of Ireland, 1898.’ The photographs were taken in April during an inspection of conditions in Connemara by Thomas L. Esmonde, Inspector of the Manchester Committee. He was reacting to reports of famine in Connemara, what locals call the Second Famine or Gorta Beag. He inspected a dozen houses in which he found people lying on the floor, covered with rags and old sacks and barely able to move from a combination of influenza and hunger.

The search for the photograph became the basis of an idea for a TV series on social documentary photography or, to put it another way, a social history of documentary photography in Ireland in the 19th century. I pitched the idea to a producer and a broadcaster in 2011 and funding was eventually secured from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland in 2014 for a six part series based on my research. TG4 will begin  broadcasting Trid an Lionsa or ‘Through the Lens’ tomorrow Sunday 25 October 2015.

I haven’t been involved in in the production itself, just the research into historical social documentary photography and the people who work in this area. This material has been “translated into television” by Cathal Watters (Oíche na Gaoithe Móire) and follows the TG4 controversial format of presenter driven, on-the-road info-tainment. (http://wp.me/p56Bmf-5g).

I have no idea what to expect. Like a colleague I will be watching from behind the couch … hoping!  It’ll be interesting to see how the balance between a social history of documentary photography and ‘factual’ entertainment works out. I know some key “voices” were excluded but that is the unenviable task of a producer. Either way it promises be an intriguing televisual event and, at the very least, it should create an awareness of the rich resource that exists in photographic archives and collections around the country.

 

For more images / Comment see: Ballymaclinton, The Town that Time Forgot

 

 

‘Is oth linn an briseadh seo.’ We regret the interruption in web-posting due to storm damage

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on March 21, 2014 – 2:01 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Comment, Film, Heritage, Photography, Research

 reteks.ru

 

Primarily, the period February / March has been taken up with two projects.

The first involves completing the second and final year of the Dioplóma sa Ghaeilge (Dioploma in Irish) with NUI Galway in partnership with Oidhdreacht Chorca Dhuibhne – final exams scheduled for 5 April. Dar fia!

The second involves development work on the ‘Haddon in Ireland’ project with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge and NUI Maynooth. This includes a paper to be given at the RAI’s conference in the British Museum in May/June.

 

 

 

Major feature on Anthropology by Ciarán Walsh in Irish Independent Newspaper

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on January 4, 2014 – 1:14 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Journalism

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The ‘ Irish Headhunter’ exhibition organised by www.curator.ie got a remarkable response from anthropologists working in Ireland. The project was featured in the Irish Journal of Anthropology and the exhibition was shown in the National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM) which has the only Anthropology Department in the state.   This switched the focus from the 1890s to the present and, in this feature commissioned by the Irish independent Newspaper editor Katie Byrne, Ciarán Walsh explores the role of contemporary Irish anthropologists. It features extracts from interviews with Mark Maguire, Head of Anthropology in NUIM; Nicola Reynolds, President of the  Anthropology Society NUIM; Fiona Murphy, Dublin City University School of Business and, Patrick Slevin of Applied Research for Connected Health (ARCH). Each of the contributors outlines what they see as the main challenges facing Irish society in 2014 from an anthropological perspective.

 

See: http://irishindependent.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx (Weekend Magazine)

 

 

 

www.curator.ie and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge agree on joint research project

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on December 13, 2013 – 4:48 pm
Filed under Heritage, Photography, Research

 veroxybd.comaton-mebel.ru

 

 

 

Further details to be announced in January 2014.

 

www.curator.ie participating in RAI conference on anthropology and photography, London.

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on December 11, 2013 – 4:01 pm
Filed under Criticism, Heritage, Photography

RAI Anthrop Photog

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www.curator.ie is participating in a conference on anthropology and photography being organised by the RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute) in the British Museum, London, on 29th- 31st May 2014.

Ciarán Walsh is a member of a panel being convened by Dr Jocelyne Dudding of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge University. The panel came together as a result of the ‘Headhunter’ project being shown in Cambridge University in September followed by the National University of Ireland Maynooth in October 2013. Dr. Mark H. Maguire, Dept. of Anthropology, NUI Maynooth and Dáithí de Mórdha of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir (The Great Blasket Centre) will also be taking part. Dáithí is co-curator of the ‘Headhunter’ project.

The panel will be examining the importance of photography in the Ethnographic Survey of Ireland of 1891-1903 in the context of social, cultural and political issues that framed anthropology in Ireland in the 1890s and, continue to influence it to this day.

Information: RAI (Royal Anthropological Institute)

Hanging a currach – installing Mannfed Url’s ‘Bád Spéire Michael D.’ in Áras Éanna, the Aran Islands

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on September 9, 2013 – 11:56 am
Filed under art, Artists, Exhibition

 ragrani.ru

 

 

 

Ciarán Walsh hangs Lamb on Inis Oírr: Charles Lamb exhibition opens in Áras Éanna, Aran.

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on August 29, 2013 – 7:02 pm
Filed under art, Exhibition, Heritage

Laillí and Mary Lamb (right of picture) at the opening of a selection of paintings by their father Charles Lambe (1893–1964) in Aras Éanna, Inis Oirr, the Aran Islands on 2 August 2013. The exhibition was hung by Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie. The photographs shows a section of the audience that includes the Samb sisters.

 

 

Laillí Lamb de Buitléar and Mary Lamb Waugh (right of picture) at the opening of an exhibition (2 August 2013) of paintings by their father Charles Lamb (1893–1964) in Aras Éanna, Inis Oirr, the Aran Islands.

 

There was a big turn out for the opening of an exhibition of paintings by Charles Lamb (1893–1964) in Aras Éanna, the arts centre on Inis Oírr in the Aran Islands. Lamb was from Northern Ireland. He was born in County Armagh and attended evening classes at the Belfast School of Art before he gained a scholarship to the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin where he studied from 1917 to 21. Like so many Irish painters of the time, Lamb was attracted to the West of Ireland where he focused on studies of peasant life in Conomara. He painted on the Aran Islands in 1928 and he settled in An Ceathrú Rua (Carraroe), where he the built a house in the Breton style in the he mid-1930s.

 

currachs

Ag Iompar na gCurraí / Carrying a Currach by Charles Lamb (1893–1964).

 

The paintings are part of a private collection that is owned by Laillí Lamb de Buitléar and the exhibition was curated by the contemporary glass artist Róisín de Buitléar. It was hung by Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie. The exhibition is the highlight of an arts programme, devised by Maighread Ní Ghallchóir and Danny Kirrane in Aras Éanna, that is dedicated to the memory of Laillí’s husband Eamon de Buitléar – the writer, musician and film maker who died in January 2013.

 

10 photographs portraying the opening of the Charles Lamb exhibition in Áras Éanna on Inis Oírr, the Aran Islands. The photographs feature Lally and Mary Lamb, daughters of the artist; Ciarán Walsh of curator.ie who hung the show; Mairead Ní Ghallcóir and Danny Kirrane of Áras Éanna.

Opening of Charles Lamb Exhibition in Áras Éanna on Inis Oírr, the Aran Islands.

 

 

 

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skeletons in the cupboard: anthropology and the diversity debate



a new history of Anglo-Irish anthropology marks the centenary of the Haddon Library in Cambridge



Maynoothy University awards Ciarán Walsh a Doctor of Philosophy (Arts) Degree.



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