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‘Head-hunter’ project enters a new phase

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on July 5, 2022 – 7:18 am
Filed under Research

Ciarán Walsh and Mark Maguire, Dean of Social Sciences at Maynooth University after a conferring ceremony in June 2020 .

Mark and I set out on a PhD in 2015, which we both agree was ‘an-archic’ mix of art, politics, and engaged anthropology that tested the limits of the academy. Mark kept it on track and we got got through a viva with the highest distinction in June 2020. Friday was a wrap on the academic side and that marks the start of an exciting new phase the “Head-Hunter” project.

The book has gone to Berghahn Books NY and Dearcán Media’s film ‘Iarsmaí’ is about to go into production for TG4/BBC. It features a campaign to have 24 stolen skulls returned by TCD to communities in the west of Ireland, one of three interwoven stories that relate the consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement for colonial era institutions Ireland.

We go on!

Tim Robinson’s Connemara: TG4 on 10|06|2020

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on June 3, 2020 – 5:32 pm
Filed under Ethnography, Film
Tim Robinson’s Connemara with a “Connemara stone” from Ballyheigue Beach.

Things happen in threes, so they say.

Cathy Galvin, a poet and journalist whose family emigrated from Mason’s Island in Connemara, contacted me about Charles R. Browne’s ethnographic study of Carna. Cathy also sent me an essay by Kevin T. James on the meaning of “emptiness” in Connemara.

James built his essay around an entry in the visitors’ book of Mongan’s Hotel, the pub/shop/hotel operated by Martin Mongan in Carna in the 1890s. Mongan is an intriguing character and, as usual, I consulted Tim Robinson on Mongan, Mason’s Island, and the tricky issue of the emptiness of Connemara.

I had just begun re-reading Robinson’s Connemara: listening to the wind (first published in 2006) when I went for a walk on Ballyheigue Beach and found several “Connemara Stones” in the intertidal zone, a favourite haunt of Tim Robinson’s. “Connemara Stones” are erratics, granite rocks that were picked up by a glacier in Connemara and carried south until the ice melted and dropped the stones at various sites in Kerry (see the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 119, 2 (2008): 137-152).

Synchronicity or what?

Tim Robinson 1935-2020 (Photograph: Nicolas Fève).

Then, TG4 announced the screening on Weds June 10, 2020 of a new film that it is broadcasting in memory of Tim Robinson and his wife and longtime collaborator Mairéad Robinson. The film explores the Robinsons’ topographical study of Connemara over thirty years.

Tim Robinson’s Connemara: listening to the wind is an intriguing book that has at its core an environmentalist’s awareness of the tension between emptiness and settlement over several centuries of social, political, and cultural disruption, a theme that he developed in a series of walks through the landscape.

It will be interesting to see what that looks like on film.

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.

 

 

TV series on photography in Ireland developed by www.curator.ie & Sibéal Teo for TG4

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on July 3, 2014 – 3:35 pm
Filed under Comment, Film, Heritage, Journalism, Photography

 

Uploaded by www.curator.ie: a reproduction of a photograph of an impoverish family huddled in cabin in Connemara in 1898. It is entitled "A starving Irish family from Carraroe, County Galway." (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/sadlier/irish/starvati.htm) from an orig. It was traced to a pamphlet published by the Mansion House committee in 1898.

A starving Irish family from Carraroe, County Galway during the Famine . (Source: University of Virginia)

 

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. (Lost in Translation).

 

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. The reliance on off-the-cuff interviews rather than scripted narrative is a risky business in general Read Full Article. It suits some formats but I don’t know about a documentary on 19th century photography, with it’s intricate social, political and historical contexts and plots. I know some key “voices” were excluded but that is the unenviable task of a producer. Dropping a key commentator on the history of photography because, apparently, there were already enough English speakers is a bit odd though.  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

 

‘Headhunter’ exhibition opens in The National Museum Of Ireland, Country Life.

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on January 7, 2013 – 12:02 pm
Filed under Exhibition, Heritage

The photograph shows the 'Headhunter' exhibition being installed in The National Museum of Ireland. It features a half plate field camera (c 1895) and a skull sitting on top of a display case while members of the museum's staff hang the photographs of Charles R Browne in the background. The exhibition was developed by Ciarán Walsh of EYEBALL publishing,web www.curator.ie, an independent curator based in Balltheigue, Co Kerry, Ireland. It was developed with Dáithí de Mórddha of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir,Blasket Centre, Dún Chaoin, with funding from the OPEW and the Heritage Council.

 

 

The photograph shows the ‘Headhunter’ exhibition being installed in The National Museum of Ireland | Country Life in Turlough Park, Castlebar. It features a half plate field camera (c 1895 provided by Chris Rodmell) and a skull sitting on top of a display case while members of the museum’s staff hang the photographs of Charles R Browne in the background. The exhibition was developed by Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie and Dáithí de Mórdha of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir,Blasket Centre, Dún Chaoin, with funding from the OPW and the Heritage Council. Séamas Mac Philib of  The National Museum of Ireland | Country Life is the curator. The exhibition runs until May 2013.

 

For more information contact  Country Life at  

+353 94 903 1755

or 

tpark@museum.ie

or visit the website at

http://www.museum.ie/en/exhibition/the-irish-headhunter.aspx

 

Headhunters: Special Showing in OPW Headquarters, Trim.

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on December 4, 2012 – 4:00 pm
Filed under Exhibition, Heritage

Publicity shot of the 'Headhunter' exhibition in the headquarters of the OPW (Office of Public Works)  in Trim, Co. Meath, in the east of Ireland. The exhibition entitled 'The Irish Headhunter, The photograph Albums of Charles R. Browne' was developed by Ciarán Walsh who runs www.curator.ie, a web orientated media and punlishing company based in Ballyheigue.

 

‘HEADHUNTERS’  IN TRIM

The ‘Headhunter’ exhibition has been touring the west of Ireland since May, starting in the Blasket Centre and moving through Aran, Connemara and on to Meath where it has just opened in  the spectacular building that is the headquarters of the OPW  – by architect Pat Boyle of the OPW and worth a look in itself.  The Headhunter project was developed with support from the OPW.

It is on show there until the 14 December and   this is the last chance to see the exhibition in the Pale. It moves back west in December  when it goes on show in the National Museum of Ireland, Country Life in Castlebar.

 

 

‘Headhunter’ exhibition moves to the National Museum Of Ireland – Country Life in Mayo.

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on November 19, 2012 – 12:06 pm
Filed under Exhibition, Heritage

Headhunter Exhibition opens in Ráth Cairn, County Meath.

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on October 11, 2012 – 10:36 pm
Filed under Exhibition, Heritage

The Irish Headhunter: the Photographic Albums of Charles R. Browne, an exhibition by Ciarán Walsh and Dáithí de Mórdha. The photograph shows the poster for the exhibition as part of Éigse Dharach Uí Chatháin (celebration of Dharach Uí Chatháin, traditional singer*) in Áras Pobail (Community Centre) in the irish speaking community in Ráth Cairn, County Meath, Ireland. The festival took place during the weekend of 5 October, 2012. The xhibition was developed with funding by the Heritage Council of Ireland and the presented with funding from The Office of Public Works (OPW). A catalogue was published with funding from The Office of Public Works (OPW). The exhibition is now on tour to venues in Irish speaking areas of Ireland. In Decemmber it moves to the National Museum of Ireland. *Darach Ó Catháin is one of the acknowledged masters of the Connemara style of sean-nós singing. Sean nós (which means 'old style') is a highly-ornamented style of solo, unaccompanied singing in the Irish tradition. In 1975 he released an album titled "Traditional Irish Unaccompanied Singing"(Shanachie) which by wide consent is among the best sean-nós recordings ever made. His rendition of "Sail Òg Rua" particularly stands out. Darach also wrote songs from the age of twelve.

Oireachtas na Gaeilge hosts ‘Headhunters’ in Connemara

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on August 29, 2012 – 10:16 am
Filed under Exhibition, Heritage

Poster for 'Headhunter' exhibition hosted by Oireachtas na Gaeilge and organised by Ciarán Walsh, www.curator.ie in association with Dáithí de Mórdha, Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhór.  The exhibition takes place from 1 to 25 September 2012 in The Connemara Islands Golf Course, Eanach Mheáin, Leitir Mór, Connemara. It features the photographs of Charles R. Browne, The Irish Headhunter. The event is an exhibition of photographs taken by Browne during ethnographic surveys that stretched from Dingle to Conemara and Mayo. The poster features young boys in traditional dress. It was taken in 1898 in Connemara. For Information: eolas@antoireachtas.ie / +353(0)872370846.

 

 

National Heritage Week 2012: The Irish Headhunter moves to Inis Mór, Aran Islands

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on August 13, 2012 – 1:56 pm
Filed under Exhibition, Heritage

Poster for National Heritage Week 2012 event organised by Ciarán Walsh, www.curator.ie in Coláiste Ó Direaín, Inis Mór, The Aran Islands, Co Galway, featuring the photographs of Charles R. Browne, The Irish Headhunter. The event is an exhibition of photographs taken by Browne during ethnographic surveys that stretched from Dingle to Conemara and Mayo. The poster features a young boy in traditional Aran costume. It was taken in 1891 and is among the earliest surviving photographs of the Aran Island. For Information:  Coláiste Ó Direáin, Gort na gCapall, Oileáin Árann, Co na Gaillimhe, Éire. (ph) 353 (0)99 61264 (mob) 353(0) 87 6979979. info@odireain.com

 

 

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Latest News



TCD to announce return of ancestral remains to Inishbofin



Blogging resumes on Ballymaclinton: An Irish giant, 24 stolen skulls, one colonial legacies project and a slave owner named Berkeley.



Is the TCD statement on the stolen skulls of Inishbofin a missed opportunity?



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