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Tag Archives: The Photographic Albums of Charles R. Browne

Ciarán Walsh elected fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on August 4, 2015 – 1:28 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Education, Research

Logo of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, posted by Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie

 

Ciarán Walsh has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. This follows his pioneering work on the Irish Ethnographic Survey and the impact this had on the early development of anthropology in Ireland and the UK. Walsh first presented this material at a conference on anthropology and photography in the British Museum in 2014. In 2015 he presented an update on his research as part of  the Fellows seminar series in the Institute in London, along with his research partner Dr. Jocelyne Dudding of Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (CUMAA). He will present a further paper on the connection between the Irish Ethnographic Survey and the institutional development of the RAI at a conference in December 2015. This will be based on new work that has been done as part of his postgraduate research in Maynooth University (Anthropology).

 

RAI Research Seminar: Walsh & Dudding, RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Haddon in Ireland, reconstructing the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey Ciarán Walsh, Maynooth University Dr Joe Dudding, Arch and Anth Museum, Cambridge Wednesday 8 April at 5.30 pm This illustrated talk outlines a project to reconstruct the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey that was established by Haddon in 1891 under the umbrella of the British Ethnographic Survey. The Irish Survey was overshadowed by subsequent developments in Cambridge / Torres but, unlike the British Survey, it was active 'in the field' for almost a decade. The records of the Survey were dispersed over collections in Ireland and the UK where they have remained uncatalogued and largely overlooked for 120 years. Recent research has however, uncovered manuscripts, photographs and artifacts (the contents of Haddon's Anthropometric Laboratory in Dublin for instance) that have the capacity to change our understanding of the early development of Anthropology in Ireland and the UK. More work needs to be done and the role played by the RAI in particular in the establishment by Haddon of the Survey and the Laboratory in Dublin needs to be examined. This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to http://walshdudding.eventbrite.co.uk Location : Royal Anthropological Institute, London

Jocelyne Dudding (Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) and Ciarán Walsh (Curator.ie and Maynooth University) .

 

 

Major research proposal endorsed by NUI Maynooth

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on August 9, 2014 – 4:37 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Education, Heritage, Research

Mark Maguire, Ciarán Walsh , Nicola Reynolds and Steve Coleman

Mark Maguire, Head of Anthropology NUI Maynooth, Ciarán Walsh , Nicola Reynolds, President of thr Anthropological Society NUIM and Steve Coleman, NUIM at the opening of the Headhunter exhibition in NUI Maynooth in October 2013.

A major research proposal prepared by Ciarán Walsh for the Irish Research Council’s (IRC) Employment Based Post-graduate Programme has been endorsed by the National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM)  and now proceeds to the IRC for evaluation and adjudication. The proposal builds on the work that Walsh has been doing on the ‘Haddon in Ireland Project’ and involves a 4 year post-graduate research project supervised by Mark Maguire of NUIM in partnership with Abarta Audio Guides, a small heritage services company operated by Neil Jackman and Róisín Burke.

Neil Jackman of Abarta Audio Guides: http://abartaaudioguides.com/about-us

The ‘Haddon in Ireland’ research project brings together public research (NUI Maynooth), private sector innovation (Abarta Audio, Clonmel) and a researcher with a proven track record (Ciaran Walsh) to reopen and reexamine the history of human science in the British isles.

Anthropometry Inisbofin 6007

This project aims to explore the Irish Ethnographic Survey, an attempt to reveal the origins of the Irish ‘race’ undertaken by scientists from Ireland and the UK between 1891 and 1903. Among them was the famous AC Haddon. This was the beginning of ‘scientific’ Anthropology but it was overshadowed by subsequent developments in Cambridge. The records were ‘lost,’ dispersed over collections in Ireland and the UK where they have remained uncatalogued and largely overlooked for 120 years.

The primary aim to reconstruct that archive and place it in the public domain. The central question is how that can be achieved, given that the material is spread over a dozen institutions in 4 jurisdictions. We will look to the latest interactive technology for solutions.

We propose to create a transnational network that digitally links collections Dublin, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh and Belfast. We will develop interactive tools that will provide access to it and enhance the users experience of our anthropological heritage. The contemporary significance of this is enormous. The Survey’s attempts to trace the origins of the Irish people continues with the genetic study of populations.

This project will reconnect both and the transnational component will add enormously to the impact of the project on the public construction of Anthropological knowledge.

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

 

Ciarán Walsh rewrites the history of anthropology at a conference organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute in the British Museum

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on July 2, 2014 – 4:40 pm
Filed under Anthropology, Heritage, Photography, Research

Photograph show Jocelyne Dudding, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge and Ciarán Walsh, www.curator.ie, posing for a photograph in the foyer of the British Museum in London. They were participating in a conference organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the British Museum on the links between Anthropology and Photography.

Jocelyne Dudding, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge and Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie  in the foyer of the British Museum in London. 




It’s a big claim, but papers presented by Jocelyne Dudding and Ciarán Walsh at the Anthropology and Photography conference in the British Museum (May 2014)  have challenged the chronology  of the early development of British anthropology and Haddon’s role in it.

Dudding and Walsh have been working on the ‘Haddon In Ireland’ project for the past 6 months, focussing on  photographic and manuscript collections that are held in Cambridge  – in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), the Haddon Library and the University Library. 

They presented preliminary finding of their research at a conference organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the British Museum. The research, part funded by the Heritage Council of Ireland, is part of a project that is attempting to reconstruct the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey of 1891-1903.

The photographic record of the  the Survey, the photograph albums of Charles R. Browne, were published by  www.curator.ie in 2012 as part of the  the ‘Irish Headhunter’ project. The albums are held in TCD but there was no trace of any paperwork that could place them in context. The search moved to Cambridge and significant work has been done in the photographic collections of the MAA  and the Haddon Papers in the Haddon and University Libraries there.

Preliminary findings suggest that the Survey, established by Haddon and Cunningham in TCD in 1891,  played a much greater role in Haddon’s transition from Zoology to Anthropology than had previously been thought. The photographic record, correspondence and journal entries reveal a lot about Haddon’s role in the survey with significant implications for the history of the early development of anthropology.

These are being teased as the ‘Haddon in Ireland’ project continues with the re-construction of the archive of the Irish Ethnographic Survey.

 

 

 

 

‘Haddon In Ireland’ project commences in Cambridge

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Posted by Ciaran Walsh on May 5, 2014 – 8:07 am
Filed under Anthropology, Exhibition, Heritage, Photography, Research

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www.curator.ie has commenced work on a project that promises to significantly rewrite the history of the early development of anthropology. Supported by a grant from the Heritage Council of Ireland, the initial phase of the ‘Haddon In Ireland’ project comprises of an assessment of unpublished photographs and manuscripts held in the Haddon Library and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) in Cambridge, in partnership with Aidan Baker, Librarian at Haddon, and Jocelyne Dudding, Manager of Photographic Collections at the MAA.

Aidan Risbeth Ciaran

Aidan Baker, Margaret Rishbeth (granddaughter of Alfred Cort Haddon) and Ciarán Walsh at the launch of the ‘Irish Headhunter’ exhibition in the Haddon Library in 2013.

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)

‘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

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An Island Funeral, Inishbofin, 16 July 2023.



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.



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