An exploration into the possible factors that can prevent a general practitioner from the early identification of an eating disorder in their patients/clients

This study focuses on the range of factors that may prevent a General Practitioner from the early identification of an eating disorder (ED) in their patients/clients. A pilot studied carried out by McDermott (2016) highlighted that GPs in the Cork area felt they did not have a broad knowledge base of eating disorders and how best to recognise and treat them (McDermott, 2016). As this research design is also being run in conjunction with the Eating Disorder Centre Cork (EDCC) through the Community Academic Research Links (CARL) initiative, it was the aim of this research design to carry out further research on this pilot study. The aim of this research is to explore GPs knowledge of and experience with eating disorders in their practice, as well as the perceived challenges they could encounter when they may be presented with an eating disorder case, or a suspected eating disorder. It is the intention of the researcher to investigate this topic through the use of semi-structured interviews which are qualitative in nature. Through a process of semi-structured interviews within a qualitative methodology, the aim of this research project is to develop a more in depth understanding of the factors that may prevent a GP from the early diagnosis of an eating disorder among their patients/clients

“Young Men of Erin, Our Dead are Calling”: Death, Immortality and the Otherworld in Modern Irish Republican Ballads

Irish physical-force Republicanism has long been noted for its tendency to promote the tropes of martyrdom and immortality as core tenets of its ideological belief system. This essay sets out to examine the genre of Republican death ballads so as to identify how such essentialist concepts are represented and promoted within the attendant song tradition. Particular attention will be paid to works that deploy overtly supernatural tropes in order to articulate the key Republican concept of heroic immortality. The present research will demonstrate the consistency with which such narrative devices have been retained within the Republican song tradition into the late twentieth-century and beyond, a time when their utilisation had become largely redundant elsewhere within the broader folksong tradition

Audience influence on the composition, revision and interpolation of traditional Irish ballad narrative

The following thesis critically examines the essential thematic malleability of traditional Irish song narrative, with particular focus on the penetrative influence of the audience on both composer and performer alike. Such narrative fluidity is specifically examined within the context of works narrating attested historical events, output which could be reasonably assumed to adhere to factual and chronological consistency. The research concludes that the audience continuously exerts a powerful cultural influence on the performance space, and further demonstrates the considerable extremes that both composers and singers will routinely embrace in order to satisfy the constantly shifting demands of their audiences, even if this is to be ultimately achieved at the expense of historical fact. The five peer-reviewed papers documented in the present work examine distinct, yet simultaneously interrelated, ethnomusicological trajectories, namely: the noted Irish horse-racing ballad ‘Skewball’; and the specific sub-genre of death ballads found throughout the Irish Republican song tradition. Section 1.1 of the thesis details the cultural and musicological interplay between singers, composers and the audience, as evidenced in each of the published articles under consideration. Section 1.2 discusses the theoretical and methodological approach deployed within the original research, while Section 1.3 further explores the associated thematics of anti-colonialism and heroism, again within the specific context of the published articles under review. With a view to facilitating a more rigorous interrogation of the published research, the thesis further expands the trajectory of the original papers by examining composer-singer-audience dynamics within broader academic frameworks. Thus, Section 2.1 considers the excision, interpolation and censorship of traditional song narrative in more diverse ethnomusicological, social and political contexts. The resultant cultural outcomes of such manipulations — both intended and unintended — along with the more noted academic disputations surrounding same, are also comprehensively analysed. Section 2.2 critically considers some of the inherent difficulties of song classification and associated nomenclature within the wider canon of traditional song. Such issues are particularly problematic in terms of suitably housing a text of such noted diversity and longevity as ‘Skewball’, a challenge which is similarly reflected in musical output from the militant Irish Republican tradition, with all of its attendant ideological subtlety and nuance. By expanding the thesis beyond a simple re-examination of the original articles themselves, the final two sections are deliberately presented as an additional interrogation of the published research and to further complement the successful peer-review and editorial processes

In Search of the Original Skewball

The well-known horseracing ballad ‘Skewball’ has been widely documented in oral tradition on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as on numerous English broadside printings. It recounts the tale of a mid-eighteenth-century horserace held at The Curragh of Kildare, in which a heavily-backed mare is comprehensively beaten by a relatively unknown skewbald gelding leaving the mare’s owner — along with much of the assembled onlookers — significantly out of pocket. The ballad became widely popularised in North America where it was first published in a song book in 1826 (Benton 1826:3-4). It was later subsumed into African-American song tradition, whereupon it was reconstructed in numerous versions as a ‘call-and-answer’ work anthem sung by slaves who gave it the new title of ‘Stewball’. Alan Lomax has also documented African-American chain-gang versions of the ballad in his various prison recordings (Lomax 1994:68-71; Scarborough 1925:61-4). Versions bearing distinctive similarities in style, form and content to the earliest collected versions of ‘Skewball’, were widely collected throughout North America as late as the 1930’s (Flanders 1939:172-4), while oral versions have been documented in Ireland throughout the eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, the latest being in March 1979 (Shields 2011:58-9). While always retaining a certain degree of continuity in terms of the general narrative recounted, the ballad has undergone numerous metamorphoses over time — particularly with reference to the dramatis personae involved — which has often resulted in the obfuscation of the original race detail. By closely examining contemporary records, as well as drawing relevant comparisons with a diverse range of collected versions of the ballad, the author has sought to establish the historical facts which lie behind the narrative recounted in ‘Skewball’. The earliest version of the ballad to which a date has been definitively assigned is that published in the songbook, The Vocal Library (Souter 1818:526). Due to the significant timeframe between this publication and the actual mid-eighteenth-century horserace recounted in ‘Skewball’, the author has also examined the preceding period with a view towards unearthing possible earlier sources for the ballad and will present a recently discovered MS version which provides further evidence of the historical origins of the ballad under review

Then to death walked, softly smiling : Violence and martyrdom in modern Irish Republican Ballads

This article critically considers the representation of death within the song tradition of modern Irish Republicanism. I explore how such representations have changed in parallel with the various ideological metamorphoses that Irish Republicanism has undergone, specifically in the twentieth century. I argue that the centrality of self-sacrifice has resulted in the development of ballad narratives that deliberately obfuscate on the issue of Republican violence, resulting in the deaths of all Republican militants (regardless of cause or context), ultimately portrayed as a form of heroic self-martyrdom. San alt seo, déantar anailís chriticiúil ar léiriú an bháis i dtraidisiún amhránaíocht Phoblachtach na hÉireann. Tugtar faoi deara na hathruithe a d’éirigh don léiriú seo mar throradh ar na claochlaithe idé-eolaíochta éagsúla a tháinig ar an bPoblachtachas le linn an fichiú haois go háirithe. Maítear ann go maolaítear foréigean Poblachtach sna bailéid atá faoi chaibidil d’aon ghnó, chun bás an mhíleataigh Phoblachtaigh a chur in iúl mar fhéiníobairt laochúil, beag beann ar chúis nó ar chomhthéacs

“800 Years We Have Been Down”: Rebel Songs and the Retrospective Reach of the Irish Republican Narrative

From the glamorous, cross-dressing “Rebel, Rebel” of David Bowie, to the righteous Trenchtown “Soul Rebel” of Bob Marley and The Wailers, both varied and various musical articulations of cultural and socio-political rebellion have long enjoyed a ubiquitous presence across multiple soundscapes. As a musicological delineator in Ireland, however, ‘rebel’ conveys a specifically political dynamic due to its consistent deployment as an all-encompassing descriptor for songs detailing events and personalities from the Irish national struggle. This paper sets out to examine the specific musical delineator of “rebel song” from both musicological and politico-ideological perspectives with a view to interrogating its appropriateness as a universal descriptor for such output and will further demonstrate how to the present day, the genre represents yet another contested ideological space within the politico-historical narrative of traditionalist Irish Republicanism

Kirja-arvosteluja – Book reviews

John Carey: Ireland and the Grail. Celtic Studies Publications XI. Aberystwyth: Oxbow Books 2007.Mícheál Briody: The Irish Folklore Commission 1935-1970: History, Ideology, Methodology

“Young Men of Erin, Our Dead Are Calling”: Death, Immortality and the Otherworld in Modern Irish Republican Ballads

Irish physical-force Republicanism has long been noted for its tendency to promote the tropes of martyrdom and immortality as core tenets of its ideological belief system. This essay sets out to examine the genre of Republican death ballads so as to identify how such essentialist concepts are represented and promoted within the attendant song tradition. Particular attention will be paid to works that deploy overtly supernatural tropes in order to articulate the key Republican concept of heroic immortality. The present research will demonstrate the consistency with which such narrative devices have been retained within the Republican song tradition into the late twentieth century and beyond, a time when their utilisation had become largely redundant within the broader folksong traditio

Horses For Discourses?: The Transition from Oral to Broadside Narrative in “Skewball”

The well–known horse–racing ballad “Skewball” (hereafter, SB) has a well– established oral tradition in Ireland, with versions documented throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The latest is a 1979 field recording of Derry folksinger and storyteller, Eddie Butcher (Shields 2011:58–9). The ballad was also assimilated into African–American oral tradition, in which it was reconstructed and renamed “Stewball” (Lomax 1994:68–71; Scarborough 1925:61–4), and was still being documented in American folk tradition as late as the 1930s (Flanders 1939:172–4). In common with countless other folk songs, SB was appropriated by broadside printers and subsequently enjoyed widespread public appeal throughout England in the early– to mid–nineteenth century, its popularity waning with the later decline of the broadside as a medium of ballad transmission and distribution. A comparative analysis of oral and broadside versions reveals clear differences between the two narratives. I argue that these variations were quite deliberate in origin, being a direct result of interpolations and excisions made by broadside ballad printers to the original oral narrative. By drawing comparisons between versions of SB collected from both oral and broadside sources, this paper will demonstrate that as a consequence of significant social and cultural advancements in the nineteenth century, SB was deliberately revised with the aim of enhancing its appeal and relevance to an increasingly literate middle class audience

Society and Manners in Early Nineteenth-Century Ulster

This book, all 716 pages of it, comprises of a trilogy penned in quick succession by the Presbyterian John Gamble (1770-1831), a doctor in the British army, in the early nineteenth century, in 1811, 1813 and 1819 respectively. The Gamble surname, Wolfe suggests, is Scandinavian in origin and perhaps related to the uncomplimentary moniker in Irish of gamal or foolish individual. Breandán Mac Suibhne has edited these anew with a lengthy and copiously annotated introduction, a marvellous evocati..