The Shawlies: A study of early neoliberal ‘gender-fication’. The Street Trading Act, 1926, modern gender-fication, and the implications for Cork’s women street traders

For centuries Cork’s Shawlies, working-class women, survived by trading on public streets. My study explores how the first Irish Free State government, and Cork’s local authority, limited the rights of poor women to earn by subsistence trading with The Street Trading Act, 1926. The government insisted this would regulate street trading. In practice it further marginalised the women economically and socially, containing them outside the privileged, commercial city centre. In Cork the legislation facilitated the gradual disappearance of the Shawlies amid entrenched social processes and relations, contingencies that allowed for the abuse of their rights in the service of amalgamated business interests. This study address the role of discourses in deepening this marginalisation. My theoretical framework is designed to demonstrate how a seemingly innocuous piece of legislation would, in practice, do this. I set out the concepts of ‘Thriving State’, ‘Prosperous State’, and state of ‘Best Intentions’ that uses gentrification to meet these goals. The existing knowledge on women in trade is then examined, highlighting the gaps in what is known about the Shawlies. Chapter 3 details the theory behind my genealogical method. The legislation, debate, and other data produced at the national level is then examined, before moving to the local data. Chapter 6 is devoted to the Shawlies, setting their stories in the larger context of the debates. An examination of studies of contemporary women street traders in poor nations follows, along with a brief history of the decline of street trading in New York city under gentrification. Points of convergence between that process and the one in Cork are identified, along with convergences between contemporary traders and the Shawlies. The conclusion sets out my methodological, theoretical and substantive discoveries, and comments on current nostalgic renderings of the Shawlies in Cork’s newly gentrified Corn Market Street.

Saothair Oideachais an Ghúim 1926-46

Ceann de phrionsabail bhunaidh An Ghúim téacsleabhair agus leabhair ghinearálta a sholáthar do dhaltaí scoile is do lucht léitheoireachta na Gaeilge. Ábhair a bhaineann le curaclam na scoile, cuir i gcás, eolaíocht is tíos, oideachas, saoránaíocht, spórt, na teangacha Clasaiceacha, tíreolaíocht, taisteal agus an nádúr, creideamh is stair, a roghnaítear don taighde seo. Tugtar Aguisín (921 lch) le bheith ina threoir do phríomh-bhunachar sonraí na dochtúireachta seo (an chiall ghinearálta mar bhailiúchán eolais atá i gceist le “bunachar” sa tráchtas seo in ionad brí theicniúil ar leith). Trí phríomhchuid atá sa staidéar: “buneolas”, “anailís” is “toradh”. Sa “Bhuneolas”, tugtar cuntas beathaisnéiseach ar na bunúdair, soláthraítear achoimre ar na foilseacháin faoi staidéar, mar aon le faisnéis bhibleagrafaíochta i dtaobh na n- aistritheoirí, agus eolas faoi na comhlachtaí foilsitheoireachta a bhí páirteach sna tograí. Pléann “Anailís” brainsí de chuid an státchórais mar an Roinn Oideachais agus an Roinn Airgeadais i gcúrsaí maoinithe, nó gníomhairí lasmuigh de, cosúil le lucht deartha is clóchuradóireachta; moladh is coimisiúnú na saothar; sonraí cóipchirt na bhfoilseachán; roghnú, monatóireacht is díolaíocht na n-aistritheoirí, mar aon le breithniú inmheánach is seachtrach. Sa chuid dheireanach, féachtar le “Toradh” na hiarrachta a mheas, ag tagairt den líon cóipeanna de na leabhair a díoladh. Faightear eolas ar fhiosrú léitheoirí; praghas na leabhar; a ndíolachán is a n- athchló. Tugtar léirmheasanna a scríobhadh ar na haistriúcháin Ghaeilge agus na cúiseanna nár tháinig tograí ar leith chun críche. Is é aidhm na hoibre thar aon ní eile gné lárnach chasta d’eisint An Ghúim atá ligthe i ndíchuimhne a thabhairt ar ais chugainn go beo beathaíoch faoi mar a bhí lena ré saoil féin.

The Aghadown bronze axes, Paddock Td., Co. Cork

A brief account of the two axes to be described and illustrated here was published by Power in 1926. He states that they were discovered at Aghadown near Baltimore, in a souterrain locally known as Poll-a-Talmhain

Exploring the Zionist evolution of Robert Briscoe: History and memory

Robert Briscoe was the Dublin born son of Lithuanian and German-Jewish immigrants. As a young man he joined Sinn Féin and was an important figure in the War of Independence due to a role as one of the IRA’s main gun-procuring agents. He took the anti-Treaty side during an internecine Civil War, mainly due to the influence of Eamon de Valera and retained a filial devotion towards him for the rest of his life. In 1926 he was a founding member of Fianna Fáil, de Valera’s breakaway republican party, which would dominate twentieth-century Irish politics. He was first elected as a Fianna Fáil T.D. (Teachta Dála, Deputy to the Dáil) in 1927, and successfully defended his seat eleven times becoming the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1956, an honour that was repeated in 1961. On this basis alone, it can be argued that Briscoe was a significant presence in an embryonic Irish political culture; however, when his role in the 1930s Jewish immigration endeavor is acknowledged, it is clear that he played a unique part in one of the most contentious political and social discourses of the pre-war years. This was reinforced when Briscoe embraced Zionism in a belated realisation that the survival of his European co-religionists could only be guaranteed if an independent Jewish state existed. This information is to a certain degree public knowledge; however, the full extent of his involvement as an immigration advocate for potential Jewish refugees, and the seniority he achieved in the New Zionist Organisation (Revisionists) has not been fully recognised. This is partly explicable because researchers have based their assessment of Briscoe on an incomplete political archive in the National Library of Ireland (NLI). The vast majority of documentation pertaining to his involvement in the immigration endeavor has not been available to scholars and remains the private property of Robert Briscoe’s son, Ben Briscoe. The lack of immigration files in the NLI was reinforced by the fact that information about Briscoe’s Revisionist engagement was donated to the Jabotinsky Institute in Tel Aviv and can only be accessed physically by visiting Israel. Therefore, even though these twin endeavors have been commented on by a number of academics, their assessments have tended to be based on an incomplete archive, which was supplemented by Briscoe’s autobiographical memoir published in 1958. This study will attempt to fill in the missing gaps in Briscoe’s complex political narrative by incorporating the rarely used private papers of Robert Briscoe, and the difficult to access Briscoe files in Tel Aviv. This undertaking was only possible when Mr.Ben Briscoe graciously granted me full and unrestricted access to his father’s papers, and after a month-long research trip to the Jabotinsky Institute in Tel Aviv. Access to this rarely used documentation facilitated a holistic examination of Briscoe’s complex and multifaceted political reality. It revealed the full extent of Briscoe’s political and social evolution as the Nazi instigated Jewish emigration crisis reached catastrophic proportions. He was by turn Fianna Fáil nationalist, Jewish immigration advocate and senior Revisionist actor on a global stage. The study will examine the contrasting political and social forces that initiated each stage of Briscoe’s Zionist awakening, and in the process will fill a major gap in Irish-Jewish historiography by revealing the full extent of his Revisionist engagement.

Characterization of the degradation of wild-type and mutant HFE proteins during stress signalling in the endoplasmic reticulum

HFE is a transmembrane protein that becomes N-glycosylated during transport to the cell membrane. It acts to regulate cellular iron uptake by interacting with the Type 1 transferrin receptor and interfering with its ability to bind iron-loaded transferrin. There is also evidence that HFE regulates systemic iron levels by binding to the Type II transferrin receptor although the mechanism by which this occurs is still not well understood. Mutations to HFE that disrupt this function, or physiological conditions that decrease HFE protein levels, are associated with increased iron uptake, and its accumulation in tissues and organs. This is exemplified by the point mutation that results in conversion of cysteine residue 282 to tyrosine (C282Y), and gives rise to the majority of HFE-related hemochromatoses. The C282Y mutation prevents the formation of a disulfide bridge and disrupts the interaction with its co-chaperone β2-microglobulin. The resulting misfolded protein is retained within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) where it activates the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) and is subjected to proteasomal degradation. The absence of functional HFE at the cell surface leads to unregulated iron uptake and iron loading. While the E3 ubiquitin ligase involved in the degradation of HFE-C282Y has been identified, the mechanism by which it is targeted for degradation remains relatively obscure. The primary objective of this project was to further our understanding of how the iron regulatory HFE protein is targeted for degradation. Our studies suggest that the glycosylation status, and the active process of deglycosylation, are central to this process. We identified a number of additional factors that can contribute towards degradation and explored their regulation during ER stress conditions.