Life history of a native emydid turtle (Malaclemys terrapin centrata) on the remote oceanic islands of Bermuda

Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) are native to the remote oceanic islands of Bermuda and presently inhabit only four small brackish water ponds on a private golf course. The life history of this species is poorly understood on Bermuda and so the aim of this study was to fill these knowledge gaps, to compare the results with what is known from other areas in the North American range, and to inform the development of a local management plan. The results of a mark-recapture census revealed that ca. 100 individuals ≥81 mm straight carapace length live on Bermuda, of which nearly half (48.5%) were considered sexually mature. The population is dominated by females (sex ratio 2.9:1) and annual recruitment over the three year period was found to be extremely low (approximately two terrapins). Female diamondback terrapins in Bermuda nest almost exclusively within a limited number of sand bunkers on the golf course. Nesting commenced in late March or early April and ended in late August. Peak oviposition was observed in May and June. Clutch size averaged 5.1 eggs (range 0-10; SD 2.4) and the incubation period averaged 61.8 days (range 49-83; SD 10.5). Delayed emergence was documented, with 43.8% of the hatchlings remaining in their natal nests over the winter months. The mean annual hatching success rate was determined to be 19% (range 17.6-21; SD 1.9). Radio-telemetry was used to investigate the movements and survivorship of postemergent hatchling diamondback terrapins. The results indicated that mangrove swamps and grass-dominated marshes adjacent to the ponds are important developmental habitats for hatchlings. Yellow-crowned night herons (Nyctanassa violacea) were found to be significant predators of small terrapins during spring emergence. Small aquatic gastropods comprised 66.7% of the faecal samples analysed from the Bermudian population. Scavenged fish and vertebrate animal remains, terrestrial arthropods, polychaete worms and bivalves were consumed in lesser amounts. Sediment from the pond environment was found in 74% of the faecal samples analysed and is believed to have been incidentally ingested while foraging for the small benthic gastropods. Eco-toxicological analyses of the pond sediment, prey and terrapin eggs showed that the Bermudian diamondback terrapins live and feed in wetland habitats characterised by chronic, multifactorial contamination; principally total petroleum hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and a variety of heavy metals. This study found that some of those contaminants are accumulating in the gastropod prey as well as being transferred to terrapin eggs. This may be reducing the incidence of successful embryonic development for this species in Bermuda and may likely contribute to the observed low hatching rates. These collective findings indicate that the Bermudian population is very vulnerable to local extirpation.

Female sexuality in Ireland 1920 to 1940: Construction and regulation

The central objective of this study is an examination of discourses of Irish female sexuality and of the apparatuses of control designed for its surveillance and regulation in the period nineteen-twenty to nineteen-forty. It is argued that during this period sexuality, and in particular female sexuality, became established as an icon of national identity. This thesis demonstrated that this identity was given symbolic embodiment in the discursive construction of an idealised, feminine subject, a subject who had purity and sexual morality as her defining characteristics. It is argued that female roles and in particular female sexuality, emerged as contested issues in post-colonial Ireland. This is not unusual given that women are frequently constructed in nationalist discourses as repositories of cultural heritage and symbols of national identity (Kandiyoti 1993). This thesis demonstrates that the Catholic Church played a central role in this process of establishing female sexuality as a national icon. Furthermore, it illustrates that through a process of identification and classification, women, whose behaviour contested the prescribed sexual norm, were categorized and labeled as 'wayward girls' 'unmarried mothers' or 'prostitutes'and mechanisms for their control were set in place. Finally, this thesis reveals that the development of these control apparatuses was mediated by class, with the sexuality of working class women being a primary target of surveillance, regulation and indeed reformation.

The Queen's College, Cork: its origins and early history, 1803-1858

This work examines the origins and early history of the Queen's College, Cork. Designedly there is as much stress on the origins as on the early history, for it is the contention of the work that the College was something more than a legislative mushroom. It was very much in the tradition of the civic universities which added an exciting new dimension to academic life in these islands in the nineteenth century. The first chapter surveys university practice and thinking at the opening of the century, relying exclusively on published sources. The second chapter is devoted specifically to the state of learning in Cork during the period, and makes extensive use of hitherto unpublished manuscript material in relation to the Royal Cork Institution. The third chapter deals with the highly significant evidence on education embodied in the Report of the Select Committee on Irish Education of 1838. This material has not previously been published. In chapter four an extended study is made of relevant letters in the manuscript correspondence of Sir Robert Peel - even the most recent authoritative biography has ignored this material. The remaining three chapters are devoted more specifically to the College, both in the formulation or policy and in its practical working. In chapter six there is an extended survey of early College life based exclusively on hitherto unpublished manuscript material in the College Archives. All of these sources, together with incidental published material, are set out at the end of each chapter.

Farmers, agriculture and politics in the Irish Free State area, 1919-1936

Given the economic and social importance of agriculture in the early years of the Irish Free State, it is surprising that the development of organisations representing farmers has not received the attention it deserves from historians. While the issues of government agricultural policy and the land question have been extensively studied in the historiography, the autonomous response by farmers to agricultural policies and the detailed study of the farmers’ organisations has simply been ignored in spite of the existence of a range of relevant primary sources. Farmers’ organisations have only received cursory treatment in these studies; they have been presented as passive spectators, responding in a Pavlovian manner to outside events. The existing historiography has only studied farmers’ organisations during periods when they impinged on national politics, epecially during the War of Independence and the Economic War. Therefore chronological gaps exist which has led to much misinterpretation of farmers’ activities. This thesis will redress this imbalance by studying the formation and continuous development of farmers’ organisations within the twenty-six county area and the reaction of farmers to changing government agricultural policies, over the period 1919 to 1936. The period under review entailed many attempts by farmers to form representative organisations and encompassed differing policy regimes. The thesis will open in 1919, when the first national organisation representing farmers, the Irish Farmers’ Union, was formed. In 1922, the union established the Farmers’ Party. By the mid- 1920’s, a number of protectionist agricultural associations had been formed. While the Farmers’ Party was eventually absorbed by Cumann na nGaedheal, local associations of independent farmers occupied the resultant vacuum and contested the 1932 election. These organisations formed the nucleus of a new national organisation; the National Farmers’ and Ratepayers’ League. The agricultural crisis caused by both the Great Depression and the Economic War facilitated the expansion of the league. The league formed a political party, the Centre Party, to contest the 1933 election. While the Centre Party was absorbed by the newly-formed Fine Gael, activists from the former farmer organisations led the campaign against the payment of annuities and rates. Many of them continued this campaign after 1934, when the Fine Gael leadership opposed the violent resistance to the collection of annuities. New farmer organisations were formed to co-ordinate this campaign which continued until 1936, the closing point of the thesis.

The life history and ecology of black scabbardfish (Aphanopus carbo Lowe 1839) in the north-east Atlantic

The black scabbardfish is a deep water species that supports commercial fisheries across a large area of the NE Atlantic shelf. The life history of black scabbardfish is poorly understood and a major unresolved issue is population structure. In this study it was used a combination of methodologies to get further knowledge in the life history and population structure of A. carbo over its wide distribution range in the Northeast Atlantic. The new knowledge acquired during this study, will increase our ability to better manage this species in the NE Atlantic. It has been postulated that fish caught to the west of the British Isles are pre-adults that migrate further south (to Madeira) for spawning, implying a single panmictic population. In this study, specimens of Aphanopus carbo were sampled between September 2008 and May 2010 from two different areas: NW Scotland (French trawlers and deep water surveys) and Madeira Islands (longliners commercial landings). Geographical differences in reproductive state of scabbardfish were evident, supportive of a north-south migration theory. In the northern area, all specimens found were immature, while in Madeira all maturity stages were observed. In Madeira, spawning occurred during the fourth quarter, with peak maturity in October (males) and in November (females). The age of this species has proven difficult and has led to different and contradictory age and growth estimates. For this study, we used two reading interpretations to determine age and estimate the growth parameters. To the west of the British Isles, specimens reached a lower maximum age and had a higher growth rate than those caught off Madeira. These differences are consistent with the theory of a single population of black scabbardfish in the NE Atlantic, highly segregate, with smaller, immature and younger fish caught to the west of the British Isles and bigger and mature caught in Madeira Islands. The feeding ecology showed strong evidence that the diet of black scabbardfish is associated with the spawning migration of blue whiting, which may support a northerly feeding migration theory for black scabbardfish. The stable isotope analyses in the muscle of black scabbardfish identified that black scabbardfish feeds on species with epipelagic and benthopelagic affinities. Comparison with stable isotope analysis in Madeira samples indicated that black scabbardfish feed at a similar trophic level and has the same trophic niche width in both areas, assuming similar baseline isotope compositions. Otolith stable isotopes (oxygen - δ18O and nitrogen - δ15N) analyses were used as a tool to clarify migratory behaviour. Otolith isotope ratios can provide insight into whether adults caught around Madeira fed in an isotopically depleted northerly ecosystem (NW Scotland) during their pre-adult period and then migrate towards south to spawn. Overall, the results support a south-north migration of pre adult fish from spawning areas around Madeira and a north-south migration from the west of Scotland to the spawning areas. Given its life cycle there is an urgent need that the management process recognizes the existence of a continuous widely distributed stock of black scabbardfish between the west of the British Isles and Madeira. The results highlight large scale dispersal in this species which needs to be treated as a highly migratory species and be managed as a single population.

A social history of sport in Cork, Tipperary and Waterford, c. 1880-1930

This thesis seeks to explore the development of sport in Munster in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by comparing developments in three counties: Cork, Tipperary and Waterford. In particular this thesis considers the development of rugby and soccer in comparative perspective across these three counties, asking what local factors impacted on their uneven development in the region and considering the extent to which the traditional model of diffusion applies to the reception of these sports in the three counties. By giving consideration to these two particular non-indigenous sports, the thesis will, through answering that question, explore ideas of cultural reception, national identity and class as expressed at local level. These themes will be explored by placing the comparative analysis of these two sports into a wider context of sporting development regionally and nationally in the period, in particular the emerging commercialisation of sport, and also the diverse sporting culture of which these two sports were a part. Utilising a wide range of archival sources from local, national and sporting newspapers, to club records, official publications and ephemera this thesis builds a picture of sport in Munster that is deeply rooted in the community, and that forms an important facet of the social world of Cork, Tipperary and Waterford from 1880-1930.

Ironworking in late medieval Ireland, c. AD. 1200 to 1600

The landscape of late medieval Ireland, like most places in Europe, was characterized by intensified agricultural exploitation, the growth and founding of towns and cities and the construction of large stone edifices, such as castles and monasteries. None of these could have taken place without iron. Axes were needed for clearing woodland, ploughs for turning the soil, saws for wooden buildings and hammers and chisels for the stone ones, all of which could not realistically have been made from any other material. The many battles, waged with ever increasingly sophisticated weaponry, needed a steady supply of iron and steel. During the same period, the European iron industry itself underwent its most fundamental transformation since its inception; at the beginning of the period it was almost exclusively based on small furnaces producing solid blooms and by the turn of the seventeenth century it was largely based on liquid-iron production in blast-furnaces the size of a house. One of the great advantages of studying the archaeology of ironworking is that its main residue, slag, is often produced in copious amounts both during smelting and smithing, is virtually indestructible and has very little secondary use. This means that most sites where ironworking was carried out are readily recognizable as such by the occurrence of this slag. Moreover, visual examination can distinguish between various types of slag, which are often characteristic for the activity from which they derive. The ubiquity of ironworking in the period under study further means that we have large amounts of residues available for study, allowing us to distinguish patterns both inside assemblages and between sites. Disadvantages of the nature of the remains related to ironworking include the poor preservation of the installations used, especially the furnaces, which were often built out of clay and located above ground. Added to this are the many parameters contributing to the formation of the above-mentioned slag, making its composition difficult to connect to a certain technology or activity. Ironworking technology in late medieval Ireland has thus far not been studied in detail. Much of the archaeological literature on the subject is still tainted by the erroneous attribution of the main type of slag, bun-shaped cakes, to smelting activities. The large-scale infrastructure works of the first decade of the twenty-first century have led to an exponential increase in the amount of sites available for study. At the same time, much of the material related to metalworking recovered during these boom-years was subjected to specialist analysis. This has led to a near-complete overhaul of our knowledge of early ironworking in Ireland. Although many of these new insights are quickly seeping into the general literature, no concise overviews on the current understanding of the early Irish ironworking technology have been published to date. The above then presented a unique opportunity to apply these new insights to the extensive body of archaeological data we now possess. The resulting archaeological information was supplemented with, and compared to, that contained in the historical sources relating to Ireland for the same period. This added insights into aspects of the industry often difficult to grasp solely through the archaeological sources, such as the people involved and the trade in iron. Additionally, overviews on several other topics, such as a new distribution map of Irish iron ores and a first analysis of the information on iron smelting and smithing in late medieval western Europe, were compiled to allow this new knowledge on late medieval Irish ironworking to be put into a wider context. Contrary to current views, it appears that it is not smelting technology which differentiates Irish ironworking from the rest of Europe in the late medieval period, but its smithing technology and organisation. The Irish iron-smelting furnaces are generally of the slag-tapping variety, like their other European counterparts. Smithing, on the other hand, is carried out at ground-level until at least the sixteenth century in Ireland, whereas waist-level hearths become the norm further afield from the fourteenth century onwards. Ceramic tuyeres continue to be used as bellows protectors, whereas these are unknown elsewhere on the continent. Moreover, the lack of market centres at different times in late medieval Ireland, led to the appearance of isolated rural forges, a type of site unencountered in other European countries during that period. When these market centres are present, they appear to be the settings where bloom smithing is carried out. In summary, the research below not only offered us the opportunity to give late medieval ironworking the place it deserves in the broader knowledge of Ireland's past, but it also provided both a base for future research within the discipline, as well as a research model applicable to different time periods, geographical areas and, perhaps, different industries..

A history of the Irish Red Cross Society, 1939-1971

This research is concerned with assessing from a national perspective the role, work and historical impact of the Irish Red Cross Society (IRCS) between 1939 and 1971. During this period the IRCS discharged three primary functions: it provided first aid services both in war-time and peace-time; it pioneered public health and social care services; and acted as the State’s main agency for international humanitarian relief measures. Although primarily a national organisational history of the Society, it is not a history in isolation. A broader perspective demonstrates that the work undertaken by the IRCS has relevance to the medical, social, religious, cultural, political and diplomatic history of twentieth century Ireland. This study assesses the impact of a number of significant public health and social care initiatives which the IRCS implemented and developed since its inception and how most of these were subsequently developed independently by the State. During the early 1940s, the Society’s formation of a national blood transfusion service ultimately laid the foundations for the establishment of a national blood transfusion service. The Society’s steering of a national anti-tuberculosis campaign in the 1940s brought the issue of the eradication of TB to the fore and helped to change public attitudes towards the disease. The concept of caring for the needs of the elderly in Ireland was largely unknown until the IRCS began addressing the issue in the 1950s and, for more than two decades, was effectively the only organisation in the State that campaigned and introduced innovative services for the aged. The IRCS made a significant impact in terms of its commitment to the needs of refugees and the provision of international humanitarian relief from Ireland. The Society’s donation in 1945 of a fully equipped hospital to the population of Saint-Lo in France, its war-time overseas relief efforts and its post-war work for child refugees earned Ireland significant international recognition and prestige and, more importantly, justified Ireland’s war-time policy of neutrality. With Ireland’s admission to the UN, the government became more dependent on the IRCS to consolidate that position.