Is everyone Irish on St Patrick's Day? Divergent expectations and experiences of collective self-objectification at a multicultural parade

We examine experiences of collective self-objectification (CSO) (or its failure) among participants in a ‘multicultural’ St Patrick's Day parade. A two-stage interview study was carried out in which 10 parade participants (five each from ethnic majority and minority groups) were interviewed before and after the event. In pre-event interviews, all participants understood the parade as an opportunity to enact social identities, but differed in the category definitions and relations they saw as relevant. Members of the white Irish majority saw the event as being primarily about representing Ireland in a positive, progressive, light, whereas members of minority groups saw it as an opportunity to have their groups' identities and belonging in Ireland recognized by others. Post-event interviews revealed that, for the former group, the event succeeded in giving expression to their relevant category definitions. The latter group, on the other hand, cited features of the event such as inauthentic costume design and a segregated structure as reasons for why the event did not provide the group recognition they sought. The accounts revealed a variety of empowering and disempowering experiences corresponding to the extent of enactment. We consider the implications in terms of CSO, the performative nature of dual identities, as well as the notion of multicultural recognition.

Leaded Strand Lamp:Selected for Inclusion for an Exhibition of the best of irish Design as part of the Vernacular Exhibition in London Design Festival 2013. Curated by Ann Mulrooney

Contemporary product made using traditional Northern irish metal craft skills

A carefully curated collection: female figures as sites of inscription in Gautier’s Émaux et Camées

This article examines the ways in which female figures function as additional sites for poetic inscription in Gautier's Émaux et Camées. Although considerable attention has already been paid to the numerous and varied objects catalogued in the collection and, indeed, to the notion of the poems themselves as objects, the present study aims to expand upon such interpretations of the work by focusing on three texts, "Le Poëme de la femme", "Étude de mains : Impéria" and "La fellah". In these poems, female figures who, while they may at first be granted some agency (and be represented going about the business of daily, if highly stylized, life), are finally immobilized within the verse as their bodies, and particularly their pristine skin, ultimately function as an additional paper-like surface for the poet, permitting their assimilation into Gautier's diminutive private collection.