The Battle of the Somme in Ulster memory and identity

One of the enduring illusions about Northern Ireland is that its society can be conceptualized through a binary distinction between protestant and catholic. unionist and nationalist. It is increasingly apparent that these broad domains are themselves fractured and diverse and that otherness is often conceived from within rather than without. Northern Ireland can also be viewed as a laboratory for identity formation as unionists and loyalists strive to reconcile themselves with the fundamental political changes that have followed in the wake of the Peace Process. This paper considers one aspect of the contestation of belonging that increasingly characterizes unionism. It examines the competition for the ownership of the mythology of the Battle of the Somme ( 1916), long a key event in the unionist narrative. In particular, the paper addresses the ways in which paramilitary organizations are using the Somme to legitimate their own activities but also to distance the loyalist working classes from the former hegemonic Britishness of official unionism and the sectarianism of the Orange Order. The analysis concludes that loyalist identity is being conceptualized thorough a narrative of betrayal from within and at an intensely localized scale.

First record of minimum Irish hare (Lepus timidus hibernicus Bell 1837) longevity in the wild.

Average longevity of the mountain hare (Lepus timidus L., 1758) has been estimated at nine years in the wild (Macdonald D. and Barrett, P. 1993 Mammals of Britain and Europe. Harper Collins Publishers, London) with a maximum recorded age of 18 years for one marked animal (Angerbjörn, A. and Flux, J. E. C. 1995 Lepus timidus. Mammalian Species 495: 1–11). However, the longevity of the Irish hare (L. t. hibernicus Bell 1837) is entirely unknown. A total of 14 Irish hares was trapped and tagged at Belfast International Airport, Co. Antrim from February to April 2005. The sex, age (juvenile or adult) and weight of each animal were recorded. Adults were taken as those individuals >8-10 months old defined by the fusing of the notch between the apophysis and diaphysis of the tibia and humerus (Flux, J. E. C. 1970 Journal of Zoology 161: 75-123). Individual identification was made by a system of colourcoded ear tags (Roxan iD Ltd. Selkirk, Scotland) being inserted in the centre of the pinna of each ear. Each ear tag (6 × 34 mm) and puncture site was disinfected with 70 per cent ethanol prior to insertion. An adult male, #001/002 ‘Blue/Blue’, was tagged on 3 March 2005 weighing 3.8 kg and was sighted during a return site visit on 4 April 2007. An adult female, #026/003 ‘Green/Yellow’, was tagged on 15 April 2005 weighing 4.0 kg and was sighted during return visits on 25 March 2010 and 19 October 2010. The latest possible date of birth for both individuals was spring/summer 2004. Consequently, they were at least 3 years and 6.5 years old, respectively. This is the first record of minimum Irish hare longevity in the wild. These observations suggest that ear tagging does not compromise animal welfare and is an effective means of long-term monitoring. Future research may utilize capture-mark-recapture methods.

Creating a Circus of Words, Music, and Sound: From Roaratorio to Owenvarragh

This article documents the creation of a work by the authors based on a score written by the composer John Cage entitled 'Owenvarragh: A Belfast Circus on The Star Factory.' The article is part of a documentary portfolio in the journal which also includes a volume of the poetry created by Dowling in accordance with the instructions of the Cage score, and a series of documentary videos on the creation of the work and its first performance. Cage's score is based on his work 'Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegan's Wake' (1979) and it provides a set of detailed instructions for the musical realisation of a literary work. The article documents this first fully realised version of the score since Cage first produced 'Roaratorio' in 1979. The work, which was motivated by the Cage centenary year in 2012, musically realises Carson's book 'The Star Factory' (1998), a novelestic autobiography of Carson's Belfast childhood. The score required the creation of a fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings of the sounds and places mentioned in the book, a volume of poetry created from the book which is recited to form the rhythmic spine of the work, and the arrangement of a performance including these two components along with live musical performance by the authors in collaboration with three other musicians under their direction, and a video installation created for the work. The piece has been performed three times: in association with the Sonorities 2012 Festival at Queen's University of Belfast (March 2012), at The Belfast Festival at Queen's (October 2012), and in the Rymer Auditoium of the University of York (June 2013).

Additional information:

The work which the article documents was conceived by Monaghan and Dowling, and the project was initiated by Monaghan after a she received a student prize to support its development and first performance. Elements of the project will be included in her PhD dissertation for which Dowling is a supervisor. Monaghan created the fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings, the largest single aspect of realising Cage's score. Dowling was responsible for initiating the collaboration with Ciaran Carson, and for two other components: the creation of a volume of poetry derived from the literary work which is recited in the performance, and the creation of and supervision of the technical work on a video which accompanies the piece. The co-authors consulted closely during the work on these large components from May 2011 until March 2012 when the first performance took place. The co-authors also shared in numerous other artistic and organisational aspects of the production, including the arrangement and performnance of the music, musical direction to other performers, and marketing.

Testing the efficacy of the glacial buzzsaw: insights from the Sredinny Mountains, Kamchatka

Peak altitudes, hypsometry, geology, and former equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) are analyzed across the Sredinny Mountains (Kamchatka). Overall, evidence is found to suggest that the glacial buzzsaw has operated to shape the topography of this mountain range, but the strength of this signature is not spatially uniform. In the southern sector of the mountains, we see evidence that an efficient glacial buzzsaw has acted to impose constraints upon topography, limiting peak altitudes, and concentrating land-surface area (hypsometric maxima) close to palaeo-ELAs. By contrast, in the northern sector of the mountains, a number of peaks rise high above the surrounding topography, and land-surface area is concentrated well below palaeo-ELAs. This deviation from a classic ‘buzzsaw signature’, in the northern sector of the mountains, is considered to reflect volcanic construction during the Quaternary, resulting in a series of high altitude peaks, combined with the action of dynamic glaciers, acting to skew basin topography toward low altitudes, well below palaeo-ELAs. These glaciers are considered to have been particularly dynamic because of their off-shore termination, their proximity to moisture-bearing air masses from the North Pacific, and because accumulation was supplemented by snow and ice avalanching from local high altitude peaks. Overall, the data suggest that the buzzsaw remains a valid mechanism to generally explain landscape evolution in mountain regions, but its signature is significantly weakened in mountain basins that experience both volcanic construction and climatic conditions favouring dynamic glaciation.

Commemoration in the United Kingdom: A multitude of memories

In the United Kingdom (UK) the centenary commemoration of the First World War has been driven by a combination of central government direction (and funding) with a multitude of local and community initiatives, with a particular focus on 4 August 2014; 1 July 2016 (the beginning of the Battle of the Somme) and 11 November 2018. ‘National’ ceremonies on these dates have been and will be supplemented with projects commemorating micro-stories and government-funded opportunities for schoolchildren to visit Great War battlefields, the latter clearly aimed to reinforce a contemporary sense of civic and national obligation and service. This article explores the problematic nature of this approach, together with the issues raised by the multi-national nature of the UK state itself.

Remembering 1916: The Easter Rising, the Somme and the Politics of Memory in Ireland

The year 1916 witnessed two events that would profoundly shape both
politics and commemoration in Ireland over the course of the following
century. Although the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme were
important historical events in their own right, their significance also lay
in how they came to be understood as iconic moments in the emergence
of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Adopting an interdisciplinary
approach drawing on history, politics, anthropology and cultural
studies, this volume explores how the memory of these two foundational
events has been constructed, mythologised and revised over the course
of the past century. The aim is not merely to understand how the Rising
and Somme came to exert a central place in how the past is viewed in
Ireland, but to explore wider questions about the relationship between
history, commemoration and memory.