Deer forests, game shooting and landed estates in the South West of Ireland, 1840 - 1970

This thesis is concentrated on the historical aspects of the elitist field sports of deer stalking and game shooting, as practiced by four Irish landed ascendancy families in the south west of Ireland. Four great estates were selected for study. Two of these were, by Irish standards, very large: the Kenmare estate of over 136,000 acres in the ownership of the Roman Catholic Earls of Kenmare, and the Herbert estate of over 44,000 acres in the ownership of the Protestant Herbert family. The other two were, in relative terms, small: the Grehan estate of c.7,500 acres in the ownership of the Roman Catholic Grehan family, and the Godfrey estate of c.5,000 acres, in the ownership of the Protestant Barons Godfrey. This mixture of contrasting estate size, owner's religions, nobleman, minor aristocrat and untitled gentry should, it is argued, yield a diversity of the field sports and lifestyles of their owners, and go some way to assess the contributions, good or bad, they have bequeathed to modern Ireland. Equally, it should help in assessing what importance, if any, applied to hunting. In this context, hunting is here used in its broadest meaning, and includes deer stalking and game shooting, as well as hunting with dogs and hounds on foot and horseback. Where a specific type of hunting is involved, it is so described; for example, fox hunting, stag hunting, hare hunting. Similarly, the term game is sometimes used in sporting literature to encompass all species of quarry killed, and can include deer, ground game (hares and rabbits), waterfowl, and various species of game birds. Where it refers to specific species, these are so described; for example grouse, pheasants, woodcork, wild duck, etc. Since two of these estates - the Kenmare and Herbert - each created a deer forest, unique in mid-19th century Ireland, they form the core study estates; the two smaller estates serve as comparative studies. And, equally unique, as these two larger estates held the only remnant population of native Irish red deer, the survival of that herd itself forms a concomitant core area of analysis. The numerary descriptions applied to these animals in popular literature are critically reassessed against prime source historical evidence, as are the so-called deer forest 'clearances'. The core period, 1840 to 1970, is selected as the seminal period, spanning 130 years, from the creation of the deer forests to when a fundamental change in policy and administration was introduced by the state. Comparison is made with similar estates elsewhere, in Britain and especially in Scotland. Their influence on the Irish methods and style of hunting is historically examined.

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.

Preparation and evaluation of Fuller's Earth Beads for removal of Cesium from waste streams

This work deals with removal of Cesium (radioactive waste) in dilute aqueous phase by adsorption. Fullers earth was used as an adsorbent. The adsorption capacity of Fullers earth with respect to Cesium was found to be high, 26.3 mg / g of adsorbent.

Avoiding Negligence and Profusion: The failure of the Joint-Stock form in the Anglo-Indian Tea Trade, 1840-1870

In the 19th century, firms operating in the Anglo-Indian tea trade were organised using a variety ownership forms including the partnership, joint-stock and a combination of the two known as the Managing agency. Faced with both an increasing need for fixed capital and high agency costs caused by the distance between owners and managers, the firms adapted and increasingly adopted the hybrid managing agency model to overcome these problems. Using new data from Calcutta and Bengal Commercial Registers and detailed case studies of the Assam Company and Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co, this paper demonstrates that British entrepreneurs did not see the choice of ownership as a dichotomy or firm boundaries as fixed, but instead innovatively drew on the strengths of different forms of ownership to compete and grow successfully.

Estudo do impacto do ecoturismo na ictiofauna do Rio Sucuri (Bonito, MS, Brasil), utilizando as espécies de peixes Crenicichia lepidota (Heckel, 1840) e Moenkhausia bonita (Benine et al., 2004) como indicadores

Dissertação mest., Biologia Marinha, Universidade do Algarve, 2007

Ecology of the early life-history stages of shad Alosa fallax fallax (Lacépède, 1803) in the River Mira, with a note on Alosa spp. larvae in the River Guadiana

Tese dout., Ecologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2006