Early modern Ireland and the history of the child

Analysis of public policy on the care of children and youth in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland has generated a substantial historiography in recent years. By contrast there has been far less exploration of the state's attitude to young people in early modern Irish society. The historical dimension to the current debate on state care of minors is usually identified as beginning in the nineteenth century but the institutional custody of children originated in the sixteenth century. A central aim of this essay is to document the early modern context of public concern with children and youth in order to provide a more precise historical dimension to the contemporary debate.

The vegetation and climate history of the last glacial cycle in a new pollen record from Lake Fimon (southern Alpine foreland, N-Italy)

The sediments of Like Fimon N Italy contain the first continuous archive of the Late Pleistocene environmental and climate history of the southern Alpine foreland We present here the detailed palynological record of the interval between Termination II and the List Glacial Maximum The age-depth model is obtained by radiocarbon dating in the uppermost part of the record Downward we con elated major forest expansion and contraction events to isotopic events in the Greenland Ice core records via a stepping-stone approach involving intermediate correlation to isotopic events dated by TIMS U/Th in Alpine and Apennine stalagmites and to pollen records from mime cores of the Iberian margin Modelled ages obtained by Bayesian analysis of deposition are thoroughly consistent with actual ages with maximum offset of +/- 1700 years Sharp expansion of broad-leaved temperate forest and of sudden water table rise mark the onset of the Last Interglacial after a treeless steppe phase at the end of penultimate glaciation This event is actually a two-step process which matches the two step rise observed in the isotopic record of the nearby Antro del Corchia stalagmite respectively dated to 132 5 +/- 2 5 and 129 +/- 1 5 ka At the interglacial decline mixed oak forests were replaced by oceanic mixed forests the latter persisting further for 7 ka till the end of the Eemian succession Warm-temperate woody species are still abundant at the Eemian end corroborating a steep gradient between central Europe and the Alpine divide at the inception of the last glacial After a stadial phase marked by moderate forest decline a new expansion of warm broad leaved forests interrupted by minor events and followed by mixed oceanic forests can be identified with the north-alpine Saint Germain I The spread of beech during the oceanic phase is a valuable circumalpine marker The subsequent stadial-interstadial succession lacking the telocratic oceanic phase is also consistent with the evidence at the north alpine foreland The Middle Wurmian (full glacial) is marked by persistence of mixed forests dominated by conifers but with significant lime and other broad leaved species A major Arboreal Pollen decrease is observed at modelled age of 38 7 +/- 0 5 ka (larch expansion and last occurrence of lime) which his been related to Heinrich Event 4 The evidence of afforestation persisting south of the Alps throughout most of MIS 3 contrasts with a boreal and continental landscape known for the northern alpine foreland pointing to a sharp rainfall boundary at the Alpine divide and to southern air circulation This is in agreement with the Alpine paleoglaciological record and is supported by the pressure and rainfall patterns designed by mesoscale paleoclimate simulations Strenghtening the continental high pressure during the full glacial triggered cyclogenesis in the middle latitude eastern Europe and orographic rainfall in the eastern Alps and the Balkanic mountains thus allowing forests development at current sea level altitudes (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved

Life history of the rare red alga Tsengia bairdii (=Platoma bairdii) (Nemastomataceae, Rhodophyta) from Scotland

A single thallus of the rare red seaweed Tsengia bairdii (Farlow) K. Fan et Y.Fan( Platoma bairdii (Farlow) Kuckuck) (Nemastomataceae) was collected on a subtidal pebble on the west coast of Scotland. The terete gelatinous axes, which were only 7 mm high, were monoecious. They bore numerous cystocarps and a few spermatangia, which represent the first observation of male structures in this genus. Released carpospores grew into expanded basal discs that gave rise to erect axes bearing irregularly cruciate tetrasporangia. irregularly cruciate to zonate tetrasporangia were also formed on these basal discs. Karyological studies on dividing tetrasporocytes showed about 25 bodies, identified as paired meiotic chromosomes on the basis of their size in comparison to mitotic and meiotic chromosomes in other red algal species. These observations confirm the isomorphic life history inferred from early field collections and show that this species is monoecious. Tsengia bairdii is an extremely rare seaweed in Europe - it seems to be confined to sublittoral cobbles and has a temporally patchy distribution.