Today I went back to the National Archive of Ireland. I got there right as it opened and had a pretty productive day. I talked with the archivist a bit when I first got there to try to orient myself. She was really helpful while at the same time admitting that there was probably very little there of direct relevance to my dissertation. This is a common thing, and I'm becoming used to this as an initial response. Upon doing some digging, I think that there will be at least 3-4 sources that will be very useful, but that is still to be determined. What probably saved me was a purchase I made at the National Museum on Sunday, a book by Brian Hanley called A Guide To Irish Military Heritage. I had been informed of the existence of the book before I left, but was fortunate to find it when I did. The files I was hoping would pan out - the Bureau of Military History - will probably have scant relevance for my diss, but one of the sources suggested in Hanley's book proved quite useful and interesting today. There was a committee put together in 1927-1928 to determine the grievances of British ex-servicemen in Ireland; it was called the Committee on Claims of British Ex-servicemen. The files give a good picture of the types of problems many former British soldiers experienced in post-Independence Ireland as well as what efforts the British Legion took to try to help these men. Since my focus is on the memory of the Great War in Ireland I began to think about how relevant these sources were. It seems to me that to read the position of ex-servicement as a "site" (a la Pierre Nora, not necessarily a physical site, but one that provides a common understanding for a group) of memory/remembrance would be one way to make use of these sources. In essence, the status of veterans constitutes an access point into assessing the legacy of the war in Ireland. Even better, the National Archive allows limited use of digital cameras and I was able to photograph 3 full jackets of files in the allotted half hour. Hopefully tomorrow will be just as productive. I believe there is a different archivist on duty tomorrow, so perhaps I can talk them into letting me use the camera all day. That would make things go faster and allow me to get more done. The federal government also kept records of the British Legion's annual request to use the city's parks for their Remembrance Day ceremonies. These files contain some interesting pieces of information as well. Hopefully I'll be able to get that stuff photographed this week as well. Toward the end of the day, I was looking for more stuff and found some references for the Connaught Rangers that may be helpful. Tomorrow I'll look at the rest of the list (I only got through "C") and perhaps some more stuff will turn up. All-in-all it was a productive day. I felt like a real historian today. Today's investigations have provoked more questions that I may or may not find answers to. We'll see.
On a separate note, I need to say that I hate phones. I bought a calling card that supposedly allows me to call the States from Ireland. Since the apartment I'm staying in lacks a landline phone, I've had to try to use it on pay phones. It has not worked yet. This annoys me. I think it might be the pay phone and if I had a regular land line it would be fine, but this is an unanticipated headache.
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2 comments:
Hmm...I used a calling card from a pay phone, in Galway in 2002, and had no problems. Maybe it's your particular phone or the particular card producer? And aren't pay phones landlines?! - TL
Technically, yes, a pay phone is a land line. But since you have to put money in it, I consider it a different entity than what you would have at your house or office. That's what I consider a true land line. Regardless, it's frustrating.
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