Obviously there weren't any updates this week. I can't really say why. All 4 people reading this probably don't care anyway. Not a whole lot happened this week. It was actually pretty productive in terms of research, or I should say I did a lot of research and hope that it turns out to be useful. I think I was pretty fortunate this week. I was researching at the Boole Library at University College Cork, looking at the Grehan estate papers. Major Steven Grehan fought in the First World War and when he came back to Ireland to take over the family estate, he became involved with the British Legion in Ireland. All the available information for the collection said that the British Legion files were closed for 30 years from 1996 to protect the families of those mentioned from any potential embarrassment. I inquired about the collection when I was there and the archivist told me that a few years ago the family went through the collection and blacked out all the names in the papers, and that I could now look at them. So it took me about 2.5 days, but I got through the whole collection. It was nice to feel like a real historian again. I can also add that the UCC archive was a really nice place to work: the staff were nice and the archivist was very friendly and helpful. It's too bad that I'm not researching a subject that is better suited to the available sources here because the archives at UCC and the CCCA are both really nice facilities (even if they close for 1.5 hours for lunch).
Other than archival research I've continued to look at various newspaper sources available online. This morning I had an appointment at the College Archive, which didn't have much useful material for me, but the archivist there was really nice. She recognized my Grateful Dead tye-dye because her husband is apparently a Dead head. Who knew?! The internet access situation here, or should I say lack thereof, has really limited my ability to get work done outside the archives.
In other news, the new credit card USAA was supposed to send me never showed up. Couple that with the fact that I am unable to receive mail where I'm staying in Derry and I'm pretty much SOL. So that sucks. Oh well. Good bye savings! Most of the time they're a great company and I can't say enough good things about them, but in this situation they have failed miserably.
Tomorrow is laundry day and Sunday is the trek up to Derry, which will be an all day affair. The bus leaves Cork at 8:25 and gets in to Derry at 19:15. UGH! Hopefully I'll have an internet connection in Derry, but based on the way things have gone thus far on this trip, I won't count on it until my computer is connected and online. Seeing truly is believing over here.
All for now.
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3 comments:
Jason,
Well, that sucks about the credit card. Jodi read that post too one day when I had your weblog open at home. We both felt for you.
On draining your savings, well, you've just joined the world of the graduate student for sure---if there were any doubts before.
How long will you be in Ireland? Surely you can apply for and receive another card in that time. If Ireland's anything like America, the minute you tell a card company you're a college student they send you five cards---each with a $5000 credit limit. But maybe the bank crisis has hit Europe too.
Signed,
"One of the Four" aka Tim
Things you may have missed in Cork..
(Or I should have found this blog sooner)
apart from the Grehan Papers in the Boole basement, the UCC college archives has some material on UCC students who died during WWI - the college journals of the period record obits
In St FinBarres Cathedral, there is a Heroes Column erected in about 1921 on which is inscribed the names of all the Church of Ireland war dead from the diocese of Cork, Cloyne & Ross from the Great War. I do not know if this is something which was only done in Cork, or if it was common practice in other places.
There is an Irish national inventory of War memorials online somewhere
Mike
Mike,
I did spend some time at the UCC Archive. I probably neglected to mention it here.
I DID in fact miss the memorial at St. FinBarre's. Luckily that's something that can be remedied on a more touristy visit. Many thanks for the heads up!
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