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Wed 24 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Thu 25 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Fri 26 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14.15
    16.30

Sat 27 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

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Wednesday 24 March 2004 10:45
Y-2 GEO01 Mobility and Irish Identities I
Y
Network: Chair: David Lambert
Organizer: David Featherstone Discussant: David Lambert
David Featherstone : Irish/ Atlantic Networks and the Spaces of Politics of the London Corresponding Society
The London Corresponding Society (LCS) attempted to organise ‘black or white, high or low’ into a formalised radical political club in 1790s London (LCS, 1792). The Society drew on, and was shaped by, the involvement of many activists with significant Atlantic/ Irish connections. These included John Binns and William Duane ... (Show more)
The London Corresponding Society (LCS) attempted to organise ‘black or white, high or low’ into a formalised radical political club in 1790s London (LCS, 1792). The Society drew on, and was shaped by, the involvement of many activists with significant Atlantic/ Irish connections. These included John Binns and William Duane who had connections with the United Irishmen; anti-slavery activists like Olaudah Equiano who crafted links between the LCS, abolitionist societies and key members of the United Irishmen in Belfast; and London artisans like Thomas Preston who had been involved in radical journeyman’s cultures in Dublin and Cork (Preston, 1817, Rogers, 1996, Wilson, 1998). The politics of the LCS, however, has been primarily thought of as a bounded achievement of English/ London radicals (Thompson, 1968, Barrell, 2000). This paper explores the political geographies of the LCS to demonstrate that these diverse relations and networks were generative of the political identities of LCS activists. This draws on work that has emphasised the importance of adopting an Atlantic perspective for understanding the dynamics of London’s subaltern politics (Bolster, 1998, Gilroy, 1993, Linebaugh, 2003). The paper examines the effects of these multiple trajectories of political activity on the aims, identities and practices of the organisation. The paper explores the often ambiguous and contested relations of the LCS to anti-slavery discourses, to political struggles in Ireland and the ambivalence of the LCS to the mobilisation of popular opposition through repertoires of activity like the food riot and to the disputes of such popular constituencies as multi-ethnic dockside labourers in eighteenth-century London. (Show less)

William Jenkins : Social mobility and identity formation: geographies of the 'lace-curtain' Irish in Buffalo, New York, 1880-1910
Between 1880 and 1910, significant divisions emerged within urban Irish America between its prominent working-class (‘shanty’) group and an emerging middle-class (‘lace curtain’) element. This transition was associated not only with new material spaces of neighbourhood and work, but involved also the formation of new socio-spatial boundaries of identity ... (Show more)
Between 1880 and 1910, significant divisions emerged within urban Irish America between its prominent working-class (‘shanty’) group and an emerging middle-class (‘lace curtain’) element. This transition was associated not only with new material spaces of neighbourhood and work, but involved also the formation of new socio-spatial boundaries of identity informed by networks defined by kinship and Catholic associational culture. This paper discusses these related processes of social mobility and identity transformation through a case study of different generations of ‘Irish Americans’ in Buffalo, New York. In attempting to paint a composite picture of these transformed geographies within everyday ‘Irish-American’ life, I argue that historical sources typically used in measuring longitudinal social mobility, such as city directories, are biased towards the economic world of males. In order to redress the gender balance, I supplement a quantitative mapping of Irish-American residential mobility with other sources such as newspapers and literature that bring the agency of females (as domestic servant workers and housewives) and the Catholic church (as the producers of devotional cultures of piety) into focus. (Show less)

Mark Quintanilla : The Keanes of Ireland, the West Indies, and England: The Making of a Transatlantic Family
Between 1770 and 1810, the Keane family actively participated in the colonization of the newly acquired colony of St. Vincent. Although the family was "completely desendent from Ireland" the Keane family would become so successfull that they merged first into the West Indian plantocacy and after achieving their fortune, they ... (Show more)
Between 1770 and 1810, the Keane family actively participated in the colonization of the newly acquired colony of St. Vincent. Although the family was "completely desendent from Ireland" the Keane family would become so successfull that they merged first into the West Indian plantocacy and after achieving their fortune, they eventually joined the English gentry. The patriarch of the family, Michael Keane, arrived to the island in 1770 from Barbados. Using Irish networks, Keane established himself first as a mercantile factor protecting the interests of Cork merchants. In the absence of qualified colonial lawyers, the Cambridge-educated Keane established a lucrative career as a plantation lawyer and became associated with some of the most influential planters within the colony. Simulataneously, Keane invested his profits by establishing two planations that his son, Hugh Perry Keane, would transform into sugar estates in the 1790s. By the end of the eighteenth century, Michael Keane had been appointed Attorney General of the island and his soon had successfully negotiated a marriage with a well-respected English gentry family. By the early nineteenth century (and after Michael Keane's death), the family purchased an English estate and effectively distanced themselves from their plantations--which they sold during the 1810s. (Show less)



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