From the Archives: Rushdie's secret Dublin Visit

It is timely that in the week which saw the writer Salman Rushdie publish his long awaited memoirs, that I should come across the following press cutting as part of box-listing a collection. The cutting details a visit made by Rushdie to Dublin in 1993. This visit took place, of course, during the very height of the controversy and consequent 'Fatwa' out on the life of Rushdie owing to the publication of his novel the Satanic Versus, on January 15^th 1993, with the press cuttings, taken from the Irish Press, dated the following day.

 

The Article reads: "There was a marked security presence at Trinity College last night where the writer defied death threats to appear at a conference on censorship and democracy." Rushdie met in private with President Mary McAleese and other leading Government and political figures earlier in the day though then Taoiseach Albert Reynolds "declined to meet the writer" and these meetings had been subject to a "news blackout".

Rushdie's recently published memoir is entitled Joseph Anton - both names coming from the forenames of Conrad and Chekhov and was also the cover-name that Rushdie operated under when under fear of threat to his life.

The eagle-eyed among you may spot a familiar face at the talk by Rushdie on the second page of coverage, none other than Bono!

Interview with playwright Thomas Kilroy

To get you all in a suitably festive mood ahead of the Culture night events happening this Friday 21 September, here is a video interview with playwright Thomas Kilroy conducted by Prof. Adrian Frazier, College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies, NUI Galway, to mark the cataloguing of the Kilroy Archive in 2011. It is a wonderful interview and offers great insights in Kilroy the man as well as Kilroy the Playwright. At 6pm, this Friday Culture Night, there will be a talk exploring the archive of Thomas Kilroy which is proudly held by the James Hardiman Library.

All our events are being staged at the Huston School of Film and Digital Media and run throughout the evening. For more details and for booking enquiries ring 091 493353 or email barry.houlihan@nuigalway

The video can be seen in full at this link: http://vimeo.com/celt/thomaskilroy


      Culture Night 2012 at the James Hardiman Library - What will you see?

 

Huston, Sartre and the Freud Scenario

Huston, Sartre and the Freud Scenario : The story behind an item from the NUI Galway archives' Huston Family Collection.

John Huston

 Nearly all of John Huston's 37 feature films are literary adaptations however perhaps one of the most interesting items in NUI Galway's Huston Family archive is an original screen play for Huston's 1962 release Freud: the Secret Passion.  The original screenplay was written by renowned French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre.  Sartre's manuscript in NUI Galway's archive which includes 'corrections' by John Huston runs to over 700 pages, however Sartre refused to have his name associated with the film when it was released following a dispute with Huston over the script.

Huston had first encountered Sartre in Paris in 1952 during the filming of Moulin Rouge and considered him to be an ideal person to script a film about the life and work of Sigmund Freud because he 'knew Freud's works intimately and would have an objective and logical approach.'  Ironically both Sartre and Huston considered themselves anti-Freud for largely the same reason: Sartre because as a Communist he believed the role of the psychoanalyst was limited and of little social importance.  For his part Huston felt that psychoanalysis was an indulgence for bored house wives and the problem children of the rich while the 'movers and shakes' were too busy for it and those that most needed it couldn't afford it. 

Sigmund Freud

Sartre possibly motivated by the need for cash to sort out his tax affairs agreed a fee of $25,000 to write the  script of Freud and delivered a 300 page first draft in French in late 1959.  Huston calculated that if a film was produced from the 300 page script it would be over 5 hours long.  The storyline centred on the development of Freud's theory of the Oedipus Complex, exploring each 'wrong alley' Freud went down while developing the theory. While Huston agreed with the general approach he felt that there was too much material for a single film.  After corresponding with Sartre for several weeks Huston invited him to St. Clerin's , his home in Galway, for two weeks  in January 1960.

Sartre and his 'multilingual Arab girl secretary'

Sartre's visit consisted of daily meetings aimed at reducing the length of the script.  The two men's recollections of the visit differ considerably.  Huston describes Sartre as a man who talked incessantly taking notes of his own words.  As Huston remember it "You'd wait for him to catch his breath, but he wouldn't.  The words came out in an absolute torrent. You might be able to catch him off guard and get in a point, but if he answered you at all -which was seldom- he would resume his monologue." On one occasion Huston left the room during one of Sartre's monologues, returning some time later to find him still talking.  A woman who Huston describes as Sartre's 'secretary – a multilingual Arab girl' (in fact Arlette Elkaim-Sartre an Algerian adopted by Sartre , who later edited many of his works) would type up Sartre's notes in English and circulate them.   According to Huston Sartre was 'as ugly as a human being can be' always dressed in a grey suit, black shoes, white shirt, tie and vest.  These clothes which he wore from when he came down for breakfast in the morning until last thing a night were always impeccably clean.   Huston wondered if perhaps Sartre had several identical grey suits and white shirts.  One morning Sartre appeared with a swollen check resulting from a bad tooth.  Huston offered to take him to his dentist in Dublin.  Sartre insisted on going to a local dentist in Galway.  He was out in a few minutes having had the tooth pulled.  According to Huston "the physical world [Sartre] left to others; his was of the mind.  He was by the way, very heavy into the pills.  I think he had to be to keep going at his pace.' 

  

Huston screened Let There Be Light his 1945 documentary about U.S. soldiers suffering from psychiatric problems following combat in World War II.  Sartre was fascinated by the scenes in the film which depicted hypnosis and Huston who had learnt the technique during the process of making the documentary offered to demonstrate on Arlette, 'an easy subject' who was hypnotised by Huston without difficulty.  When Sartre then put himself forward for hypnosis Huston found him 'hypnotically impregnable ...occasionally you encounter someone like that '.  

Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre's memories of the two weeks of script meeting were somewhat different.  In his letters home to his wife Simone de Beauvoir in Paris he describes the Galway countryside: "Everywhere you go, ruins, which range with no warning from the 6th century to the 20th . . . Only the presence of grass proves that an atom bomb wasn't dropped there . . . one step away from lunar, precisely the interior landscape of my boss, the great Huston. "  While Huston wondered about Sartre's monologues and grey suit (or suits) Sartre wrote of Huston  "...in moments of childish vanity, when he puts on a red dinner jacket or rides a horse (not very well) or counts his paintings or tells workmen what to do. Impossible to hold his attention five minutes: he can no longer work, he runs away from thinking."  According to Sartre's account of the incident when Huston suddenly walked out of a meeting leaving Sartre with Arlette and another house guest,  Sartre noticed Huston's departure but kept talking to avoid an embarrassing silence.

Sartre and Huston did manage to discuss a few cuts in the script, Sartre returned to Paris to make them.  Huston wasn't surprised when the revised script which arrived by post was even longer than the first draft.  Huston was now presented with two problems with the script: it was way too long and Universal studios who were funding the project would only make the film is it could get past the censors (which would necessitate additional changes).   Huston first enlisted a professional screen writer Charlie Kaufman to help him amend the script, however  Huston found Kaufman was intent on following the pattern of most 'biopics' of time. 'The protagonist is invariably a hero, and loveable to the point of banality.  This was the very opposite of the sheet lightning and sulphur I had in mind.'  Huston was eventually able to produce a workable script from Sartre's draft with the help of the German producer and screenwriter Wolfgang Reinhardt. 

Montgomery Clift as Sigmund Freud

Huston sent Sartre the final 190 page script for comment.  When Satre read it he sent word back that he no longer want to be associated with the project.  When pressed for a reason Sartre replied with a letter full of recriminations.   He questioned Huston's understanding of Freud saying that he should have listened more to Reinhardt who Sartre felt knew more about Freud than either of them.    Production and release of the film went ahead without Sartre getting any screenwriting credit (in accordance with his own wishes).   The film was released in 1962 following a more difficulties between Huston and the film's star Montgomery Clift who as well as suffering from an alcohol problem had his own opinions about Freud having himself spent many years in analysis.  Sartre's original script was eventually published posthumously in 1984 as Le Scénario Freud  in French and The Freud Scenario in English translation.

The manuscript of Jean Paul-Sartre's original script for Freud is available for consultation in the James Hardiman Library NUI.

A full descriptive list for the Huston Family Collection is available here

An online exhibition including some pages from the Sartre's draft can be viewed here

The opening scene from Sartre's manuscript for Freud.  The full manuscript is available for consultation at the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway

 

Scence from John Huston's Freud: the Secret Passion.  Freud has more success with hypnosis than Huston did with Sartre. 

Further reading: 

John Huston (1980) An Open Book Knopf, New York. pp 294-305

Ronald Hayman (1986) Writing Against: A Biography of Sartre , Wiedenfeld and Nicolson. 323-340.

'The misfits: when Sartre met Huston in Galway'  The Irish Times, January 6, 2009 Tuesday, FEATURES; Pg. 14

  

NUI Galway Archives brings you Culture Night 2012

Culture Night 2012 at NUI Galway’s James Hardiman Library

Culture Night 2012 will take place on Friday, 21 September with cultural institutions from across the country opening their doors to stage a series of special events to mark the occasion. Among those hosting events for this national evening of celebration is the Archives and Special Collections services in NUI Galway’s James Hardiman Library.

The Library holds numerous unique archival collections dating from the 15^th century to the present day across a range of disciplines. Throughout the night, the James Hardiman Library will be showcasing many of these archival treasures.

The programme of events will begin with an overview of the literary archive, life and legacy of the celebrated Irish playwright Tom Kilroy. The archive is a record of the plays, works, friendships and achievements of Tom Kilroy. This unique event will open up and explore the playwright's archive to the public.

This will be followed by an exhibition and talk on Pomes Penyeach and Nora Barnacle archived letters. This exhibition will allow the public to view an original and rare edition of the James Joyce written collection of poems, donated by Joyce to the Special Collections of the James Hardiman Library following its publication in Paris in 1932.The entire edition, in Joyce’s own handwriting, is printed on rare Japanese paper and bound in green linen with gilt lettering with illustrations from Joyce's daughter, Lucia Joyce.

To complete the event a special film screening of The Dead will also take place. Adapted from James Joyce’s classic story, The Dead was the last film directed by John Huston in 1987. Prior to the screening, Professor Rod Stoneman, Director of the Huston School of Film and Digital Media will give a short introduction on the John Huston archive.

NUI Galway Librarian, John Cox, said: “Culture Night offers an ideal opportunity to engage the public with some of the treasures in the James Hardiman Library’s archives and special collections and the public are very welcome to attend all or part of our events.”

All events, which are free and open to the public, will take place at the Huston School of Film and Digital Media, NUI Galway with doors opening at 5.30pm. For more information or to RSVP contact Barry Houlihan in the James Hardiman Library at 091 493353 or email barry.houlihan@nuigalway.ie.

NUIG Archives and the Archives & Records Association Conference 2012

This week, we at the Archives service of the James Hardiman Library are delighted to be able to attend the annual conference of the Archives and Records Association (ARA) taking place in Brighton, England. This is the first time The James Hardiman Library will be able to be represented at the conference and this is in no small part to the generous bursary received direct from the ARA. The ARA offered ten bursaries across the U.K. and Ireland and we are delighted to be among those chosen.

The conference will run for three days beginning Wednesday 29 August and conclude on Friday 31 August. The schedule is simply packed with a huge range of speakers, talks and events, bringing together the largest gathering of the archival profession in the U.K. this year. The theme across the conference this year is "Progress, Innovation and New Landscapes". It is a very apt title as more than perhaps ever before, archivists and institutions really have to push the boundaries of their innovation and ingenuity in order to make progress. A range of international speakers will cover topics across a huge span of interests including; 'Are we all digital archivists now?', 'Burdened with the truth – Wikileaks', 'Decision making in conservation', 'Meeting the requirements of new audiences', The on-going impact of technology on archivists strategies' and 'The way forward for the archival sector'.

Given the wide range of topics, expertise and backgrounds of archivists from instututions large and small across the U.K. and Ireland, the annual conference promises to be a key event in this years calendar.

 

The Historic University Calendars 1845 - 1934 digitisation project at the Hardiman Library

The historic University Calendars of National University Ireland, Galway, have been made available on-line following a recent digitisation initiative at the James Hardiman Library. Founded in 1845 as Queen's College Galway, the Historic Calendar project provides a truly unique insight into the history, development and achievements of Galway's university, as well as full graduate lists of its alumni. This project provides digital access to the calendars from 1851 to 1934 and tracks the movement of the University from Queen's College to University College Galway to its present identity of National University of Ireland, Galway.

Queen's College, Galway, was founded by Letters Patent under "the Great Seal of Ireland", bearing the date the 30th of December, 1845, and was administered by a Governing Body which consisted of a President, Vice-President, Bursar and included a faculty and academic staff of twenty Professors as well as the University Librarian and a Curator of the University Museum.

The Professors were divided into three faculty: Arts, Medicine, and Law. The Faculty of Arts was further divided into Literary and Science divisions. The literary division of the faculty consisted of languages such as Greek and Latin and also History and English Literature. The Science section included Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Natural History, Logic and Metaphysics, Mineralogy and Geology Civil Engineering and Agriculture.

The Faculty of Medicine featured courses on Anatomy and Physiology, the Practice of Medicine, Practice of Surgery, Materia Medica and Midwifery. The faculty of law included the Professors of English Law, Jurisprudence and Political Economy.

The calendars offer a detailed account of the course structure and content of a given course at Queen's College and the entrance requirements and expected course work of the students. The prescribed reading lists for students across all disciplines also appear.

Other rules and regulations which were outlined to all prospective students was the code of discipline. This stipulated, for instance, "That no student shall appear within the College gates, except in academic costume; and that for every violation of this rule a fine of one shilling be incurred." Students could also expect to face disciplinary measures if they fell afoul of the following offences: "Habitual neglect of attendance, for divine worship, at such church or chapel as shall be approved by his parents or guardians,  Habitual neglect of attendance on the religious instruction provided for students of his Church or denomination in the licensed boarding-house in which he may reside,  Immoral or dishonest practices,  Treasonable or seditious conduct,  Drunkenness,  Grievous offences against College rules or discipline, Wilful and serious injury to the property of the College."

Also of interest to scholars of the history of education in Ireland or of those of the development of particular subjects or disciplines are the exam papers. The Calendars feature annual exam papers for each course and discipline within each faculty and detail the exam process as well as method and type of examination expected by students.

The period 1845 - 1934 covers a challenging and turbulent time in Irish history. Queen's College was founded just as famine was devastating the population in the West of Ireland and also nationally, and continues to trace education and social history in Ireland that ran parallel to the likes of the foundation of the Land League, the Home Rule Movement, The Easter Rising, World War I, the War of Independence and the Civil War and also during unrest in mainland Europe. Some of these political and social changes are reflected in the Calendars with the Irish language and cló Gaelach increasingly being used after 1926. The increased use of the Irish language in the university is just one important initiative that was debated around this time and also was considered in the revised Irish Universities Act of 1929. The calendars are a vital resource in studying and examining third level education in Ireland while also providing a record of those who studied and taught at the College and University. Advertisements and references to local services and businesses offer an important social reflection of those suppliers who were servicing the college and its population at the time. The historic calendars will also play an important role for genealogical researchers as well as research of local history in the West of Ireland.

The calendars of Queen's College Galway/University College Galway are available in full and online at this link: http://archives.library.nuigalway.ie/calendars

Further digital projects from the James Hardiman Library can be viewed here: http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/collections/archives/digitisedarchives/

Michael Cusack Papers - New Online Exhibition

Croke Park's famous Cusack Stand takes its name from Michael Cusack (1847–1906), one of eight men present at the founding of the G.A.A. in Hayes's Commercial Hotel, Thurles, Co. Tipperary on 1 November 1884.  Cusack was appointed honourary secretary of the new organisation, whose aim was to promote and codify Gaelic games.   Prior to the founding of the G.A.A. Cusack had founded the short-lived Dublin Hurling Club in February 1883 and Metropolitan Hurling Club in December 1883.

In 2007 the nieces of Cusack's daughter in law Kathleen O'Connell donated a collection of documents and photographs associated with Cusack and his family to the James Hardiman Library at NUI Galway.   Among the most important historical items in the collection are the complete minutes of the Dublin Hurling Club, from 1883. Cusack was Vice-President of the club, a predecessor to the national organisation founded the following year. In addition, there is a diary kept by Cusack on a visit to his native Clare in 1902 and a range of personal, biographical and photographic material on Cusack's family.   Many of these items are now available as part of this online exhibition created by the NUI Galway's Library archives service.  This is one of a number of digital resources and exhibitions created by the archives service to promote access to its valuable collections.

As well as his involvement in Gaelic sport, Michael Cusack a teacher by profession was a prolific journalist, contributing to titles such as United Ireland, Celtic Times, Shamrock, Fáinne an Lae and The Nation.  Many of these titles are available in the James Hardiman Library's Special Collections .  It is generally suggested that James Joyce's "Citizen" in the Cyclops chapter of Ulysses, is based on Michael Cusack.  However the character could also be seen as a caricature of the nationalist-militarist type and as critique of the "cult of Cú Chulainn", not as a depiction of Cusack himself derived from personal acquaintance. Patricia O'Connell (one of Kathleen O'Connell's nieces) wrote that "his nationalistic outlook may not have endeared him to James Joyce, who was a man of the Pale."

Cusack On-line Exhibition- http://archives.library.nuigalway.ie/cusack/

Cusack Descriptive list (EAD)- http://archives.library.nuigalway.ie/cgi-bin/tabbedlist.cgi?P95

 Further reading:

James Quinn. "Cusack, Michael". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (ed.) James McGuire, James Quinn. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Cronin, M., Murphy, W., Rouse,P.(eds.)  Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884-2009, Irish Academic Press, Dublin; Portland, OR.,2009.