Conradh na Gaeilge Archive - Phase 2: The Arrangement

As winter approaches, and one of the most important events in the Irish language calendar, the Oireachtas, draws closer what better time for an update of progress on the Conradh na Gaeilge archive. This is the third blog in a series which is designed to give you all a “behind-the-scenes” view of the work of the archivist - i.e. moi! In the first blog of this series I noted the various stages vital to processing a collection before it can be made available: know what you have, make it safe, appraise it, decide on an arrangement, catalogue it, consider what should be made accessible and then release it. The second blog discussed appraisal in more detail and showed the value of breaking this vast project up into three stages: The First Pass (where the contents of every box are removed, examined, listed and re-housed in special archive boxes which are then stored in secure climate-conditioned storerooms), The Arrangement and The “Final Countdown”.

This blog follows on from the last and will cover the work that goes in to deciding on an arrangement for a collection, before also discussing the final phase in this ongoing work. 

Two examples of the arrangement which is listed here to 3 levels of hierarchy. Further levels of hierarchy will exist in the collection including sub-subseries, file and item.

Arrangement

At the end of what I’ve termed The First Pass the entire collection has been made safe from the elements, we know what’s in it (to a basic level), and we know roughly where to find it.

The next stage in the process is to come up with an arrangement. The arrangement of a collection gives us intellectual control over it, gives it structure, and lays the ground work for making items easily discoverable to researchers down the road by grouping related material together under distinct categories in series / sub-series / files etc.

This stage is broken into two parts:

• Intellectual arrangement

• Physical Arrangement

Intellectual arrangement

Firstly I needed to come up with a logical arrangement that made sense of the collection and made everything as discoverable as possible. Normally with a collection the archivist would try to retain any existing arrangement within it. However unfortunately for us this was not possible. During the 125+ year period covered in the collection Conradh headquarters moved six times, and had 32 presidents covering 35 terms. Material was stored in several locations including offsite storage, and had no discernible arrangement. Different secretaries had different work methods over the decades, and the material had clearly been moved and mixed up several times from when it was first generated. (This is completely normal for such a large and long running organisation!)

Physical Arrangement

Once I had come up with an arrangement, I then needed to physically put the items together under this structure. This meant starting at the first category of the arrangement and removing items relevant to that category from every box that held such items, which in some cases was numerous. As you can all imagine this is a time-consuming, but important step. Until the physical part of arrangement stage was completed, items relating to a specific topic were still scattered throughout the collection.

So what is the Arrangement?

The arrangement I decided on comprises three main sections totaling 45 series. (Yes! This collection is HUGE!!!)

The first section (series 1 – 13) covers the organisation itself and its structure and includes annual reports, policy documents, employee files, administration material, finance material, publications, Ard Fheis [annual congress] minutes, PR and material from various branches and committees. The second section (series 14 – 21) relates to Arts and Culture in general and includes the annual Oireachtas competition, festivals both in Ireland and abroad, music, sport, drama and literature. The final section (series 22 - 45) broadly relates to research including the papers of Donncha Ó Súilleabháin and Giolla Críost Ó Broin and material relating to Patrick Pearse, Northern Ireland, politics, Government departments and businesses. It also contains an extensive series relating to various campaigns run by or involving the organisation.

Oireachtas cloth badges from the 1940s or 50s and a menu from 1979

This arrangement now gives me a structure from which to issue reference numbers to every series, subseries, file and item. For example the Conradh na Gaeilge collection has been given the code G60. With 45 series in all, I know that series codes will run from G60/1 to G60/45 and numbering will continue according to the hierarchy of the arrangement e.g. the third file in the 2nd subseries of the 19th series will be given the code G60/19/2/3!

Documents safely stored in acid free folders, marked with the relevant reference number. The range of reference codes filed in the box can be seen marked on the box lid.

Cataloguing

Once the second stage has been completed it is then time to catalogue the collection. Until the cataloguing has been completed it is still not possible for the researcher to browse through a finding aid to know what can be viewed from the collection. Cataloguing involves giving a description to a collection, series, subseries, file or item which not only describes it but gives it its context. There are standard data fields a professional archivist must complete at this stage, following strict descriptive guidelines to adhere to best practice. This information is then entered into the CALM (Archive) database.

A screenshot of the record tree in CALM (Archive database) showing all 45 series. 

With a collection of this size, the safest way of ensuring best practice is maintained is to describe the collection from collection level down to file level or even item level in stages, ensuring each stage is complete before moving on to the next. I’m happy to say that Collection Level description and Series Level description are now complete. I am now working on listing to a lower level of hierarchy (eg subsubseries / file) and am even happier to announce that because there has been so much interest in this collection and because it is so vast, rather than waiting until the entire collection is described fully, we will instead release parts of the collection in tranches, as they are completed. I will do this as fast as I can, but please be patient! When a tranche is released, it doesn’t mean the next one will be hot on its heels!

A selection of logo designs for the Golden jubilee of the central branch. Images show the item before and after a basic surface clean and slight repair job using tools shown. 

Other Considerations

I have previously mentioned two further considerations that take place at this stage, namely making decisions on accessibility based on GDPR and other considerations thereby adhering to various legislation, and secondly selecting items for digitisation. Where a collection is small (several archive boxes, for example) it can be easy to find the resources to digitise it in its entirety thereby making the whole collection available (bar records which would have to be closed anyway to adhere to GDPR etc.). With a collection as gigantic as this one, it is simply not feasible in practical terms to digitise it all. Issues such as time, cost and storage raise their ugly heads, unfortunately. So too does the difficulty in retaining context for every image, in particular if it has not been listed to item level. Therefore careful and pragmatic selection is required - as I continue to process and list the collection, I am flagging items which could be digitised at a later point.

Releasing

So on to the good news! As mentioned previously we will be releasing in tranches to allow researchers access completed parts of the collection prior to the overall completion of listing. These tranches will be released at intervals over the coming year, as work is complete. Series are being prioritised for release based on a number of factors including size, interest for the researcher, recommendations from the special interest group, ease of release and GDPR concerns (or lack of).

What’s being released

The first tranche to be released ahead of the Oireachtas consists of six series: “Branches, District Councils and Provincial Executives”, “Comhaltas Uladh”, “Drama, Theatre and Film”, “Sport”, “Patrick Pearse” and of course “The Oireachtas”. Material of particular interest relates to the London and Central branches of CnaG, letters from Brendan Behan and Seán O’Casey relating to plays in Irish, material relating to Scoil Éanna, posters, programmes, invites, and competition medals. In total 72 boxes of material will be opened for access covering a time period from the 1890s to the present day. However to truly appreciate the richness of material in any of these series, the best advice is to give yourself a day off, visit us in NUIG and trawl through the boxes! 

Two photos from a London Branch book of accounts which include a school in Highgate where Irish language classes were taught.

What’s next

The next tranche will be released (all going well!) shortly before Christmas with subsequent releases following in 2020. To keep track of these releases keep an eye out for further release announcements either through this blog series or on twitter (@nuigarchives).

In the meantime enjoy the little taster of images included here!

Programme for “An Comhar” (Dublin actors) at the Abbey Theatre 1925

Cheque made out to Patrick Pearse, for and on behalf of Scoil Éanna 1912. This cheque is signed by Pearse on the reverse.

A GAA poster for a Junior Hurling Championship, no date but probably late 1950s

Until the next time,

Beirigí Bua

Niamh

Irish version:

Blag 3: Cartlann Chonradh na Gaeilge - Céim 2: An Chóiriú

Previous Blogs:

Blog 2: Conradh na Gaeilge archive - Appraising the Archive

Blog 1: Conradh na Gaeilge Archive - The First Step

Blag 2: Cartlann Chonradh na Gaeilge - An Chartlann a Mheas

Blag 1: Cartlann Chonradh na Gaeilge - An Chéad Chéim

“Houses of the Nobility and Gentry”: Big Houses of County Galway Heritage Week Photographic Exhibition 19 – 24 August 2019

“Houses of the Nobility and Gentry”: 

Big Houses of County Galway

Heritage Week Photographic Exhibition

19 – 24 August 2019

O’Donoghue Centre, NUI, Galway 

  

  

Galway Landed Estates from the Archives

Heritage Week Seminar

24 August 2019, 10.00-13.30

O’Donoghue Theatre, NUI, Galway

Programme

10AM: Welcome

10.10-11.15: Researchers’ Panel

Olivia Martin: West of Ireland Landed Estates collections as sources for women’s lives

Joe Murphy: The Redington Papers: Insight into a 19^th Clarinbridge estate

Ann O’Riordan: Hearnesbrook House & Estate, Killimor

11.15-11.45 Coffee/Tea

11.45-12.30 Landed Estates resources in practice

Geraldine Curtin: Family History in estate archives:  the Wilson-Lynch Collection

Martin Curley: The Landed Estates database as an educational tool for primary and second-level students

Brigid Clesham: Landed estates collections as evidence for landscape studies, the Plunket estate, Tourmakeady

12.30-13.30 Marie Boran & Brigid Clesham: Landed estates research workshop: Landed Estates database researchers will be on hand to help with queries relating to sourcing material on the history of big houses and landed estates in Ireland.

ADMISSION IS FREE BUT BOOKING ESSENTIAL. See https://www.heritageweek.ie/whats-on/event/galway-estates-from-the-archives for details.

NUI Galway, Galway County Council Heritage Service and Skehana Heritage Group are collaborating on a photographic showcase on Galway Estates as part of Heritage Week, which takes place from 17 to 25 August.

In 2016 Skehana Heritage Group first began displaying images of some of Galway’s “Big Houses”, the buildings from which landed estates large and small were managed for over 200 years. They were the multi-nationals of their day in providing employment. Sadly, however, their legacy was frequently one of control and which perpetuated an increasingly unsustainable economic model. The estates’ demise principally came about in the first decades of the twentieth century when the government-sponsored Land Acts advanced the money to tenant farmers to purchase their holdings and become owner-occupiers.

It has been estimated that east Galway, in particular, had a larger proportion of such houses, large and small, than any other county in Ireland. The Skehana initiative complements the research conducted at NUI Galway’s Moore Institute in the Irish Landed Estates project which has been in existence since 2007. For more information on the Irish Landed Estates project see http://www.landedestates.ie/.

The Heritage Week event will see hundreds of photographic images of these houses - some intact, some ruined, some whose memory only exists on the landscape in the form of a map or drawing from the nineteenth century – on display in banner format in the O’Donoghue Building foyer, from 19 to 24 August. An added attraction will be facsimile copies of leases, maps, memoirs and marriage settlements from the over 20 landed estate archival collections housed in the James Hardiman Library’s Archives and Special Collections.

NUI Galway will also host a half day seminar, Galway Estates from the Archives, on Saturday, 24 August from 9.30am to 1.30pm. The seminar will explore how historians and other researchers employ these documents to tell the stories of their families, local areas, landscapes and communities.

Marie Boran, NUI Galway Special Collections Librarian and Landed Estates researcher, said: “This is the first time the Galway Big Houses banners will be on display in Galway City, though they have been exhibited in various parts of the county. It will be a wonderful opportunity for Galway people and visitors alike to learn more about these buildings which are so central to our past.”

Attendance at the event is free. Details of booking and information are available at: https://www.heritageweek.ie/whats-on/event/galway-estates-from-the-archives

Maurice Hayes and the GAA

As well as being an outstanding public servant and commentator Maurice Hayes had an abiding interest in Irish culture, the Irish language and the GAA, particularly in relation to his native County Down. The archival collection now with the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway reflects those interests, in particular his abiding interest in County Down. 

As a player he was a hurler with Kilclif, and became the first player outside of the Ards to play on the Down county team. His interest in the GAA continued in Queens and later on his return to Downpatrick as a teacher. This interest in hurling may have been inspired by his father Michael, a native of Kildwan (near Bunmahon) County Waterford, while his mother’s links with her native Listowel probably inspired an interest in football. 

The GAA was the first organisation that Maurice became deeply involved in, and from an early age. He was a County Down delegate at the famous (or infamous) 1947 GAA Congress, which decided to hold the All-Ireland football final in New York that year. Although only a teenager at the time his abilities were noted, and he was Assistant Secretary of the Down County Board by 1950. In his report to the County AGM published in the “Irish Press” on 12 January 1951, he gave details of the new club football league introduced and played in 1950. “Ten teams were selected to take part and special by-laws were drawn up and approved”. He went on to report “there was a full programme of senior football in the county, catering for an average of 150 players each Sunday, either by way of league, championship or county matches”. This was followed by an inter-barony league, introducing players to a high standard of games, as well as better medical care for injured players and the introduction of track-suits to allow substitutes get on the field quickly. 

Becoming Vice-Chairman of the Ulster Council in 1955, Maurice continued with others to support the development of the county team, encouraging players and officials to think big. One of those players, Brian Morgan, was interviewed by Fabian Boyle in 1970 and recalled in impact of Maurice. Brian had come onto the County Team in 1957, along with household names like James McCartan, Paddy Doherty and Tony Hadden, who had been suspended for playing soccer. “The talent was there all right, but it could just as well have been squandered. The pieces did not just fall into place; it took three years of effort, experiment, persistence and organisation to slot the right man into the best position, and produce the magic formula.” 

“Maurice Hayes knew precisely where he was going, and predicted that, if we stayed together and co-operated with the team-management, we would win the Sam Maguire Cup. He had confidence in our ability, and there was mutual respect between him and the players.” 

“We could have got a U.S trip, after winning the All-Ireland title in 1960. But Maurice promised that, if we waited and went on to win in 1961, we would get a holiday that we would never forget. And, true to his word, the Down squad was treated to a six-weeks tour of the U.S.A., with everything laid on. The organisation was superb.”  

Speaking to Declan Bogue in 2017, Maurice gave his opinion on that team.  

"The one thing is that the 1960 team, every one of them was a good citizen afterwards. They made a contribution in one way or another to the society they were in." 

Chris Patten, Lord Patten of Barnes, will officially open the archive of Maurice Hayes at NUI Galway before giving a public lecture entitled, ‘A European identity: some reflections on the career of Maurice Hayes on the opening of his archive at NUI Galway’ on Tuesday, 12 March. 

Dr. Niall Walsh - A Tribute - by Prof. Frank Shovlin

Dr Niall Walsh (1930-2018)

Prof. Frank Shovlin

The death occurred on 5 November 2018 of Dr Niall Walsh in Galway hospice. Dr Walsh was a friend of John McGahern’s and one of the longest extant runs of letters from McGahern to anyone rests in the Archives at the Hardiman Library, NUI Galway.

Born in Tullamore, Co. Offaly on 28 September 1930, Walsh studied medicine at U.C.D. and qualified in 1956. He spent 4 months as a ship's doctor, did some general practitioner’s work and then trained as a pathologist in the laboratories of U.C.D. He was appointed as Consultant Pathologist in Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe in October 1964 where he remained for the rest of his career, retiring afterwards in the Ballinasloe area. He first met McGahern in about 1962 when the young writer called to his GP surgery with a chest complaint. They hit it off and began to meet regularly for a drink, O’Neill’s of Suffolk Street being a favourite watering hole.

After McGahern’s sabbatical year from his teaching post at Belgrove national school, Clontarf (1964-65) and subsequent sacking in the wake of the publication and banning of The Dark (1965), the two men drifted apart. On McGahern’s return to live in Cleggan, Co. Galway in late 1970, he contacted his old friend. The earliest letter in the collection is dated 18 May 1971 and in it John invites Niall and his wife, Phil, to visit Cleggan. Walsh replies four days later in typically good humour: “I was delighted to hear from you after all these years though I have kept track of your movements via the press since you left here. Shouldn’t you be lecturing to starry eyed co-eds in the States or drinking wine under olive trees in Spain instead of being in Cleggan?” Thus began a friendly, and sometimes revealing, correspondence that would endure until the final year of John’s life – the last letter held by NUIG is dated September 2005. McGahern died in March 2006.

At the prompting of Richard Murphy, who died earlier this year, McGahern returned to Ireland from Paris to live in Cleggan from November 1970 to September 1971. While there, Niall and Phil visited with John and Madeline. The Walshes themselves had a small house on Achill Island which they made available to the McGaherns from March to October 1973 – it was a place where McGahern worked hard on completing what would become his third novel, The Leavetaking (1974) – McGahern dedicates the book to Niall. The Walshes went on in subsequent years to visit the McGaherns in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Paris. When the McGaherns moved to County Leitrim in 1974, the Walshes were regular visitors and for a time even considered moving to the area.

Letters from John McGahern to Niall and Phil Walsh

Letter from John McGahern to Niall Walsh, 1976

Over the years, the letters reveal, among other things, a shared interest in shooting, a candour about medical issues, and a willingness on John’s part to discuss his work in progress. John was especially frank with Niall during the course of his cancer treatment, Niall having survived his own brush with the condition in the early 1990s. Now, alas, cancer has claimed the lives of both men.

I met Niall Walsh around Easter 2016 in Galway’s Great Southern Hotel (or whatever it’s called these days) to discuss his memories of John. It was a marvellous meeting, with Niall full of life and sparkle. I found it almost impossible to believe that I was speaking to a man of 85: his recall was perfect and he had a charming mischief about him that endeared him greatly to me. When I heard of his death recently it was with a sense of real sorrow, but relief too that we had once had the chance to talk.

Frank Shovlin is Professor of Irish Literature at the University of Liverpool. A graduate of University College Galway and the University of Oxford, he is currently editing The Letters of John McGahern for a forthcoming Faber volume. In February 2018 he was appointed McGahern’s authorized biographer.