World Within Walls project: Inside St. Davnet's Event

This event was run as part of Heritage Week and was funded by the HSE as part of the World Within Walls project. It was delivered by Stair: An Irish Public History Company and was supported by the Monaghan County Heritage Office.

The World within Walls project aims to bring to life the memories and history of St. Davnet’s former psychiatric hospital in Monaghan town. This institution played a major role in the town, the community and the lives of many living in the area and as such is of huge historical importance and interest. The Inside St. Davnet’s event aimed to make these memories and history real through providing a typical living experience of the institution at a point in time – 1920s.

We were delighted with the turn out the at ‘Inside St. Davnet’s’ event this weekend. The 1927 recreation of the patients’ menu was fully booked out in advance while almost 200 people turned out to take part in the guided tour. Our History Hub was busy for the day with people coming in to learn more about the hospital and also to work with our artists to create paper flowers in memory of the patients who passed through the asylum.

The 1920s meal commenced at 1pm and guests were escorted by our ‘nursing staff’ to either the male or female side of the dining room.  This was done in order to reflect the gender segregation, a striking feature of asylum life. Not only did the male and female patients eat apart but they received differing portion sizes; male patients getting larger potions than the women. Guests at the meal were also given a small extract from a case history – these were constructed from archival research on the site and used the language and phrasing of the epoch although all identifying features were altered to protect the identity of the patients. The case history included people who found themselves suffering from TB, others who were under observation for dangerous behaviour with others on the way to recovery and doing well.

Medical historian Dr. Anne Mac Lellan, the lead researcher on the World Within Walls project, gave a talk on what life would have been like in 1927 and read some extracts from the minute books and the inspector’s report for that year. “At that time St. Davnet’s was known as Cavan and Monaghan District Mental Hospital. According to the report the patients seemed clean and in good health although  overcrowding was becoming a real problem and the mental hospital was oversubscribed in both male and female wards”.

After the meal finished architecture historian Dr. Niamh Nic Ghabhann began her tour of the complex examining the layout and architecture of the site, exploring how these impacted on life at the mental hospital.  It was interesting to learn how St. Davnet’s was based on a pavilion model which aimed to move away from the more prison like radial layout that was used in earlier asylums. The original intention of Monaghan District Asylum (which was renamed as Monaghan Mental Hospital in 1924) was to provide accommodation and care for patients; balancing care with the need for control. As time progressed and overcrowding became an issue the buildings couldn’t function in the way in which they were intended and personal space was a luxury that was not afforded to many patients.

Those in attendance heard how the complex changed and developed over the years, from its construction in 1869, right up to the modern community services. It is clear from looking around the site today that huge changes have taken place. Some buildings lie empty while many have been taken over by outpatient facilities and other public services. In the last 50 years the approach to treatment of mental health has changed so dramatically that the institutional care no longer dominates. St. Davnet’s Hospital and staff were at the forefront of the move towards community care. Developments at Monaghan such as the token economy aimed to provide long term patients which the skills to be able to return to the community, such developments paved the way for the closure of its wards.

The St. Davne’ts complex is now more open to the local people, it is not uncommon to see people from the town in the ground walking their dogs enjoying the beauty and serenity of the campus. This would have been unthinkable in the 1920s when the walls were strong and the gates locked.

Twenty Years A-Growing: An International Conference on the History of Irish Childhood from the Medieval to the Modern Age

This conference on the History of Irish Childhood will take place  at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, 9-10 June 2014.

Dr. Anne MacLellan, Director of Stair will be giving a paper on The Penny Test: Tuberculin Testing and Paediatric Practice in Ireland, 1900-1960:

The historiography of tuberculosis in Ireland has paid considerably more attention to the adult form of the disease than to childhood forms of tuberculosis. In adults the disease primarily affected the lungs; in children, tuberculosis commonly infected other parts of the body including bones and joints, the abdomen and the membranes surrounding the brain as well as being disseminated throughout the body in millet-seed-sized nodules in a form of the disease known as ‘miliary’ tuberculosis. In 1922, the year the independent Irish state was founded, the deaths of 611 children under the age of 15 years were attributed to tuberculosis.

Diagnosis was not always straightforward: this paper will discuss the use and neglect of tuberculin testing for the diagnosis of tuberculosis in Irish children. It will address the consequences of the relative neglect of this test by the Irish medical profession in the first half of the twentieth century. Children who were wrongly diagnosed as tubercular had to endure prolonged periods of bedrest, often in institutional settings, while children whose tuberculosis went undiagnosed were denied rest and treatment.

The increased focus on tuberculosis in children rendered paediatricians and their work visible. This paper will argue that the validity provided by addressing the needs of tubercular children contributed significantly to the development of paediatrics as a separate clinical specialism in Ireland. In particular, the paediatricians Robert Collis and Dorothy Price were active in highlighting the problem of childhood tuberculosis and in promoting the use of the tuberculin test. They were also founding members of the Irish Paediatric Club, the forerunner of the Irish Paediatric Association. Price’s chairmanship of the Consultative Council on Tuberculosis and the National BCG Committee ensured paediatrics and childhood tuberculosis were visible in Ireland at national level.

FOR MORE INFO SEE: http://irishchildhood.wordpress.com/ 

Ireland in the medieval world, AD400–1000 reviewed in the Irish Times

Edel Breathnach's recent publication Ireland in the medieval world, AD400-1000: Landscape, kingship and religion has been reviewed in the Irish Times this week:

The foundations for this splendid book have been laid down over many years of research and the publication by the author of numerous papers that prepared the way for this substantial statement. Edel Bhreathnach combines historical, archaeological and environmental evidence with insights from anthropology, cognitive science and critical theory to give the reader a fresh portrait of the landscapes of Ireland. It is particularly effective in marrying the large amount of new archaeological evidence for settlement with history, placelore, law, literature and genealogy....

For full article click HERE

World Within Walls Community Day

World Within Walls Community Day ran at the Monaghan County Museum last Saturday. This day was the launch of the community outreach strands of the World Within Walls project which is funded by the Health Service Executive. We were delighted with the turn out.

World within Walls is a project which aims to remember the histories of St. Davnet’s former psychiatric hospital in Monaghan town. The project is funded by the HSE and is being delivered by Stair: An Irish Public History under the guidance of the HSE steering committee. The committee is comprised of former senior staff, representatives from the local historical society, mental health practitioners and representation from the National Archives of Ireland.

Talks were given by members of the Stair team about the various aspects of the project. Dr. Anne Mac Lellan’s talk on her research so far at St. Davnet’s was particularly well received by the crowd attending. Anne told of how the patients were separated by gender and the different roles they were given, the women mostly worked in the laundry and sewed, whereas the men often worked on the farmland. As well as being given work to do the patients were provided with amusements of varying kinds from Christy Mistrals in 1872 to the cinema and trips to Blackrock in the 1900s.

Anne also touched on the strikes which took place at the asylum most notably the 1919 strike which was lead by Peadar O’Donnell. It is said  he declared the asylum in Monaghan town a ‘Soviet’ and raised the Red Flag.

There were lots of questions from the audience but also, as the team had hoped there was a lot of information sharing. There is a great wealth of knowledge in the community about St. Davnet’s and we are delighted that so many people have signed up to become involved in the oral history project.

The oral history project will be an opportunity to tap into the human stories that exist in the community. It is important to capture this unwritten history before it fades away. It will also give an alternative perspective on the story of St. Davnet’s as many of the records housed in the archives are clinical in nature and do not go far enough to capture the lived experiences of the staff and patients.

The craft actives on the day were also very well received. Many people young and old turned their hand to some glass painting and our garden of beautiful unique flowers has begun to bloom. There are 850 flowering plants in Ireland which was the average number of patients housed at St. Davnet’s at anyone time. If you know a group that would like to get involved in making flowers for the project we would love to hear from you. We would love to reach our goal of having 850 flowers to display at the 2015 exhibition on the history of St. Davnet’s.

If you couldn't make the day and have information or a story you would like to share please do get in touch with the team through stdavnets.www@hse.ie. You can also loan objects or images for inclusion in the 2015 exhibition by contacting Monaghan County Museum.

Dorothy Stopford Price: Rebel Doctor by Anne Mac Lellan

Arguably the most significant figure in Ireland’s fight against TB, this sensitive and compelling biography tells the fascinating story of Dorothy Stopford Price. Unjustly forgotten, Price made heroic efforts to rid Ireland of tuberculosis and was responsible for the introduction of the BCG vaccine to Ireland. MacLellan recounts a remarkable life, offering a fascinating insight into Price’s Anglo-Irish background, her startling involvement in the struggle for Irish independence and her brilliant and controversial medical career in the newly-independent state.

Read more here: http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/dr-dorothy-price-the-rebel-doctor-written-out-of-our-history-265331.html

Buy your copy here:
http://irishacademicpress.ie/product/dorothy-stopford-price-rebel-doctor/

Pop-up Malaria Museum

Malaria Museum

Let’s Make Malaria History

The stars must have aligned just right when Marco Herbst met Andrew Lewis and Graham Fry  of the Tropical Medical Bureau. With Marco’s collection of malaria artefacts looking for a good home, and TMB’s wonderful top-floor space, it was too good of a coincidence to pass up. Vanessa Breen, with wide-ranging experience from her career in film and television, brand communication, and event organization, came on board to head up a team of creatives who will make the museum a truly unique experience, and Vincent Kenny, of Volunteer Missionary Movement lent his own experience have curated a similar project in the Royal College of Surgeons in the 80’s, the stage was set.

While the pop-up museum will coincide with World Malaria Day, on April 25^th, making Dublin part of a Global conversation about malaria, the Malaria Museum website will remain a permanent virtual space to bring together the different voices from around the world that are working to end malaria.

The Pop-up Malaria Museum, on the top floor of TMB’s Grafton Street headquarters, will take visitors into another world, far from the grey skies of Dublin. The story of malaria is a fascinating one; how far it once spread throughout the world, the mystery behind the disease, once thought to be caused by the bad air around swamps, and how that mystery was unravelled. The malaria museum will combine scientific information with a unique, off-beat visual style, to educate and entertain visitors in the life cycle of the parasite, the history and medications used to combat it, and the exciting future, with ground-breaking innovations promising a malaria vaccine that could save hundreds of thousands of lives in the very near future. The museum will aim to entertain, to educate, and, above all, to engage visitors and get them interested in the actions they can take to help in the worldwide fight against this disease.

Work by artist Fiona Byrne will form part of the exhibition.
Fiona is also a project manager for Stair: An Irish Public History Company

Malaria still kills hundreds of thousands each year, and though those numbers are dropping, there is much to be done. The Malaria Museum is a not-for profit organization, whose ongoing mission is to make malaria history. Working with corporate sponsors, and highlighting their vital work, we will curate the online space, growing it into a virtual community where ideas can be generated, shared, and refined. As we continue to expand the collection of artefacts, the pop-up museum will provide an ephemeral physical space to engage ever more people, 

and get them talking about malaria, and how

 we can come together to save lives.

Ancora Imoaro: I am Still Learning by Noel White and Anne Mac Lellan

The AMLS was founded in 1974 and this year will celebrate it's 40th anniversary. Ancora Imoaro: I am Still Learning  is a History of Medical Laboratory Science by Noel White and Anne Mac Lellan. It will be launched on the 29th of April. 

Irish Museums Association Conference 2014

by Fiona Byrne


The recent Irish Museums Association conference was held in the historic town of Waterford. The conference focused on museums and memory. The speakers ranged from those in charge of national collections to oral historians. However there was surprising consensus over the two days; engagement and community involvement in the act of remembering was championed by all. The realisation that our audience needs to be part of the process might not be a revelation and many are already on this track . It was however reassuring to see such a wide range of people all standing up for inclusion of public voices within our national collections. It seems the future will involve a lot more facilitation and a lot less dictation which in my view can only be a positive thing for museums and galleries in their mission to grow audiences.

Judith Mc Carthy began the two days by asking ‘How do we remember and what have we learned?’ She presented her version of ethical and shared remembering. She stressed that it is paramount that we realise we remember what we have been taught, not everyone will be happy with what we remember and that people make assumptions about what we remember.

Within this framework she allows for multiple viewpoints allowing for people to disagree. She draws attention to the importance of language and how the words and phrases we use are very important. We should always remember that history is personal history as well as national or community history and should be approached with awareness and sensitivity.

Emma Libreri asked us to reflect on the role of the institution in remembering and how the memories they contain may differ from the memories of the community. These alternative dialogues can challenge historical knowledge but this does not mean they should be dismissed. The role of communities is becoming more and more critical in the development of world heritage strategy. She poses the question: what constitutes national memory and how is collective memory formed?Consultation, integration and interaction are the key words Libreri  uses to deal with the curation of history.

Niamh NicGhabhann spoke on the place of performance in commemoration and memory. She looked at the relationship between the festival and the museum space. Though the act of festival proceedings might be temporary they have the ability to produce a communal experience which can perhaps have lasting community meaning. This may be one route to achieve the memorable experiences Raghnall O’Floinn called for in his talk, when he expressed a need for galleries to provide firsthand experience with original materials.

Another way for communities to become integrated into the process of collection is through oral history projects. This method has gained popularity in recent times and during the conference Alice Feldman conducted a workshop on the topic. Feldman takes a ‘story based’ approach avoiding the term oral history. Although I must admit this sits a little uncomfortably for me, the subjects covered in the workshop shed light on the complexities of this methodology.

She spoke about the perception of memory as anecdotal and how this can lead to a ‘fiction versus fact’ comparison with written records. However each of these methods of research offers a different perspective on history. These perspectives should not be compared under the same criteria as they each hold their own sense of authority. It should not be forgotten that written history as well as oral history is by no means free from contextual bias.

Feldman sees ‘story-telling’ as an integral part of existence, enabling ‘sense-making’, and allowing the interviewee to place themselves into a larger historical narrative. We need to accept both these narratives, the personal and the macro narrative, as being correct and allowing them to co-exist even with their possible contradictions.

She talked about the importance of stories as a resource which can enrich history as well as educate and attract audiences. The involvement of members of the community also promotes a feeling of shared ownership within projects. This is hugely important as often there is much information ‘held’ within communities and they are unlikely to share this information if they feel it will be taken away from them, processed and used as the researcher sees fit. As Feldman points out everyone taking part in a project should be able to ‘see themselves reflected in the finished project’.

Raghnall O’ Floinn Director of the National Museums of Ireland also advocated for shared history and shared past. He cited openness, inclusiveness and respect as being the cornerstones of a museums policy.

During his talk he illustrated this point by looking at the list of suggested celebrations on the decade of centeries.ie and the disproportionate weighting between social and economic commemorations (two out of forty) and policical, military, legal and constitutional which make up all the rest of the suggestions. In this way a simple list has the potential to skew our picture of the past. Selective remembering is a must for a museum but we need to be aware of how we select and what picture we portray through curation.

He asked us to consider the purpose of a museum as a storehouse for memory and question whose memories get stored, is there really such a thing as collective memory, what is it’s connection to ‘History’ and where is the room within these institutions for the personal narrative.

Dr. Luke Gibbons spoke on this topic in his talk about the museum, meaning and micro history. He discussed the museum as a place where professional history meets cultural tourism. The difficulties within this space are numerous but one of the main difficulties with being a ‘store house for memory’ is that memory is fluid and constantly changing.

Gibbons reflects on the preformative aspect of the museum space and how it is affected by its own context, materials and physicality. Within  the space the act of curated remembering occurs.

He argues that objects don’t speak for themselves. It is only by virtue of their context they speak to us. Taking this idea he expanded it to portray the object as an utterance but emphasised that objects do not speak with a singular voice.

Taking this view point means that a truly objective view of history is impossible as materials always require mediation through a contextualised source. He encourages us instead to be aware of this inherent bias and look at not only what is said with our institutions but what is repressed.

The conference (as you may have seen from the ever growing list of questions throughout this article) brought up more issues than it solved. However the two days were thought provoking and many of the questions raised are ones which each individual or institution need to answer for themselves becoming ever more self-aware in the process. In this way we can develop a more inclusive policy for dealing with remembering the past and allow ourselves to embrace multiple narratives without feeling the pressure of absolute truth, which seems to be an unobtainable goal. 

FREE History of St. Patrick's Day

Hi everyone we have a little St. Patrick's Day gift for you... Go to http://bit.ly/1dIqgqk to get your free history of the day written by Dr. Edel Bhreathnach one of Stair: An Irish Public History Company Ltd. directors

Contemporary Craft: Curating, Collecting, Critical Writting

by Fiona Byrne

Last Saturday at Collins Barracks the Crafts Council of Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland and The National College of Art and Design held a conference examining the critical concerns around contemporary craft.

This day was divided into three main sections: curating, collecting and writing. During the day much was said and many issues affecting craft and craft makers were raised.

The key note speaker was Martina Margetts, senior tutor in Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art in London. She spoke about how constructing narratives around a subject always involves a form of editing. The key in her opinion is to be aware of our frames of reference and our own contexts as we write, curate or collect.

She also asked us to reflect on the question of who are the outsiders in these contexts and why? Citing Judith Scott as an example of outsider art (Scott has Down’s-Syndrome, is deaf and mute) she asked us to really consider what makes someone an outsider and are we facilitating this in our own contexts as makers, writers, curators or collectors. The choices we make with regard to representation as hugely important. Margetts emphases the ability of objects to connect us to the world and enable sense making, but what objects are we being presented with to make sense of whose world?

Juidth Scott textiles

I would like to focus in on the writing section of the day which, although it focused on craft, it contained many insights which could be universally applied. Gemma Tipton was first to speak on the topic of writing about art and craft. Her warning to the audience: be careful with how we use words and what we do and what we think we do with words. She expressed her love of writing but also her awareness of ‘how awful words can be’.

Our experiences are mostly mediated and communicated through words and using the wrong ones can have a lasting effect. We understand our past through words, so we should ensure we are using the correct ones.

Her dislike of ‘art speak’ and jargon was clearly articulated, though she does admit that there is a need for a technical language for ease of communicating. However, she feels this language is being misused and being used for exclusion rather than communication. She gives the tongue in cheek example of a ‘tea-pot’ versus ‘an interactive drinking vessel’.

There is a real risk with the language used to describe art and craft today of putting people on the ‘other side’ of the conversation rather than drawing them into it. Isn’t it the role of art to draw in the viewer and make them feel or think something, why then should the narrative around the work be different?

Tipton leaves us with the thought, words influence and we should be careful what we use this influence for.

The next speaker, Joe Hogan, master basket weaver, might seem an unlikely speaker at this stage of the day. He sees himself primarily as a maker and spoke openly about the difficulty of dragging himself away from his making to write. He often has to deprive himself of willow rods so that he has no option but to write!

This said he is well aware of the power of words and the need to be able to communicate what you do. Though his writing career has been somewhat sporadic, his policy of writing if and when he has something to say, is one to be commended.

Hogan is a strong advocate for traditional skills. He often reproduces historical baskets to better understand the objects. This hands-on approach to research demonstrates a real connection to the past. This connection has impacted on his own practice too, allowing him more freedom to experiment with new materials.

He spoke of feeling like one of the outsiders Margett spoke of. Many makers working in traditional techniques feel undervalued in today’s contemporary craft context. He asks does it always have to be new to be contemporary?

Wrapping up the writers section was Eleanor Flegg a writer who is definitely taking a new approach to writing about craft. She is currently working on a ceramic sci-fi adventure. This book grew out of a request to write a book about the potter Jack Doherty.

She describes the process as a result of dialogue between two people becoming dialogue between two bodies of work. The concept of ‘writing in parallel’ to a craft practice has allowed Flegg to shed, what she described, as the ‘strait jacket’ of the biography and release herself into a world of enchanting proes.

She began by writing about a pot which stirred negative feeling in her and she wished to resolve these feeling through the writing process. This writing then took on a life of its own.

Flegg is softly spoken and makes you lean in and hang on her words, which are rich in description. She brings us on a journey with a girl searching for the land of dreams, to met Blind Bob and share a raspberry flavoured plum jam wagon wheel and then on to then on to the home of a retired archaeologist who speaks about the voices contained within objects.

Jack Doherty, Keeper Pots

During this reading we were able to "met" the keeper pot which began this novel writing process. The pot, stolen from a dream, was being passed slowly and carefully through the room as Flegg read words which it had inspired.

Each of the speakers draws from different backgrounds and contexts but all understand the significance of language. They understand the legacy that words can leave and are conscious not to abuse this power. Tipton emphases the choice of language, Hogan the choice of topic and Flegg the genre of communication. They have all found their own way of navigating the world of craft through words and raised some very interesting considerations along the way.

Starting-up: getting a public history company up and running

by Niamh NicGhabhann

originally published at http://niamhnicghabhann.tumblr.com/

Since working with the Monastic Ireland project at UCD History and Archives and the Discovery Programme, I have been interested in developing partnerships between academic research and other sectors in the private sector, and in looking at innovative ways of funding research and bringing it to new and different audiences. There are, it must be admitted, some reservations in different quarters about these kinds of partnerships and collaborations, due to fears of an over-emphasis on discourses of impact, and of the application of market logic to higher education and to research (read the first chapter of this very interesting book for an overview of the development of this discourse in the UK and USA.) I’ve written about these reservations elsewhere, and do feel that there is a place for this kind of collaboration as one of many futures for humanities research, and as part of an increasingly diversified funding landscape. Like many academics and researchers, I have often found myself being asked to supply or proofread content for historical projects by different companies or individuals. I usually willingly provide whatever has been requested, because I’m interested in the subjects that I research, and because I’m happy that other people are interested too. However, given the scarcity of jobs for early career researchers in the humanities at the moment, a group of colleagues and I stopped to wonder – could we be doing more to support the creation of jobs and opportunities for new PhD graduates when postdoc opportunities are few and far between? A search on www.etenders.gov.ieconfirmed that there are a wealth of history and heritage-related projects tendered for every month – projects that PhD graduates would be extremely well placed to deliver, earning a living while building their research portfolios.

Together with a group of colleagues from the UCD School of History and Archives, I founded Stair: An Irish Public History Company Ltd. which is a NovaUCD campus company. Stair is a private limited company, which aims to provide project management and content research and delivery for a range of history and heritage projects. The logo above was designed by the very talented Fiona Byrne, and is based on the beautiful curving shape of Gallarus Oratory! While the founding directors have core areas of expertise, one of the founding aims of Stair is to be able to subcontract work to graduate researchers who we know would be best placed to work on particular projects. We act as a kind of matchmaking service, connecting the right researcher with the right project, and providing the limited company structure for contracts, tax and limited liability.

Setting up the company has been a slow process, even with the valuable supports provided by NovaUCD, which included sessions with advisers and the legal advice around the set-up from Nova partners, Arthur Cox. No company set-up is the same, but I thought it might be useful to share some aspects of our experience of the process…

It is relatively easy to set up a company, but this does not mean that maintaining it will be easy. You will need to file regular reports with the CRO, and failure to do so will result in fines. You will also need to register for corporation tax and VAT if it is necessary for your company. We leaned in to the Wicklow Revenue Office, who have been very helpful and willing to pick up the phone and talk us through various forms as we went through the process. You will also need to set up your bank account in order to be able to pay your VAT returns. Again, failure to do so promptly will result in trouble with the Revenue – not what any new company needs to deal with!

These might seem like fairly trivial and obvious things to someone with some business experience, but in my experience, these are the kinds of issues that may scupper a project from the outset. The complexity is compounded by the fact that they are all dealt with by different agencies. I haven’t been able to find a centralized guide which covers all of the key legal requirements for a new company (all suggestions welcome - maybe I am just looking in the wrong place!) An easy-to-follow guide to legal and tax compliance issues which combines all of these key return dates would be a great help for start-ups coming from non-traditional areas such as humanities research. At many of the university commercialization events that I have been at, there has been an assumption that enough venture capital will initially be raised to be able to hire an accountant to work on such filing and returns. While this might be the case for tech companies, it’s not so for humanities start-up that are literally operating on good will and entrepreneurial spirit until some shekels roll into the bank. Some work WILL need to be done by a registered accountant, but not everything, and they are very expensive. This is shoestring stuff, and a practical calendar of key dates and filing requirements and would be very welcome.

A comprehensive list of what must legally be done by an accountant and when would also be very useful.

Following on from this, it would be great to have a clear set of guidelines about an exit strategy for one or all of the directors – what happens when you want to wind up the company, or when someone wants to leave, and how to manage this to avoid mess down the line.

Things that will really help – talk to your revenue office. They are really helpful and will give you a lot of one-to-one help when filling out forms etc. I’d also really recommend getting in touch with your local authority enterprise board. They run talks, courses which are very affordable, and will also arrange mentoring services which are extremely useful. They also run networking events – we have had experience with both the Wicklow County Enterprise Board and the equivalent in Dun Laoghaire, and have found them both very proactive and helpful, regardless of the business type.

Tip - pay attention to your company governance structures. One downside of setting up with a big agency was being given a standard memorandum and articles of association without working on them among ourselves. While this seemed time-saving and prudent at first, we now need to go back and address them to make sure that they fit out particular needs and fit our company structure. Also, take minutes from all meetings, print them and sign them, and then put them in a file with any other company documents, such as your certificate of incorporation, tax clearance certificate, any shareholding agreements (as we had from Nova UCD), copies of the Memorandum and Articles of Association, PPS and addresses of all company directors, bank details, a calendar of key dates for filing returns and the due date of your accounts. This will be your company ‘home’ when it actually lives out of a bag, a train table or a desk somewhere, and will help you to avoid time-consuming searching for essential documents. 

We have just started work on our first successful e-tender bid, which I will blog about in more detail at a later stage. Overall, I feel that there is real potential for start-ups and companies in this area, but that there does need to be some investment in supporting their own particular needs – they are not the same as IT, engineering or medical start-ups, and require some different supports. In some cases, humanities start-up people might need less help in writing pitches, but more help in sorting out accounting procedures and tax returns (this is a huge generalization based on a sample group of one – me!) The potential is there, and it would be fantastic to see some practical supports being developed specifically to support this sector.

Ireland in the Medieval World AD 400-1000

Dr Edel Bhreathnach new book is out published by four courts press:

It narrates the story of Ireland’s emergence into history, using anthropological, archaeological, historical and literary evidence. Subjects covered include the king, the kingdom and the royal household; religion and customs; free and unfree classes in society; exiles and foreigners. 

CLICK HERE for more

Growing Pains: Childhood Illness in Ireland 1750-1950

Round table discussion on Growing Pains: A History of Childhood Illness in Ireland edited by Anne MacLellan (Stair Director) and Alice Mauger will be held at the Rotunda Hospital on the 20th March