PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Dear Friends,

I write to thank all of you who attended this year's annual ACIS meeting. Despite the hectic week, Bill Starr and I greatly enjoyed the conference. That was due in large part to the energy, enthusiasm, and insight of all of the participants. I am particularly grateful to the plenary speakers, Tom Hachey, Charlie Fanning, Nancy Curtin, and David Norris (recently re-elected to his seat in the Irish Senate). People at Marquette continue to tell me how much they enjoyed having ACIS on campus, and it is of course of matter of great pride for me to be associated with this organization. In this issue of the Newsletter you will find a call from Vice-President John Harrington for nominations for the ACIS election. We all know how important this is, and I ask each of you to consider nominating someone for one of the offices or running yourself. The strength of our organization lies in the many fine individuals who have very generously given their time to it. I know that this year will be no exception, and I thank in advance those who will be willing to have their names put on the slate. Next year's ACIS meeting will be hosted by Jim Rogers and Tom Redshaw at the University of St. Thomas. Details of the meeting appear elsewhere in the Newsletter. The Twin Cities is a beautiful area, and I know that we will all enjoy gathering there.

As ever,

Michael

REGIONAL MEETINGS

Western: The Western ACIS meeting will be held October 11-13 at Santa Clara University, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary as a Jesuit institution of higher learning. Santa Clara University is co-hosting the conference along with San Jose State University and Menlo College. For further information, contact Don Jordan at djordan@menlo.edu.

Midwest: The Center for International Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis will host the Midwest ACIS meeting October 24-26. Plenary speakers include Patricia Boyle Haberstroh and Donald Jordan. Contact Eamonn Wall at walle@msx.umsl.edu for more information.

New England: The New England meeting, on the theme "Northern Ireland since 1998," will meet at Stonehill College, North Easton, MA, on October 24-26. For further details, contact Richard Finnegan (rfinnegan@stonehill.edu).

Mid-Atlantic: The Mid-Atlantic meeting will be held on November 1-2 at Lehman College, The City University of New York, Bronx, New York, on the topic, "Ireland’s Cultures." For further information, contact Martin J. Burke at martinj@lehman.cuny.edu.

Southern: The Southern meeting will be held at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from February 27 to March 1, 2003. The theme is "Modern Ireland and The Persistence of Memory," though other topics will be considered. Send abstracts to: Thomas C. Ware, Dept. of English, The University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN 37403; e-mail: Thomas-Ware@utc.edu; fax: (423) 425-2282; tel.: (423) 425-4238.

BOOK AND DISSERTATION PRIZES

The following were announced at the Book Awards Presentation at the national ACIS meeting held at Marquette University on June 8, 2002:

The Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book: Sean Farrell, Rituals and Riots: Sectarian Violence and Political Culture in Ulster, 1784-1886. The prize committee states that "Professor Farrell's book demonstrates how plebian attitudes rather than political or religious elites dictated the direction of events during the period. His close analysis of the particular circumstances leading to the recurring disturbances exposes the limitations of the stereotypical images of the Irish Catholic as an untrustworthy rebel and the Ulster Protestant as a foreign oppressor. By focusing on the links between public ritual, sectarian violence, and politics, he offers a vigorous reinterpretation of ninetheenth-century sectarianism. The study illuminates the continuing conflict in Northern Ireland."

The Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Literature: Declan Kiberd, Irish Classics. The prize committee writes "Irish literature, [Kiberd] argues, has since the flight of the earls repeatedly found strategies for comprehending the disruptions of modenity. Torn between the claims of the Irish past, the stress of anglicization at home, and encounters in exile that offered different perspectives on both, writers from the filí to Flann O'Brien, from O'Bruadair to Beckett have found formal strategies for representating personal and national dislocations. In 700 pages of lucid prose that is, on every page, a pleasure to read, Kiberd in this book uses his grounding in Irish-language literature to illuminate not only the broad outlines of the history that he is perhaps uniquely qualified to retrace from the hybrid literary perspectives of two languages but also any number of individual literary lives and texts. It is a pathbreaking work that does similar service to theorists from Marx to Benjamin, breathing life into these and other methodological sources. Irish Classics demonstrates once again the inimitable intellect of one of Ireland's most resourcetul, self-renewing scholars of literature and culture."

The James S. Donnelly, Sr., Prize for Books on History and Social Sciences: Angela Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary. The prize committee writes: "In the distinguished traditon of historians like Natalie Zemon Davis, Professor Bourke has focused on a single, small incident to illumine a vast historical landscape. Bourke tells the story of the killing of Bridget Cleary in 1895 by relatives who suspected her of being a fairy double. In the analysis of this tragedy, puolic reaction to it, and the trials that followed, Bourke's analysis opens up new perspectives on subjects as diverse as British attitudes towards Irish Home Rule, gender and class relations in rural Ireland and the study of fairy belief in the Celtic Revival. Thoroughly researched, brightly written, but best of all, brilliantly imagined, Bourke's book is a superb contribution to the scholarship of Irish Studies and a deserving candidate for the James Donnelly prize."

The Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language or Culture: Eamonn Wall, From the Sin-E Café to the Black Hills, and Tony Crowley, The Politics of Language in Ireland, l366-l922. The prize committee writes: "Eamonn Wall's From the Sin-E Café to the Black Hills is a fascinating and formally innovative book, rich with insights into the cultural productions of a new generation or ‘wave’ of Irish immigrants to America. It is a pleasure to read and provides a real education for those of us geographically removed from this important cultural work. Tony Crowley's Politics of Language in Ireland, l366-l922 delivers what its subtitle promises: a deep ‘sourcebook’ of the relationships between the English and Irish languages. The politics of a historical period is illuminated in new ways by such attention to language, and in this book Crowley makes an invaluable contribution to Irish Studies."
 
 

The Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertations: Ben Novick, Oxford University, Ireland's Revolutionary War?: Nationalist Constructions of Irish Identity. The prize committee states that the dissertation "breaks new ground by considering World War I not as merely background, but as a critical event shaping the formation of modern Irish nationalism. By treating advanced nationalist publicity as a propaganda initiative in the context of widespread British war propaganda, Novick provides a nuanced and revealing analysis which will contribute significantly to our understanding of twentieth-century Irish life and culture. The selection committee is unanimous in its choice of Ireland's:Revolutionary War? as the first winner of this prize in memory of the late Adele Dalsimer."

(The remaining minutes from the ACIS AGM may be found on the ACIS Web page: http://www.acisweb.com)

ACIS book prizes for works published in 2001 will be announced in November. Prizes for works published in 2002 will be awarded by committees for each prize formed by the chairs as follows: Dalsimer Prize for Dissertations, Timothy Meagher, CUA; Donnelly Prize for History and Social Sciences, Robert Savage, BC; Durkan Prize for Language and Culture, Charlotte Headrick, OSU; Rhodes Prize for Literature, Margot Gayle Backus, University of Houston; Murphy Prize for first book, Philip Freeman, Washington University. The deadline for submissions to chair and to committee is May 1, 2003. For further information contact John Harrington (harrij2@rpi.edu).

CALL FOR ACIS NOMINATIONS

The Nominations Committee requests nominations for candidates to serve on the ACIS Executive Committee for a two-year term, 2003-2005. The regular two-year election process determines the next Vice President (and incoming President), six discipline representatives (History, Literature, Social Science, Irish Language, Celtic Studies, and Arts), and graduate student representative. Nominations, with permission of nominees, can be made to any member of the committee, which will request further information. Nominations must be made by December 1, 2002. Members of ACIS are urged to participate in this process and to serve as officers. The Nominations Committee members are: John P. Harrington, Chair (harrij2@rpi.edu), Kathryn Conrad (kconrad@ku.edu), and James MacKillop (mackillj@yahoo.com).

CALLS FOR PAPERS

ACIS National Conference

The 41st annual meeting of the ACIS will be held June 4-7, 2003 , at the University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis Campus). The theme is "Irish Environments," an intentionally open-ended topic that encompasses the intellectual, historical, literary, political, and cultural environment of Ireland and the diaspora, as well as the actual physical realm. The conference organizers invite proposals for papers and panels from all disciplines within Irish Studies. We urge participants to organize panels, and especially welcome panels of an interdisciplinary nature. The organizers are eager to present perspectives infrequently heard from in Irish Studies: for instance, economics, folklore, environmental studies, or the history of science. We also welcome the opportunity to present a panel in the Irish language.

Plenary speakers will include Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, curator of Irish paintings at the National Gallery of Ireland, poet Eamonn Grennan of Vassar College and Renvyle, and a banquet address by Joe Dowling, the former artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, now at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The opening reception and sessions on Thursday and Friday will be held at Terrence Murphy Hall, the Minneapolis campus of the University of St Thomas; this building opened in 1992 and boasts one of the largest frescoes in the United States under its arched ceiling. Transportation will be provided to Saturday's sessions on the St. Paul campus, the site of the 1988 national meeting and the home of the 9,000-volume Celtic Collection in O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library.

The conference hotel is the Doubletree Hotel (612) 332-6800, across the street from Terrence Murphy Hall, and also the Holiday Inn a few blocks away (rates still in negotiation). Both are near the renowned Nicollet Mall, a lively strip of restaurants, bars, shops and galleries in downtown Minneapolis. Submit one-page abstracts by October 31 to James Rogers and/or Thomas Dillon Redshaw, Univ. of St Thomas Center for Irish Studies, 2115 Summit Avenue # 5008, St. Paul MN 55105-1096; e-mail: jrogers@stthomas.edu. E-mail proposals are strongly encouraged, but paper abstracts will also be accepted. If by e-mail, send the abstract as an attachment, including your name and affiliation on the page. A preliminary program will be posted on the Web before the end of the year.

Representing the Troubles: Literature, Theatre, Film, TV Drama

In the second half of the 20th century, Ireland experienced thirty years in which the political status of Northern Ireland was challenged by numerous acts of violence. Since the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998 it has been widely sensed that an era has passed in Irish history and that violence of the kind which marked the period 1969-94 is unlikely to recur on the same scale in the foreseeable future. Five years after the signing of the Good Friday agreement seems accordingly an auspicious time to begin an assessment of how the period of the Troubles was represented in literature, theatre, film and television drama. A conference on the above theme will be held in the Royal Irish Academy April 10-11 2003. Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers on relevant subjects. Among topics we hope participants will address in presented papers are: The Troubles and the Family; The View from the South; The Urban/Rural Divide; Sexuality; Religion; Language Choice; Anthologizing the Troubles (though this list should not be considered restrictively exhaustive). Papers will be welcomed that cover more than one genre. Please send abstracts of not more than 500 words to: Symposium Secretary, Committee for Anglo-Irish Literature, Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2, or by e-mail to r.hegarty@ria.ie

Scotch-Irish Identity: The Scotch-Irish in Industrial America

The Center for Scotch-Irish Studies invites proposals for papers and sessions for the second Scotch-Irish Identity Symposium, which will be held in Philadelphia in May 2003. The conference will focus on the Scotch-Irish in industrial America. A steady stream of emigration from Ulster brought skilled and unskilled workers, entrepreneurs, bankers, ministers, educators, and shopkeepers to American cities and towns from the late 18th through the 20th century. These newcomers provided the impetus for industrial enterprises and, especially in the textile industry, for the transfer of technology across the Atlantic. In response to tariff challenges, several firms in Gilford and Lisburn relocated to the United States. Other enterprising Ulstermen went into retail trade, developed new concepts of marketing, and built chain store empires. Others developed banks and networks for finance capital. They made a major contribution to the growth of cities like Pittsburgh. Much of this involved the chain migration of family members and neighbors over more than one generation. In many cases, businessmen of Ulster background provided jobs for emigrants from their former home and otherwise facilitated emigration from Ulster.

Proposals and abstracts for papers and sessions dealing with any aspect of this subject are welcome. These would include: case studies of chain migration; immigrant life in American towns and cities; self-identity; the role of churches, lodges, and friendly societies in the Ulster-American community; relations with other ethnic and religious groups; and analyses of economic, social, and religious movements impacting the Scotch-Irish experience.

Proposals for papers may be submitted at any time to the Center for Scotch-Irish Studies, PO Box 71, Glenolden, PA 19036-0071. Abstracts (300-500 words) describing the paper proposed for this symposium must be received by September 30, 2002. Authors will be informed by November 30, 2002, if their abstract has been accepted. The full text of the paper must be delivered by March 1, 2003. Time for Symposium presentations will be 20-25 minutes. Please contact the above address, telephone (610) 532-8061, or e-mail cntrsis@aol.com to obtain further information.

Ain Shams International Conference on Comparative Literature

A conference on "New Readings of Old Masters" will be held at Ain Shams Guest House, Cairo, Egypt, from March 28 to 30, 2003, under the auspices of Ain Shams International University. Papers dealing with Irish, British and/or American Literature are particularly invited. The deadline for 200-word abstracts is December 30, 2002. Contact Prof. Mary Massoud, 29 Emad El Dine St., Cairo 11111, Egypt; e-mail: marymay@link.net for further information.

Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland

A conference on "Ireland and Europe in the Nineteenth Century" will be held at Queen’s College, Belfast, in June 2003. For further information, contact Dr. Leon Litvack, Dept. of English, QUB, Belfast BT7 INN, Northern Ireland; e-mail: Llitvack@qub.ac.uk

IASIL

The 2003 meeting of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL) will be held at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, July 8-12, on the theme, "Getting into Contact." Plenary speakers include Tony Roche, UCD, and Maureen Murphy, Hofstra University. A special plenary session will be devoted to "Celebrating John Montague," with Richard Cave, Royal Holloway-University of London. There will be a special night of Irish drama along with readings by several invited Irish writers, including John Montague. Papers dealing with all aspects of Irish literatures are welcome, but those which relate to the announced theme will become the basis for a preliminary selection of papers to be published. Papers on any aspect of John Montague’s work and those related to the Field Day Anthology of Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions (to be published in late 2002) are particularly welcome. The deadline for proposals is November 1, 2002, and for abstracts is March 1, 2003. Send proposals and abstracts to: Csilla Bertha, Donald E. Morse and Péter Szaffkó, University of Debrecen, Institute of English and American Studies, 4010 Debrecen, Pf. 73, Hungary H-4010; e-mail: IASIL03@delfin.klte.hu.

Modern Language Association

The American Conference for Irish Studies will sponsor two panels at the 2003 MLA Convention. One of these panels, "Irish Audiences," was inspired by submissions to the 2002 MLA panels, and hence is already full. The second, "‘Damned or at the Bottom of the Ocean’: Ireland's Position in Eighteenth-Century Studies," is wide open and ready for submissions. Please send all submissions to Margot Backus, 8514 Braesview Lane, Houston, TX 77071, or e-mail to mbackus@mail.uh.edu, by April 15, 2003.
 
 

Tom did not have the conventional Irish-American boyhood and adolescence. His parents had assimilated into Greenwich’s upper-middle-class mainstream. He remarked that he first became self-consciously Irish Catholic at college when a young woman refused to date him because of his background. His involvement in Irish history and culture resulted from intellectual curiosity rather than emotional loyalties to heritage. Instead of concentrating on his stalled Columbia dissertation, the political novels of Andre Malraux, Tom was reading Irish history. He came to realize that Ireland should be at the center of his research and writing. His decision led to the widely praised The Irish Novelists, 1800-1850 (Columbia, 1959). This study of Maria Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, John Banim, Gerald Griffin, and William Carleton is both first-rate intellectual history and perceptive literary analysis.

Starting in the 1960s, Tom, Jean, and their young daughters, Ellen and Caitlin, began to spend summers and sabbaticals in Ireland. From Dublin, he traveled the country visiting places that would appear in his novels, and developed close friendships with leading authors, including Benedict Kiely and Seamus Heaney.

Tom stayed on at Columbia in the English department until 1960 when the University of California, Berkeley beckoned. In 1978, he moved to SUNY at Stony Brook. Nineteen years later Tom retired as distinguished professor of English and the Flanagans returned to Berkeley. Wherever Tom taught, undergraduate and undergraduate students praised his classroom efforts and research guidance. Although he generously gave time to his teaching obligations, Tom also published essays on various aspects of Irish history and culture in the Kenyon Review, Victorian Studies, Irish University Review, and Hibernia, and reviews in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and other newspapers.

In the mid-1970s, while still at California, Tom began writing The Year of the French, which focused on events in Ireland’s West to examine and explain the ingredients that shaped the revolution of 1798. Holt published the novel in 1979 and it won the National Book Critics Circle fiction award. Tom’s next venture into fictionalized Irish history, The Tenants of Time (Dutton, 1988), covered the period from the failed Fenian insurrection of 1867 to the aftermath of Parnell fall in 1891. In 1994, he concluded his trilogy with The End of the Hunt (Dutton), which probed the grievances, valor, and personal ambitions that motivated Irish revolutionary nationalism during the Anglo-Irish and Civil Wars. Tom’s fictional and scholarly journey through key phases of Ireland’s difficult, often frustrating, journey to political independence exhibit vast research, judicious and perceptive analysis, a keen sense of time and place, and clear and elegant prose. His novels played an important role in the increasing American interest in and appreciation of things Irish.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Tom’s work indicated an attention shift in the direction of his own country’s culture, especially its Irish-American dimensions. Highly intelligent and exceptionally well-crafted essays on Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eugene O’Neill, John Ford, and, finally, William Kennedy in The New York Review of Books reveal that Tom’s talents did not diminish over time and indicate a fresh creative energy. The NYRB will publish them soon in book form

Tom was a pioneer member of the American Conference of Irish Studies, and remained active at national and regional conferences. By integrating the historical and literary dimensions of the Irish experience, Tom’s essays, novels, lectures, and scholarly papers epitomized ACIS objectives. His brilliant NYRB analyses of John Ford directed movies displayed his understanding that the screen as well as the stage and printed page can and does reveal Irish character and genius.

On March 21, 2002, only four days after he was in New York for St. Patrick’s Day and to submit the final chapter of his new book of essays, Tom died of a heart attack in his Berkeley home, fourteen months after Jean passed away. Two daughters, Ellen Klavan and Caitlin Flanagan, both published writers, survive their mother and father.

David Beers Quinn was born in Dublin on April 24, 1909, but grew up in the small town of Clara, in the Brosna flood plain of the Irish midlands, with a sizable and active Protestant population. His father was a gardener in this minority community, from whom David perhaps gained his lifelong love of the rose. After being educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, a scholarship took David to Queen’s University, Belfast, where he studied under J. E. Todd. However, it was E. Estyn Evans, a geographer of wide-ranging interests, who proved most influential in shaping his views by encouraging a broad interpretation of the nature of historical study. After graduation in 1931 he moved to King’s College London and the institute of historical research, where he worked under A. P. Newton, Rhodes professor of imperial history, and began work on the two themes of British colonial history and early modern Ireland.

David secured his first post in 1934 at the then small University College, Southampton, but returned to Queen’s five years later where he helped Todd in professionalizing Irish history as a distinct sub-discipline. He was one of a small band who developed the Irish Historical Society and the Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies. He was always proud of his role in helping establish the historical study of his native land on a firmly non-sectarian basis.

After wartime secondment to the BBC European Service in 1943, David moved to a chair at University College Swansea the following year. He remained there until 1957, when he became Andrew Geddes and John Rankin professor of modern history at Liverpool University. Here he built up a sizable department, one of whose features was its strength in extra-European history.

Throughout his career the history of Ireland remained important to him, and he was a leading contributor to two volumes of A New History of Ireland. In discovering a broad European context for Irish history, he was inevitably drawn towards the study of expansion, and it was in that field he undoubtedly made his greatest mark. Among his numerous publications, Roanoke Voyages (1955) probably gave him the most satisfaction. North America: From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements (1977) became a standard text in many American universities. Works such as Ralegh and the British Empire (l947: rpt. 1973) found a wide audience outside academia. Among his works dealing specifically with connections between Ireland and North America, "Ireland and Sixteenth-Century European Expansion" (Historical Studies 1 [1958], 20-32); The Elizabethans and the Irish (1966); and "The Munster Plantation: Problems and Opportunities" (Cork Historical and Archaeological Journal 71 [1966], 19-41), should be mentioned.

Retirement meant little to his commitment to history. Part-time appointments at American universities meant he was 75 before he stopped teaching. Meanwhile, his research output continued. Awarded a DLit by Queen’s in 1958, he received honorary degrees from many other, mainly American, institutions, and served as president of the Hakluyt Society from 1982 to 1987.

David was supported in all he did by his wife, Alison Robertson, whom he met and married in 1937. She was a scholar in her own right and for many years his uncomplaining chauffeur, before passing away in 1993. David died on March 19, 2002, and is survived by two sons and a daughter.

Information for this obituary was gained primarily from The Guardian (April 6, 2002)
 

NEW POSITIONS

The Music Department and the Irish Studies Program of Boston College is seeking an ethnomusicologist for a full-time, tenure-track position to begin in the Fall of 2003. Expertise in Irish traditional music is essential, as well as some experience teaching world music, and/or another area in ethnomusicology at the undergraduate level. Applicants should possess a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. The Music Department of Boston College, founded in 1989, is a small but growing department within a large, undergraduate liberal arts program. In addition to major and minor concentrations in music we support a large chorale (150 voices), a small symphony orchestra and chamber music society, as well as numerous smaller a cappella singing groups and bands. The music major, minor and all the courses are open to students who come from varied musical backgrounds. An important component of the department has been the program in Irish Music performance. Applicants should submit a letter of application, curriculum vitae and three letters of recommendation by October 1 to: Professor T. Frank Kennedy, S.J., Chair, Search Committee, Music Department, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. Boston College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

NEWS FROM ACIS MEMBERS

John Harrington has been appointed Dean at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Russell Sage 5306, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180-3590; e-mail: harrij2@rpi.edu; tel. 518-276-6575; fax: 518-276-4871. We wish him every good fortune in his new position.

BOOK NOTES

Ireland's Great Hunger / Silence, Memory and Commemoration

This book, edited by David A. Valone and Christine Kinealy, was published by University Press of America, Inc., in July and is now available from the Press. The paperback is a multi-disciplinary collection of essays developed from presentations at a conference about Ireland's 19th-century catastrophe that was held at Quinnipiac University in September 2000 (ISBN number 0-7618-2345-X). To order, contact the University Press Web site: www.univpress.com.

Irish Books in Print - The New Internet Database of Irish Books

This includes thousands of Irish-published, Irish-authored, Irish- interest, Irish-language titles, searchable by title, author, ISBN, publisher and category. Information includes title, author, publisher, ISBN, price, category, dimensions, availability and synopsis. This is based on listings from Books Ireland, with publisher and distributor contact information: with no software to install, it is quick and easy to use. Contact www.rapidmultimedia.com.

Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush: Colm Tóbín has published a sharp, witty, and much-needed reassessment of a major cultural figure who has been oddly taken for granted and often badly misunderstood. He examines the contradictions that defined Lady Gregory, who idealized the Irish peasantry, championed Yeats, Synge, and O'Casey, and celebrated Irish rebellion, while never abandoning her great house, social connections, or aristocratic hauteur. Co-published by The University of Wisconsin Press and The Lilliput Press, Dublin, Ireland, the Wisconsin edition is for sale only in North America (ISBN: 0-299-18000-X). Contact www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress.

Irish Film Watch by Jim MacKillop & Gerry Furey

Galway Film Fleadh: The international theme of the 14th Film Fleadh meant that the reigning star was Indian-born director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) and Irish materials were reduced to less than one quarter of screen time over five days, July 9-14. One of the most promising features was Terence Ryan's comedy Puckoon, completed in 2001 but released only now. Based on Spike Milligan's hilarious novel of the same title (1963), the scene is the nefarious work of the Border Commission in 1924, splitting the village of Puckoon right down the middle. Sean Hughes leads a cast that includes Sir Richard Attenborough, Elliott Gould and Irish favorites, John Lynch, David Kelly and Milo O'Shea. Milligan, who died shortly after shooting was completed, also appears. Despite the 5 million copies of Puckoon sold, Milligan was better known as a comic performer, first as a member of the legendary Goon Show (with Peter Sellers and others) and as a kind of godfather to the Monty Python troupe.

Rent by Mail: Given its path-of-least resistance marketing, your local Blockbuster or its other national competitors is unlikely to be stocking Irish films that never achieved wide release in the first place. That's where specialized rent-by-mail agencies come in, two of which have shown a sustained interest in the Irish market. Facets of Chicago is by far the larger, with up to 30,000 titles (VHS and DVD) for rent and many more for sale. Years ago Facets offered a printout of Irish-related titles, but word searches of the catalog can now accomplish the same task. Consult www.facets.org. The membership fee may be applied against such future rentals as Syd McCartney's acclaimed but little-seen A Love Divided (1999). For rentals, call (800) 532-2387. The much larger sale catalog includes such rarities as George Pollock's comedy Broth of a Boy/The Big Birthday (1959). The smaller Home Video Festival of Scranton, PA, is less expensive and more user friendly. Its catalog and Web site, www.homefilmfestival.com, offer an Irish list, with such rarities as the Australian mini-series Kings of Grass Castles (1997), based on Dame Mary Durack's memoir of her family's emigration from Galway to Queensland. Call (800) 258-3456 for further information.