Hail ambiguous St Patrick: sounds of Ireland on parade in Birmingham

Birmingham's St Patrick's Day parade claims to be the largest of such events in the UK and the third best attended in the world. Despite resorting to universal advertising proclamations that for one day ‘everyone is a little bit Irish’, this annual march continues to foster the unique musical character of the local diaspora; a metanarrative for the wider, fractious journey of the Irish community into the West Midlands over the past sixty years. This paper examines the primary event in Birmingham's calendar by way of the sounds of the spectacle, considering the musical display that is presented in the processional mode to a static audience sharing city-centre streets one Sunday morning every March. By engaging with the theories on performance of Domenico Pietropaolo, Mikhail Bakhtin and Stephen Greenblatt, this paper argues that it is in the audible space of the parade that Birmingham creates Breda Gray's Ireland ‘of global flows’.     

Myxomatosis in 1950s Britain

In 1953 myxomatosis, a viral disease of rabbits, broke out inBritain for the first time. It rapidly killed tens of millionsof the animals from Kent to the Shetlands. Many farmers andforesters welcomed a disease that virtually eliminated a long-standingand serious agricultural pest. Others were horrified by thesight of thousands of dead and dying animals. With meat stillrationed, consumers rued the loss of a cheap and nutritiousfoodstuff. Rough shooters deplored the loss of prey and hattersand furriers the unavailability of the fur on which their businessesdepended. Rabbits also had champions within the ‘establishment’;these included Winston Churchill who was personally influentialin making deliberate transmission of the disease a criminaloffence. The arrival in Britain of myxomatosis presented theauthorities with difficult questions: should they try to containit, spread it or do nothing; should they take advantage of rabbitdepopulation and try to exterminate such a destructive animal?In the event the outbreak was allowed to run its course andrabbit extermination became government policy. This articleconsiders who or what was responsible for the disease reachingthe UK and how it then spread throughout the country. It examinesthe responses of government, other institutions and membersof the public. Finally, it explores the impact of rabbit de-populationon agriculture, the natural environment and public opinion.     

湘淮集团与19世纪60年代上海的崛起

19世纪60年代,是上海从"江南的上海"向"上海的江南"过渡的关键时期。这一时期,湘淮集团一方面通过解除太平军对上海围困,解决在此过程中产生的诸多社会问题,有效控制了上海的军政大权;另一方面通过采取系列的手段和措施,以处理日显复杂的上海中外关系,为上海的发展创造了一个相对安定和平的环境,从而成为了19世纪60年代上海崛起的一个重要因素。     

The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction in 1940s Britain

German air-raids during the early days of the Second World Wardestroyed a number of cities in Britain. At the same time, somecontemporaries regarded such destruction as an opportunity notonly for the reconstruction of the built environment but alsofor the creation of a fairer society. The replanning of theblitzed areas became a symbol of the aspiration to build a NewJerusalem. This article examines the fate of radical town planning ideasin the 1940s and the early 1950s with particular reference tothe rebuilding of heavily bombed cities. It analyses the visionswhich inspired reconstruction plans, examines their conceptionand studies the visionaries, both ordinary citizens and thepolitical elite. The process of postwar reconstruction in general has becomea much-debated subject in political, economic and social historyin recent years, but there has been a serious lack of detailedexamination of postwar urban replanning and redevelopment. Thisarticle, therefore, also considers how the rebuilding of war-damagedcities should be evaluated in the light of the contemporarypolitical, economic, and social realities and issues duringthe period of postwar reconstruction. ^* I am most grateful to Dr. Nick Tiratsoo and Ms Hannah Pandianfor their comments and encouragements during the preparationof this article. I am also thankful to the editors and the refereefor their comments and suggestions. References starting CABand HLG relate to files in the Public Record Office, London.     

St Odo's St Martin: the uses of a model

The ideal of sanctity presented in Sulpicius Severus' Vita Martini included a repudiation of military life. Sulpicius was concerned to show that Martin was a true ‘man of power’ (potens), but this had nothing to do with the army. On the contrary, in Sulpicius' day, the potens was, in the political sphere, a decidedly civilian patron; in the religious sphere he was a miracle-worker. Six hundred years later the attributes of power were no longer the same. Social and political changes had worked to transform the ‘man of power’ into a warrior. The old ideal remained, however; its reactionary effects were evident in several Cluniac texts, where exemplary men were shown leaving the tumult of the battlefield for the discipline of the monastery. Yet within that same tenth-century Clumiac milieu an entirely different pattern of sointhood, that of the holy warrior, was created by St Odo, the second abbot of Cluny. It was a model quite unprecedented in the West, but it was not created new out of whole cloth. Rather, this new persona was patterned on the same old form. Its explanation seems to lay precisely in Odo's literal adherence to the old paradigm, but understood in the light of the changes which had taken place in the role of the potens.     

The Politics of Citizenship in 1940s Britain: The British Nationality Act

The article examines the enactment of the British NationalityAct, 1948. The legislation created a legal status—Citizenshipof the UK and Colonies—that included Britons and ‘colonial’British subjects under a single definition of British citizenship,and entrenched their right to enter the UK. Between 1948 and1962, some 500, 000 non-white British subjects entered underthe legislation, despite documented evidence of elite suspicionof non-white Commonwealth migration. The article argues thatthis apparent contradiction can only be understood by examiningthe legislation in the context of past migration patterns andBritain's international position in 1948. The legislation wasonly marginally related to migration; it was rather an attemptto maintain a uniform definition of subjecthood in the faceof Canada's unilateral introduction of its own citizenship,and it was an affirmation of Britain's place as head of a Commonwealthstructure founded on the relationship between the UK and theOld Dominions. ^* For comments on earlier drafts, I owe my thanks to John Dorwin,Katie Goebs, Iain McLean, and Desmond King.     

Challenging Myths of the 1960s: The Case of Student Protest in Britain

While much current scholarship and research on the 1960s takesthe existence of a number of myths about the 1960s for granted,effective attempts to define and challenge such myths are rare.One aspect of the period that has suffered conspicuously fromthis neglect, and indeed from a lack of detailed research, isthe series of protests by students that occurred in Britainin the second half of the decade. The myths that have been constructedaround these protests are numerous, and many are, at first glanceat least, persuasive. When they are analysed, however, theyare found to be misleading, and have resulted in the creationof a distorted view of this aspect of the period.