“Did that play of mine …?”: James Connolly,Cathleen Ni Houlihan and staging revolution

Abstract

Despite the crucial position he occupies in Irish history as one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, and the political – and emotional – impact of his subsequent execution, while wounded, by the British Army on 12 May 1916, the writings of Edinburgh-born James Connolly have often been overlooked in both Irish and Scottish studies, and not just in accounts of the Rising but also in the wider context of cultural connections, including cultures of commemoration. In particular, Connolly’s surviving literary work, including Under Which Flag?, the drama staged on the eve of Easter 1916, as well as poems and songs, has had limited attention. This article reconsiders Under Which Flag? in comparison with Yeats and Gregory’s Cathleen ni Houlihan in order to demonstrate the central place the drama holds as a continuation – and complication – of Connolly’s political and journalistic writings. If Connolly is a neglected figure as a writer – as opposed to a political leader and martyr – then the play he left behind (once thought to have been lost, like another of his dramas, The Agitator’s Wife) affords us an opportunity to reassess his contribution to the struggle for independence as part of its literary wing.     

Satellite Remote Sensing of Archaeological Vegetation Signatures in Coastal West Africa

This article discusses how archaeological sites in Sierra Leone, and by extension much of West Africa, can be identified through vegetation patterns (vegetation signatures) detectable in very high-resolution (VHR) multispectral satellite imagery. Settlement sites typically have a differing pattern of vegetation from the surrounding landscape, including concentrations of very large trees with sociocultural and historical significance: cotton (Ceiba pentandra) and baobab (Adansonia digitata). These features are conspicuous elements of the landscape both from the ground and in aerial imagery. Two complementary methods of using VHR multispectral satellite imagery are discussed in this paper: visual interpretation and semi-automated subpixel classification. These techniques are aiding ongoing archaeological survey of the Sierra Leone River Estuary. The impact of recently renewed industrial activity at a site of probable archaeological significance is also assessed through visually interpreted VHR satellite imagery.     

Reviews

Australian

Scott Bennett, Aborigines and Political Power. Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1989, pp.167. $ 17.95 (paper)

Jim Downing, Country of My Spirit. Darwin, North Australian Research Unit, Australia National University, 1988, pp.181. $ 12.50 (paper)

Hugh V. Emy and Owen E. Hughes, Australian Politics: Realities in Conflict, Melbourne, Macmil‐lan, 1988, pp. 554. $29.95 (paper)

Paul Finn, Law and Government in Colonial Australia, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 216. $40.00 (cloth)

Ross Fitzgerald and Harold Thornton, Labor in Queensland From the 1880s to 1988. St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1989, pp.422. $34.95 (paper)

Brian Galligan (ed.), Australian Federalism, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1989 pp. 228. $15.95 (paper)

Brian Galligan (ed.) Comparative State Policies, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1988, pp.303. $21.25 (paper)

Helen Gardner (ed.). The Politics of Health. Melbourne, Churchill Livingston, 1989, pp. 492. $29.50 (paper)

Brian W. Head and Allan Patience (eds), From Fraser to Hawke: Australian Public Policy in the 1980s, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, pp.525. $19.95 (paper)

Dean Jaensch (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia — Political History, Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 1986, pp.533. $40.00 (paper)

Dean Jaensch, Power Politics: Australia's Party System, 2nd edn, Sydney, Allen & Unwin Australia, 1989, pp.226. $18.95 (paper)

Jonathan Kelley and Clive Bean (eds), Australian Attitudes: Social and Political Analyses from the National Social Science Survey, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1988, pp.206. $ 15.95 (paper)

D.A. Kemp, Foundations for Australian Political Analysis: Politics and Authority, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp.488. $29.95 (paper)

Clem Lloyd: Either Drought or Plenty: Water Development and Management in New South Wales, Sydney, Kangaroo Press, 1988, pp.311. $37.50 (cloth)

Ian McAllister and John Warhurst (eds), Australia Votes: The 1987 Federal Election, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1988, pp.284. $19.95 (paper)

G.S. Reid and Martyn Forrest, Australia's Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1988: Ten Perspectives, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1989, pp.572. $29.95 (cloth)

Comparative and international

Mike Bowker and Phil Williams, Superpower De‐tented Reappraisal, London, Sage, 1988, pp. 277. £10.95 (paper)

Charles Chatfield and Peter van den Dungden (eds), Peace Movements and Political Cultures, Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1988, pp.317. US$39.95 (cloth)

Ronald W. Clark, Lenin. The Man Behind the Mask. London, Faber & Faber, 1988, pp.564. £17.95 (cloth)

David Lane (ed.), Elites and Political Power in the USSR, Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1988, pp.299. £28.50 (cloth).

Alistair Cole and Peter Campbell, French Electoral Systems and Elections since 1789, 3rd edn, Alder‐shot, Gower, 1989, pp.202. £25.00 (cloth)

Conlan, Timothy, New Federalism: Intergovernmental Reform from Nixon to Reagan, Washington, D.C., Brookings, 1988. pp.247. US$15.95 (paper)

Russell J. Dalton, Citizen Politics in Western Democracies. Chatham, N.J., Chatham House, pp. 270. US$14.95 (paper)

E. Etzioni‐Halevy, National Broadcasting Under Seige: A comparative Study of Australia, Britain, Israel and West Germany, Hampshire, Macmillan. 1987, pp. 212. $82.95 (cloth)

Roger Hilsman, The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs: Conceptual Models and Bureaucratic Politics, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice‐Hall, 1987, pp.326. $42.50 (paper)

Scott Newton and Dilwyn Porter, Modernization Frustrated: The Politics of Industrial Decline in Britain since 1900, London, Unwin Hyman, 1988. pp. 224. $7.95 (paper)

J. Mathews, Tools of Change: New Technology and the Democratisation of Work, Sydney, Pluto Press, 1989. pp.234. $14.95 (paper)

Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.318. $39.50 (paper)

Robert Springborg, Mubarak's Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order, Boulder & London, Westview Press, 1989, pp.307. $39.95 (cloth)

Edward A. Tiryakian and Ronald Rogowski (eds), New Nationalism of the Developed West, Boston, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.394. $69.00 (cloth)

Political theory and methodology

J. Budziszewski, The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politics of Virtues. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988, pp.201. US$24.95 (cloth)

Peter Grabosky and Paul Wilson: Journalism and Justice: How Crime is Reported Sydney, Pluto Press, 1989, pp.l49.$14.95(paper)

George Grant, English‐Speaking Justice. Notre Dame, Notre Dame University Press, 1985 (1974), pp.104. US$8.95 (paper)

J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. One, Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans, by T. McCarthy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.465. $45.40 (paper)

J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. Two, The Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans, by T. McCarthy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.447. $69.95 (cloth)

J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans, by F. Lawrence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987, pp.430. $65.00 (cloth).

Les Johnston, Marxism, Class Analysis and Socialist Pluralism, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp. 155. $19.95 (paper)

Bernard Daucnhaucr, The Politics of Hope, London, Routledge, 1986, pp.200. $76.95 (cloth)

Bill Jordan, The Common Good: Citizenship, Morality and Self‐interest, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, pp. 190. $29.95 (paper)

Ciaran O'Maolain, The Radical Right: A World Directory, Harlow, Longman, 1987, pp.500. £45.00 (cloth)