Radio, radio, radios everywhere

As promised, the second part of my tour of the old city gaol in Cork, focusing on the radio museum, found on the east side of the prison, which was closed in 1923. As I mentioned in my last post, the radio museum was the real reason why I visited the gaol when I was down in Cork in early 2009, before becoming a student in UCC.

After the final prisoners left Cork gaol when it closed in 1923, the prison lay empty and derelict for four years, when a radio station was established in the east wing of the abandoned institution. Ireland's first radio station, 2RN, began broadcasting form Dublin in January 1926, but the signal was often weak in areas far from Dublin, so a Dáil resolution, encouraged by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, J.J. Walsh, was passed in 1927 which allowed for the establishment of a radio station (to be called 6CK) and transmitter in Cork to act as a relay for the national programme from Dublin and as a contributor to the new service by producing programmes from the city. The proposal to open a relay station so soon after the opening of the national service, at a time when the economy of the fledgling state was severely stretched following the exhaustiveness of the War of Independence and the Civil War less than a decade prior, drew much criticism from the Department of Finance. The government persevered, however, with Walsh eager to extend the new service to the second city. That he also happened to be a TD for Cork city possibly hastened the rolling out of the relay service.

The first station director of 6CK was Sean Neeson, a graduate of Queen's University, Belfast who had an existing knowledge of the old gaol's interior, having been detained there as a political prisoner by the Free State government during the Civil War.

The radio exhibit starts with a look at the earliest days of radio technology, such as the development of Morse code and an explanation of how sound waves work. This is followed by an exhibit on Guglielmo Marconi, or is supposed to be, this part of the exhibit was not working, nor was it working during my first visit nearly two years ago.

The museum holds a significant number of pieces of equipment used by broadcasters, including a microphone and stand used by John F. Kennedy on his visit to Ireland in June 1963. The microphone and stand were owned by Radio Éireann (as it then was), and were "retired" from service by Paddy O'Connor, a technical supervisor with the Cork relay station after their use by Kennedy on the day he received the freedom of Cork city on Friday, June 28, 1963.

From here, you can see the studio used by 6CK and Radio Éireann, with the small performing area for whatever programme was being broadcast, and the producer's desk outside the studio, with the control panel and the telephone at hand, next to a waxwork figure of a producer. On the wall next to this scene is a display featuring a 1920s map of the world from the United States, listing a number of short wave radio stations from around the globe and explaining how short wave radio works. There are a number of short wave radios under this map, placed to allow people to search for short wave stations today, though sadly these radios did not work, either on this visit, or on my prior visit to the museum.

The next display is that of a myriad of radio sets from numerous countries, made at different times of the twentieth century. If you love old radios, this is probably as good as it gets, with expensive vintage table-top sets of the 1930s mixed with cheaper, mass-produced Bakelite sets of the 1940s, and the popular transistor radios of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the sight of these vintage radios, the display incorporates an audio gallery, featuring various news items and entertainment programmes as they heard from the first few decades of radio broadcasting. Broadcasters from America, as well as the BBC and from 2RN/Radio Éireann are heard, encompassing the likes of the Hindenburg disaster, the infamous Hitler declaring Germany to be a country of "one people, one nation, one leader", Edward VIII's abdication message, Franklin D. Roosevelt speech to Congress after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, Harry Truman's confirmation that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, as well as lighter events such as Orson Welles' assurance to the American public that "The War of the Worlds" was not a real news story, and performances by Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

The final part of the exhibit is the RTÉ collection, which features pieces of technology used in Irish radio's earliest days, such as portable amplifier and mixer unit used by legendary broadcaster Michael O'Hehir for his GAA and horse racing commentaries, and a ribbon microphone used by Radio Éireann from 1948 to 1957, similar in nature to microphones still used by RTÉ and the BBC today. Also shown are copies of the front covers of popular radio magazines from the 1970s and 1980s, with the RTÉ Guide featuring prominently.

Overall, I enjoyed the radio museum. It feels like having a personal museum, as this exhibition is more hidden than the main gaol exhibition, and doesn't appear to be as popular as the gaol. Perhaps this lack of activity from the general public explains what is a source of great disappointment to me, which is that a number of displays don't work, and clearly haven't for a couple of years. The Cork city gaol website says it houses "two special visitor attractions", but it's clear that one attraction is promoted more than the other, which is a pity. While I recognise that most people would be far more interested in the gaol and the social history it provides, I would like to see more of an effort to bring the radio exhibit back to a level it was clearly at a few years ago, because continuing to let displays break down won't help, and the day might come when we lose one of those "two special visitor attractions" because of neglect, and that would be a travesty.

A (voluntary) visit to an old prison...

As the world and it's mother knows, the jazz festival was on in Cork this past weekend. I did go into town and saw a few acts, but I'm not a big fan of huge crowds standing in small spaces, so on Saturday, I went out of the city centre and headed to the old city gaol in Sunday's Well. It's not the first time I went there: when UCC hosted the World University Debating Championships during Christmas break 2008-9, I was a judge from Galway (though actually representing Manchester, a story for another day), and went to the old gaol on a morning off because it also hosts a radio museum, and I thought it might a nice, relaxing way to ease myself into the day and out of another monster hangover I had "earned" over the course of the week. To be honest, I wasn't at all interested in the gaol at the time, I wanted to see the radio exhibit. On my second visit, though, I decided to actually experience the gaol tour. I'll write about the radio museum in my next post.

The first sight you get of the old prison is the sheer height of the outside walls. Naturally enough, when you design a prison, you want to make the place secure and difficult to break out of, and you can certainly appreciate that no criminal was going to be able to vault over ten metre-high walls and survive the landing. As prisons are supposed to do, the old city gaol does imprint itself on you, emphasising what laid in store for people who broke the law while it functioned between 1824 and 1923. Entering the prison ground via a small stairwell, you reach a second, longer staircase to enter the main area of the prison (I suppose prison-building regulations of the nineteenth century didn't take disabled access into account). Climbing this staircase takes you to the main prison, where you start the tour, which is set in 1865, courtesy of a Sony Walkman (a feature which forced one of the workers at the gaol to explain to a bemused child how this was "like an iPod, but not as good") with a pair of professional actors directing you around the gaol, starting with a wax figure depicting of a frequent female "guest" of Queen Victoria being assisted by a prison matron.

The first room visited shown is that of the Governor, featuring a faded portrait of Victoria above the fireplace. The Governor portrayed is John Barry Murphy, the first Catholic to hold the office, as part of a British approach to Ireland which saw Catholics promoted to prominent, though not top, positions. This extension of important jobs to the burgeoning Catholic middle class was part of a general policy of pacifying Ireland and integrating the troubling nation into the United Kingdom. Murphy would soon experience the political difficulties of his position, as the Fenian uprising of 1867 kicked the view that Ireland was becoming placated into touch.

Going through the west wing of the prison, you get an idea as to conditions of the prison during its century of operation. The thick walls, the narrow corridors and the small windows some 180cm off the ground give an indication of the confinement and isolation felt by the prisoners. The then-common belief that criminality was a contagious disease saw the authorities eager to isolate prisoners where possible, with solitary confinement and strict silence the order of the day.

The cells themselves are Spartan, with a small pot serving as bathroom facilities, and a thin canvas mattress resting on beds barely five centimetres off the ground (and this was an improvement on the old prison which utilised old straw for bedding. Despite what we might call poor conditions, these were probably quite comfortable for many of the inmates, as stories are told by the taped tour guides of petty thieves forced into lives of crime because of abject poverty and hunger. It would appear that poverty was the real crime committed by many of the prisoners, unaccustomed to the decent standard of living enjoyed by the elites of Irish society.

The tour quickly moves on, via assorted waxwork figures of prisoners, wardens, and various members of staff, to the gaol's final years, as a prison for political activists during the War of Independence and, following the transfer of the gaol from British to Irish control, anti-Treaty activists during the Civil War, before the prison closed in 1924, with displays of defiant graffiti from prominent political activists eager to show that hope had not been lost, even as the prison itself deteriorated into a vermin-ridden nightmare, with massive overcrowding forcing up to four prisoners into cells designed to hold no more than one or two people, as the Civil War raged across the city and the country.

The tour gives an insight into the dietary habits of the inmates, with brown bread, milk, Indian meal and porridge being the extent of the nourishment given. A typical timetable is displayed, together with a list of typical jobs given to various prisoners based on sex and severity of the crime which landed the convicts in the gaol in the first place.

Finally, the tour illustrates the development and updating of the prison, from its designing by prominent architect Sir Thomas Deane (who had also designed UCC), the introduction of a water supply from 1858 and of gas lighting in 1865.

To me, it seems odd to discuss the designing and establishment of the gaol at the end of a tour about the prison, but I can understand why this is so: the tour wishes to emphasis the social historical aspect of the institution, placing the histories of the inmates over the mere facts of how the building was constructed. In all, though, it's a tour worth going on, because it's a part of Cork that isn't immediately visible when you get into the city, but is very much a part of Cork's history, and at €7 (€6 for students), is a reasonably priced way to spend an afternoon. Just don't try to sneak through without paying, though...

Next post: the radio museum, which is also in the old gaol!

Zotero: Zo Zimple

In our digital history class two weeks back we were told about some free programs available on the Internet to help with citations and bibliographies, something which is important when you're writing any essay, but even more so when you're working on a thesis, because there's so much information you need to put in, and it's easy to miss a reference when you're rushing through seventy or eighty pages in late September before bringing it to the binders. One of the programs was Zotero ("zoh-TAIR-oh", according to the program's start guide), which allows you to extract information from library and bookstore websites by going through catalogues and collecting information on the book or article you want to use, as well as storing the information for later reference. A slight problem is that it's an extension for the Firefox web browser, meaning you need to download  Firefox in order to use Zotero if you normally use Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.

I was amazed when learning about this program, the various things which the program can do left me rather stunned, in much the same way I was when I first encountered iTunes (even if you don't like iTunes, it's still pretty cool to be able to access millions of songs on the Internet, and have all your own music in one place too). Sadly my amazement slowly receded as it dawned on me that this program existed during the summer, while I was writing another thesis. The thought of those hours I spent citing and referencing the old-fashioned way while there was a faster way of doing it via a free downloadable program nearly brought tears to my eyes, and I was rather well organised! I can only imagine the length of time it takes when one does their referencing at the end, after writing the rest of the thesis.

The program looks simple enough, with an easily navigational interface which lets you organise files efficiently and without difficulty. But the most impressive feature is its ability to save an article or a catalogue entry which would normally require me to either manually save a PDF (if it's an article) to my computer, which would invariably get lost among the plethora of documents, music, video games and web pages currently clogging my laptop. The delight of being able to save a file with two clicks, knowing that I can access it at a later date anywhere in the world on any computer, has re-emphasised the reason why I love modern technology (especially if it's free!). This next thesis has already been made that little bit easier to deal with.

And yes, the tabloid-sounding title I gave this post was my idea, and I'll be expecting a royalty cheque if Zotero ever use that as a slogan.

Rooney's U-turn

So, Wayne Rooney has signed a new five-year deal with Manchester United, four days after saying he wouldn't sign any new contract and three days after saying he wanted to leave the club, all but reducing United's manager Sir Alex Ferguson to tears at the press conference ahead of the club's midweek European tie against Bursaspor. Interestingly, Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini, one of the few men who could afford to buy and pay Rooney to play for his club, said as early as Thursday that the player would probably stay at Old Trafford, as this kind of behaviour occurs often in Mancini's native Italy, apparently a ploy used by talismanic players to a squeeze a bump in pay from their employers. If that's the case, one could say that Rooney's intelligence has been underestimated. However, the way he went about this, assuming this was an elaborate ploy of his own concoction, was completely misguided and has left a bitter taste in the mouths of United supporters, with Max Clifford acknowledging the entire affair as "a public relations disaster".

Could it be that under a guise of "upwardly mobile chav" old Wayne is secretly a man of great intellect? To be fair, not all footballers are the stereotypical dullards we're told they are. When Burnley's captain, Clarke Carlisle, appeared on three editions of "Countdown" last February, he became the first Premier League footballer to appear on the show, with RTÉ and BBC websites both dedicating coverage to the player's appearances on a programme that neither broadcaster show. Yahoo Sport offered a list of footballers who also buck the stereotype; much as I dislike Frank Lampard (possibly only because he plays for Chelsea), I can't help but be impressed, and not a little envious, that he has 12 GCSE's, an A* in Latin, and an IQ of 150.

That said, Wayne is probably not the sharpest tool in the shed: he was embroiled in a tabloid scandal in 2004 after sleeping with a number of prostitutes, including a 48-year old grandmother known as "Auld Slapper" (which I'll assume is an affectionate nickname). Having rebuilt his relationship with his future wife Coleen and after handling the taunting of crowds across England, Rooney was then found last month to have been playing with prostitutes again, clearly forgetting that this sort of behaviour does not help with your marriage, or indeed help secure contracts with companies willing to pay you a small fortune to wear their suit/ watch/ after shave.

Speaking of trust, there's the small matter of dealing with the Manchester United fans who felt aggrieved following the news that Rooney wanted to leave the club, including the ones who congregated outside his house on Wednesday evening, presumably looking to have a small chat with the want-away striker and "persuade" him that United is the best club he could play for. Naturally, after running the club and its supporters through the mill during the week, Rooney has to convince people that he still loves United, and is eager to help the club to future success, beginning the new charm offensive via the club's website, shortly after signing the new contract. Ferguson is eager to draw a line under the turbulence of the past few days, preferring to focus on this weekend's game against Stoke, but United's supporters will not be as quick to move on. Most fans let the news of his cheating on his wife slide, but the view that he held his club, and the manager who had helped develop him into one of the finest players of his generation, will mean a harder sell of Rooney's loyalty to the Old Trafford faithful.

Reeling in the Years

With baited breath, I looked forward to seeing the return of RTÉ's excellent "Reeling in the Years" retrospective, with the year 2000 being shown last night. It's a show that clearly doesn't appeal merely to history graduates, since the series from the 1960s to the 1990s still claim huge audiences every time they're repeated, even though the first batch of episodes, covering the 1980s, first aired eleven years ago. That's probably the first horific thing I realised; that the first series, which I fondly remember seeing first time around back in 1999, was first shown over a decade ago. Seeing the 1990s series in 2000 felt a little odd, because the last episode was shown less than a year after the featured year itself had finished, but for me the series still felt like watching history, because the early 1990s are a bit hazy. I don't have that excuse now, because I can vividly remember the year 2000 (well, aside from some of the music; I'm not a big fan of modern pop, if it was released after 1995, I'm not really interested). As I watched a lamb defecate on Bono's leather jacket sleeve, it dawned on me that ten full years has already elapsed. It's all well and good to look at the Medieval perios as "history", but there must a certain amount of discomfort when a programme is shown featured a year you easily remember, yet it's called "retrospective" (merely a polite way of saying "if you remember it, you're old". It certainly felt like that to me last night!

The whole process got me thinking about relative history, basically recent events which happened in the last couple of decades. I have a video recording of the 1992 "Late Late Toy Show" featuring Uncle Gay, one of the many obligatory multi-coloured jumpers he donned for the occassion annually, assisted by some woman named Eileen who I never heard of before or since, and the lad who was on the children's quiz "Physiquiz" at the time before disappearing soon after, before reappearring for another RTÉ kids quiz about a decade later. Anyway, aside from an insight into what the kiddies wanted from Santa during the year with record unemployment (er, until this year), one toy was discussed as the most popular toy when it was first featured on the Late Late Toy Show eighteen years previously, in 1974. I could almost sense the dismay in Uncle Gay's voice when he reminisced about the edition from eighteen years previously. I can only imagine how he'd feel if he saw that 1992 episode, a further eighteen years after that toy was featured in 1974. I have a number of video recordings from the early 1990s, most of which were from The Children's Channel (TCC). Now, I didn't have satellite television growing up (in fact, my parents still don't have anything other than RTÉ One, Two and TG4. The mountains of Connemara block the signal from TV3, though they're not missing much), but a friend of my Mom's did, and she recorded some programmes from TCC and the Cartoon Network in 1994 which I still sometimes watch, as part of a general nostalgic trip I travel on. The programmes themselves don't make me think of days gone by, or wish that such programmes filled the children's schedules instead of what is currently shown, but the increasing length of time travelled since their first airings make me think. The majority of the tapes are from spring 1994, sixteen years ago. 1994 is the half-way point between 2010 and 1978. I wasn't born until 1986, so it shouldn't bother me, not as much as someone who was born in 1978, or indeed as much as someone who easily remembers 1978 too, yet the whole thing does unfaze me somewhat.

When I look at the children featured on the tapes, either in the shows themselves or on the adverts aimed at children (many of which probably wouldn't be allowed to air today), I wonder where those kids are, what they're up to, and have they seen the commercial featuring their mother and the naked rear end looking clammy after enduring an inferior brand of nappies. This is probably the main source of my dismay (if that's the right word); the older children featured were about my age in 1994, and would therefore now be adults in their mid-to-late twenties, and they're only getting older. This of course means that I'm getting older too, and though being 24 isn't old (despite the opinions of various undergrads still in their teens I encounter), it's certainly a lot older than 8. The less said about the fact that 24 is the mid-point between being 8 years old and 40 years old, the better for my sanity. I should probably relax, and embrace the passage of time, but the discomfort I have that the early 1990s, which I vividly and fondly remember, are nearly two decades in the past and only drifting further into history, will increase.

Blogging as a tool to aid student teachers

An article by Pedro Hernández-Ramos in the Journal of Interactive Online Learning discusses the use of blogging and interactive forums in the training of student teachers. The article can be found here.

The author recognises at the start of his piece how the teaching profession suffers from a high level of job dissatisfaction, with nearly 50% of teachers expected to leave the profession within five years. Hernández-Ramos correctly attributes this to a disillusionment among teachers where they feel they lack a voice, being instead akin to a machine instructing pupils from a standard curriculum. The challenge of showing the importance of teaching to students was observed, with the goal of addressing this challenge through the use of blogging and discussion forums as a way to encourage reflective learning.

The use of personal thoughts as a way of reflective learning is not new, as students have long kept journals as a means of reflecting on their learning, but as is pointed out in the article, the traditional printed journal was written with the express intent of targeting only one person, the teacher grading the work, tailoring the content to please the sole reader and receiving very limited feedback or correspondence. Blogging allows for the same introspective experience while addressing a potentially larger audience, where the entire planet can potentially access your opinions, offering analysis and opinions on the piece. This is beneficial to the overall work, as the writer must focus more on what they write and not tailor it to target any one individual.

The use of blogs can be additionally beneficial to students uncomfortable with contributing in the traditional classroom environment, where a limited timeframe and large numbers restrict the ability for less forthright students to engage with the class. The ability to read a post and reply to it at any time, from the university library or one's own bedroom allows for a more comfortable approach to engaging with others outside of the intensity of the classroom.

As the article suggests, the main benefit of using blogs and discussion forums as part of the education process is the development of a collaborative structure, where participants comment on, offer feedback to, and peer review each other's posts and opinions. Hernández-Ramos points out that the vast majority of the class satisfactorily fulfilled the class requirements (only nine of the 56 students failed to do so), arguing that this proved that the project encouraged motivation and consistency from the students, who were largely enthusiastic about the project. A common theme mentioned by the bloggers was their experience of integrating technology into their lesson plans.

In spite of the overall enthusiasm of the student teachers, Hernández-Ramon admits that only five out of 56 planned to incorporate technology into their teaching once they entered the profession, though others hesitated only because of uncertainty as to what resources might be available in schools to allow for such an incorporation. The author also recognises the need for input from the course instructor. Simply offering the tools available from blogging and discussion forums fail to offer a proper service, with students often lacking direction and the course unable to encourage motivation or any significant activity from participants.

Overall, the use of blogging and discussion forums will continue to grow. The Internet has grown in the last two decades to become an all-encompassing and important tool utilised by humanity. The current generation of students are the last to experience life without the Internet and the tools it provides, though all have used the Internet to assist them in their studies to some extent. As years progress, students will enrol into universities having already engaged with the Internet, blogging and forums from an early age, and therefore completely comfortable with the concept of integrating technology into their careers. This new method of teaching may encourage teachers to find their "voice", and to use it in their vocation, hopefully keeping more of them in the profession.

Germany pays off a 91-year debt

Tomorrow, Germany will pay €70 million as the final instalment of a reparations bill handed to it over nine decades ago. Ninety-one years after the Treaty of Versailles, and the much-hated "guilt clause" placing all blame for the First World War on German shoulders (because, you know, Austria-Hungary had nothing to do with sparking the conflict: http://www.tentimesone.com/if-world-war-one-was-a-bar-fight/), the federal government will settle its debt on the twentieth anniversary of reunification. The story is on the BBC News website.

It's incredible to think that Germany was still paying World War One reparations nearly a century later. That said, the Weimar governments of the 1920s couldn't afford to pay it, especially with the hyperinflation of the decade, while the Nazis made their refusal to pay it a key part of the plan to dismantle the Treaty of Versailles. I had thought that the bill was dropped quietly in the early 1950s, after the Allies had defeated Germany in the Second World War and settled that account more rapidly, in addition to the fact that there were then two Germanies, both claiming to be the legitimate German state, but still not responsible for picking up the tab. Upon reunification, Germany agreed to pay a much-reduced bill, and will tomorrow put to bed a relic of history.

Speaking of relics of history, I see "Back to the Future" is in cinemas this week. I've seen the DVD loads of times, and it's on TV every Christmas, but I love this movie, so I'll be happy to pay to see it on the big screen, since I didn't get to the first time round. The timing of the re-release is a bit off, given that it was released in America in July 1985, and in Ireland in December 1985. Not that it matters, really, I'm just looking forward to seeing a movie I love in the cinema.