Ireland in 1911

The National Archives of Ireland have released the 1911 census. This is a fascinating resource with scanned copies of the original forms filled in by households around Ireland available to download. Personally when I downloaded the form for my grandfathers family I discovered that my great-grandfather was born during the famine. My great-grandparents spoke both Irish and English, something I can not do and neither could their children. They had 10 children, 7 of which were still alive at the time of the census. My father remembers that another 2 died young sometime after the census. Those were harsh times in Ireland.

My family comes from Waterford county close to the area where the Ryans came from. Some members of the Ryan family moved to Newfoundland sometime before 1800 and one of their descendants, Ann Ryan married John Noseworthy in 1967 setting in train a series of events that would eventually lead to this blog. Over 100 years later after the migration to Newfoundland there were still Ryans living in the area. For example in the parish of St Mary's where my family come from there were 13 Ryans any of which could be related to the Newfoundland Ryans and possibly related to the Flynns. What this could make Lauren and myself is probably a matter for absolutely no discussion or debate around the family dinner table...

War Memorial

Lauren and myself are back in St John's for holidays. Last week we visited Bowring Park and saw the new memorial to the dead of World War I, a replica of the Beaumont Hamel memorial in France. It's nice to see the dead of World War I are still being remembered and that new memorials are being built. Normally the list of names on a war memorial can be a little impersonal, rows of name after name. Like masses of soldiers forming an army the names combine to become the memorial, but on the day we visited the memorial a photograph had been placed in a wreath just below the corresponding name on the memorial, George Stringer lost in HMS Viknor.

In Ireland we still have to come to term with our war dead. Prior to independence our troops fought in the British army, still a touchy subject. The War of Independence is not widely commemorated, thugs and criminals have hijacked the name Republican and events such as Easter 1916 so the media and general public have been too afraid to be Republican. Since independence we have been neutral, even sending condolences to the people of Germany on the death of Hitler because that was the neutral thing to do.

Hopefully when the 100th anniversary of World War I comes up in 5 years we will be ready to remember the cost paid by Irish soldiers from towns all over Ireland. We should be able to erect monuments in every town listing our war dead from all wars regardless of the political sensibilities of people living today.

Irish Snow

The view from our apartment this week. It may not be home snow but by Irish standards the people here seem to be building snow arks and planning for The Day After Tomorrow.

Waterford Crystal Closes

Today at 2:45pm the managers in Waterford Crystal called the staff into a meeting. It appears the agenda was pretty short, the factory was closing, anyone who had cars in the parking lot had until 3pm to get them out. Of course as you can imagine the 800 staff did not take this lying down and 100 are currently occupying the visitor center and campaigning for, well I suppose no one is quite sure what they are campaigning for seeing how the factory is closing down so their negotiating position is some what like a car negotiating with a moose on the Trans-Canada highway at 3am. No one is walking away from this incident with a happy story to tell.

Anyway you might wonder why I'm mentioning a piece of Irish industrial relations news on the Noseworthy blog. Waterford Crystal is one of those iconic Irish brands, a name famous around the world, or at least in the world of the Irish diaspora. In Ireland it seems anyone who got married since the 1950's was guaranteed to have two things in their new house, a sacred heart picture and a collection of Waterford Crystal. That collection would either be on display in glass cabinet safely out of reach of the kids or wrapped up and stored in the attic until it could be passed on to those kids as a new form of family heirloom.

With that history in mind when Lauren invited her Irish boyfriend (me, in case you are confused) over to Canada to accompany her to her baby sisters wedding there was only one question in my mind, "A Waterford Crystal bowl or a picture frame?". Seeing how Lauren and myself both love photography the picture frame won out. Lauren could worry about finding a suit I would be willing to wear, I would worry about getting the Waterford Crystal.

When Laurens best friend Carla got married another piece of Waterford Crystal was of course straight onto the shopping list. When I recently found out that Waterford Crystal did a range of Christmas decorations I thought they would make a nice gift for the Noseworthy household. A seasonal link to Ireland, the country that had laid claim to one of their daughters.

The idea that Waterford Crystal may soon cease to exist and certainly will cease production in Ireland is sad. Something distinctly and recognisably Irish will be lost. Perhaps we will have to pick up a couple of pieces to add to the Noseworthy collection before the shelves empty and the shops restock with crystal from other brands, counties and countries.

Harsh Winter

It's been an unusually cold winter in Dublin this year. There was even ice on the lake in the park a few weeks ago. Still cant complain, can we? This photo was taken last Saturday in St Stephens Green. We should enjoy it while we can, in a year or two they are digging up a large part of the historic green to build an underground train station.