‘Dying Away’: how my grandmother inadvertently inspired me

‘Dying Away’: how my grandmother inadvertently inspired me

If you asked my grandmother how she was, she would invariably answer, ‘Dying away’. As far back as I can remember she talked about death and dying. When we’d visit my grandfather’s (her husband’s) grave she would tap the gravestone and wonder aloud, ‘Ah Joe, why is it taking you so long to call me?’ When I went on a trip back home to Clare with her I sat in a sugan chair (eating swiss roll and drinking cups of tea so strong ‘you could trot a mouse across them’) by the fireside and listened as she and her old schoolfriend Catherine went through an inventory of illnesses, deaths and funerals in the parish. As we left my grandmother muttered, ‘Shur, the whole world is dead’, and as they were both in their 90s much of their world really was.

My grandmother in her 97th year

On another occasion I returned home from college to find the fire lit but no one in the living room. I heard a voice summon me down the corridor: ‘Come here, I’m in the bedroom’. I wandered down to my grandmother’s bedroom to be greeted by a remarkable sight. There, on the bed, was my grandmother laid out as a corpse. She was dressed in a brown patterned dress that she’d had made for my uncle’s wedding some thirty years earlier. Threaded through her fingers were her rosary beads. ‘Take a photo’ she demanded, ‘I want to see what I look like’.

The genesis for this rather macabre incident was a conversation two nights previously where she’d outlined her plans for her funeral. This was not an unusual conversation. I got regular updates about this imagined funeral. This time she was insistent that she be laid out in this brown patterned dress. I objected, telling her that not only was it old-fashioned, but that she was now a much smaller woman than she had been 30 years earlier. ‘Yerra, it’ll be fine, shur Kirwins [the undertaker she had decided on] will sort all that out.’ Now it turned out she wasn’t entirely convinced about Kirwins’ ability to make the dress a snug fit, so a dress rehearsal took place. She concluded that I was right and the mother of the groom dress was abandoned. When my grandmother did eventually die, some some fifteen years after her dress rehearsal, she was buried in the suit she’d bought for her 90th birthday seven years previously.

‘The Dress’ as seen in 1975!

I’ve been surrounded by conversations about dying and death all my life. I’m drawn to cemeteries and memorials, to thinking about those that have gone before us and the impact they’ve had on the world. I’m sure this background has all fed into the work I do as a historian and my interest in ‘Dark Tourism’. All over the world there are museums and sites associated with death and suffering and I’ve long been fascinated by the public interest in such sites. Perhaps it is an obsession with our own mortality that causes us to seek out graveyards and tombs, perhaps in part it is pilgrimage. Visits to sites such as the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau may be to better understand a horrific chapter in our past and to serve as a reminder that such things should never happen again. Visitors flock to sites of Dark Tourism – over 2 million visit Auschwitz annually, 340,000 visit Robben Island just off Cape Town while Alcatraz off the coast of California gets about 1.3 million visitors a year.

As Philip Stone has pointed out there are many shades of Dark Tourism. Some sites reflect somberly on the past, others are there to entertain more than educate (though many do both).

I find it strange that Ireland – a country that often seems obsessed with death and dying – hasn’t embraced Dark Tourism to any significant extent. There are plenty of sites that could be branded as ‘Dark’ and over the next few months I’m going on a tour of them to see how Ireland tells stories of death, famine and incarceration. For this phase of the project I’m focusing on site-specific locations – places that are associated with the stories they tell. I’ll be visiting prisons, graveyards, ships and workhouses. At the moment I’ve twenty sites on my list, but I’m sure there are many more scattered around the country. I’m interested in any and all suggestions of places that I should visit on my travels so please leave a comment or email me at g.p.obrien@ljmu.ac.uk if you have any sites to add to my list.

Posters & Graphic Panels – Part II

I’ve recently been writing about what makes a good poster or graphic panel and also how to create a poster using PowerPoint.

Below are some additional hints and tips.

When planning your panel or poster make sure you know what you want people to understand having read the panel. What message or information are you trying to convey?

The content of your poster or graphic panel should be accessible at a number of levels. Think of your text as a pyramid – the information should become increasingly detailed as the reader reads on.

Posters & Graphic Panels – Part I

Some thoughts on posters and graphic panel texts which have been inspired by my students (who are busy creating posters about the 1916 Easter Rising as part of an assignment).

What will Project Ireland 2040 mean for culture and heritage?

I wrote a piece for RTE Brainstorm this week about Project Ireland 2040. It would be very easy to dismiss it as another PR exercise and to a large extent it is just that, but there are some good ideas there. Whether or not they come to anything is another story entirely. A close eye needs to be kept to check that government promises become government actions. Our cultural jewels, including the National Library, National Gallery, Crawford Art Gallery, IMMA and many more must be cherished and funded so that they can thrive. I’m extremely doubtful that anything will come of the promises to protect the historic built environment. Legislation is weak and government will seems weaker still. Bar stool conversations always maintained that politicians were afraid to take on the builders and developers. The lack of action against those who actively or passively destroy historic buildings and landscapes certainly indicates that this was and remains the case.

The article is below, and the original can be read here.

Updated / Wednesday, 21 Feb 2018 09:55

Where Am I? Ireland’s Ancient East

RTE’s excellent Brainstorm site recently published my thoughts on Ireland’s Ancient East (they’re not all negative, but it’s such a shame that the concept is so flawed when for no additional financial investment it could have been so much better). Anyway, the article is below or you can also read it here

Ireland’s Ancient East: when East is not always east

Updated / Friday, 9 Feb 2018 09:36

Hook Lighthouse in Co Wexford, which is definitely in the Ancient East. Photo: Michael Gissane

Opinion: the idea behind Ireland’s Ancient East is hugely commendable, but there are serious problems with the concept in both form and content

By Gillian O’Brien, Liverpool John Moores University

Since its launch in 2014, the Wild Atlantic Way has been enormously successful so it is easy to see why Fáilte Ireland was keen to introduce a new branded tourist offering to lure visitors to and through Ireland. However, Ireland’s Ancient East lacks the coherent offering of the Wild Atlantic Way. If Ireland’s Ancient East as a concept meandered south from the Cooley Peninsula in Co. Louth to Hook Head in Co. Wexford then the designation would make sense.

But it doesn’t. Instead, it travels as far west as Cork city and Dowra, Co. Cavan and intersects with the Wild Atlantic Way at three points. In Fáilte Ireland’sreimagining of Irish geography, east is east and west is west, except when it is both, while the poor midlands appear to have been entirely obliterated.

The idea behind Ireland’s Ancient East is to increase visitor awareness of sites that are off the beaten track and encourage longer stays in areas that have been traditionally overlooked as destinations. Raising awareness of some fascinating, if largely unknown sites, such as St Peter’s Tin Church in Co. Monaghan and Loftus Hall in Co. Wexford, is an excellent idea and crucially brings much-needed money into the local economy.

However, there are serious problems with Ireland’s Ancient East both in form and content. While the signage for the Wild Atlantic Way is discreet yet distinctive, the same cannot be said of Ireland’s Ancient East. When a visitor reaches an Ireland’s Ancient East site, they are greeted by a large, rather gaudy, double-sided sign. The chief purpose of the sign is not to shed light on the site itself, but to highlight 10 other sites in the vicinity. There is a photo of each site, a short description and an estimate of how long it will take to get there. On the reverse there is a map indicating where the sites are located.

Yet nowhere do these signs tell the visitor where they actually are. “You are here” proclaims the map, but where “here” might be is not explained. If a visitor happened to stumble across a sign at an unstaffed site, they would have to go to the next location to find out where they had been. Since each sign is bespoke (the map is different for every site), there is no reason why a paragraph about the site couldn’t be included. It’s a missed opportunity.

Storytelling is key to the Ireland’s Ancient East brand. While the Wild Atlantic Way, is primarily focussed on the landscape, the Ireland’s Ancient East website attempts to link the disparate collection of sites under a range of “signature stories” including “Castles and Conquests”, “High Kings and Heroes” and “Sacred Ireland”. This, in itself, is not a bad thing, but it’s worrying to read in Fáilte Ireland’s Toolkit for Storytelling Interpretation that “storytelling interpretation does not look or sound like a history book. Think of it as a novel, even a graphic novel”.

The implication is clear: all history books are dull and the past needs a light dusting of fiction to make it palatable. This focus on simplifying the past into bite-sized chunks of easily digestible narrative is both disappointing and surprising, especially when you consider the target market for Ireland’s Ancient East is the “culturally curious”. According to Fáilte Ireland, these tourists are over forty years of age, “independent active sightseers”, travel as a couple or individuals who want “an authentic experience” and “love to discover history”.

There’s a real danger that Ireland’s Ancient East will reinforce stereotypical ideas of Ireland as a nation of spontaneous storytellers

The culturally curious may “love to discover history”, but sifting truth from fiction may present a challenge when the Toolkit for Business suggests that the visitor approach a site guide and “ask them to tell you a story and let it begin Fadó Fadó…”. There’s a real danger that Ireland’s Ancient East will reinforce stereotypical ideas of Ireland as a nation of spontaneous storytellers, sitting around an open fire clutching a glass of whiskey while traditional airs waft in through the open window, while the target market sits cross-legged and open-mouthed at the seanchaí’s feet.

Branding is key to Ireland’s Ancient East’s success, but entertainment is prioritised over education in trying to connect diverse sites though such broad themes. It should be possible to combine entertainment with accuracy, authenticity and education. Providing layers of information is vital, particularly as the target market is intelligent, well-educated and interested. They will demand substance behind the costumes and detail behind the glossy exteriors.

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From RTÉ Radio One’s Marian Finucane Show, Gillian O’Brien talks about dark tourism

There are undoubtedly good things about Ireland’s Ancient East. It takes tourists off the beaten track, promotes accessibility at sites and encourages multi-sensory interpretation and provides employment in the heritage and tourist industries. This is all to be welcomed. The problem is not the idea, but the execution of it.

One of the major issues with Ireland’s Ancient East is that it the concept is too broad. It is in danger of being perceived as a nebulous marketing exercise designed to encompass everything that couldn’t be shoehorned into the Wild Atlantic Way.

It may be that this has become apparent to those behind Ireland’s Ancient East for there is talk of two new areas to be branded and marketed. These are the midlands, perhaps the “Magnificent Midlands”, which would take in an area south from Cavan to Kildare and west from Westmeath to East Galway, and the Viking Coast in the south-east of the country. If these areas are developed, then perhaps Ireland’s Ancient East might undergo a rebranding and become simply Ancient Ireland, which would at least appease those horrified by its somewhat blasé attitude to geography.

Dr Gillian O’Brien is a Reader in Modern Irish History at Liverpool John Moores University

A Victorian Guide to Dublin

Last week at the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland I gave a speech to help launch an online exhibition based around The Dictionary of Dublin: A Guidebook to the city – for visitors and locals which was first published in 1895. Hopefully this online exhibition will introduce many people to both the images and content of this wonderful resource.

The book, written by Ephraim MacDowel Cosgrave & Leonard Strangeways, is lavishly illustrated with wonderful photographs and illustrations.

Dark Tourism, Dime Museums, Statues – Memory & Commemoration

I had a hectic few days in Dublin last week where I helped launch an exhibition, spoke at the Royal Society of Antiquaries, spent a day in a convent archive, heard three fascinating papers at the National Museum of Ireland, saw three exhibitions and had a really nice chat with Neil Delamere about Dark Tourism on Neil’s Sunday Best on TodayFM

We did a very quick (and very partial) world tour of Dark Tourism sites, but mostly focused on sites in Ireland. My interest in Dark Tourism has grown out of a number of separate projects that have allowed me to look at Dark Tourism from several angles. My involvement in the development of sites such as Spike Island has has strong impact on developing my interest in Dark Tourism but so too has my research for books and articles on nineteenth-century America. One aspect of Gilded Age America that fascinated me was the growth of Dime Museums which were often complete with Chambers of Horror.

Dark Tourism – Marian Finucane Show

It was great to get an opportunity to talk about Dark Tourism in Ireland on the Marian Finucane Show yesterday. There was only time to scratch the surface of the topic, but I’m thinking of patenting my idea for tours of ‘Ireland: The Dark Side’. I’ve already a grand tour planned!

Despite ‘Dark Tourism’ being an subject of academic interest for several decades almost no attention has been paid to Ireland which has a myriad of Dark Tourism sites. A summer of touring and note-taking awaits me!

You can listen to the Dark Tourism part of the show here

Doing time: dark tourism in Ireland

To mark Halloween I’ve been writing about Dark Tourism (again!) This was published on RTE Brainstormhttps://www.rte.ie/eile/brainstorm/2017/1031/916396-doing-time-dark-tourism-in-ireland/

Updated / Tuesday, 31 Oct 2017 08:59

Spike Island: “the story of the prison is told alongside stories of the island’s other pasts”

Opinion: Dark tourism is tourism closely associated with death, suffering and the macabre and it’s where the Irish fascination with death comes to the foreBy Gillian O’Brien, Liverpool John Moores University

It has often been said that the Irish have a particular fascination with death. Certainly, Ireland has no shortage of sites associated with death or incarceration – and many of them are popular visitor attractions. In Dublin, a morning can be spent in the corridors and cells of Kilmainham Gaol, followed by an afternoon amidst the graves of Glasnevin Cemetery. In Belfast, tourists can hop in Black Taxis and tour sites associated with The Troubles, before stopping off for a trip around Crumlin Road Gaol and completing their day learning about the building and sinking of the Titanic at Titanic Belfast.

The O’Connell Tower at Glasnevin Cemetery

In Cork, you can combine a trip to Spike Island to see the prison and fortress there with a visit to Cork City Gaol. And, if that isn’t enough, around the country there are plenty of other sites that tell dark stories about Ireland’s past: the National Famine Museum in Strokestown, the Battle of the Boyne site near Drogheda and Wicklow’s Historic Gaol to name but a few.  All these sites come under the umbrella of “dark tourism’.

Dark tourism is tourism closely associated with death, suffering and the macabre. While the term itself is relatively new, the phenomenon itself is anything but. For centuries, people have been visiting sites associated with death, suffering, incarceration and execution for their entertainment. Thousands flocked to public executions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Madame Tussaud made a career out of grisly spectacles, opening her first Chamber of Horrors in London in 1802.

Taking a tour of Wicklow Gaol

In the United States, “dime museums” were a mix of educational museum and freak show and attracted customers by advertising exhibitions where the paraphernalia of torture could be seen. Just behind the Four Courts in Dublin the mummified bodies in the vaults in St Michan’s Church Dublin have been attracting visitors since the early nineteenth century. It’s said that one such visitor was Bram Stoker, the creator of Dracula, and some even claim that the mummies inspired his writing.

Today, dark tourism comes in many shades. Academic Philip Stone distinguishes between “dark” and “darker” tourism: darkest are sites of death and suffering focused primarily on education and historic interpretation, while the lightest of dark tourism are sites with a greater focus on entertainment.

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Prison sites are among the darkest of such attractions, yet even here there are varying shades. This partly depends on who owns and runs the sites, and on the commercial pressures associated with the sites. Some are under more pressure to turn a profit than others and among the most commercial prison sites, there is an inevitable temptation to emphasise the sensational elements of the story.

Ghoulish interest might lure many tourists to sites, but most sites make significant efforts to contextualise the history of the prison. While their websites may emphasise gruesome executions, daring escapes and famous prisoners, visitors to the sites get a much more nuanced experience in most cases. After all, there are always other stories to tell, and it is important not to forget that many of those imprisoned were guilty of the crimes they were charged with, and that those crimes had victims.

One of the major attractions of dark tourism sites is that they possess something no purpose-built museum can offer: authenticity.

On Spike Island, the story of the prison is told alongside stories of the island’s other pasts as a monastic settlement, a military fortress, and a home to those who lived in the village. There is also the wider story of the development of Cork Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world.

Kilmainham Gaol occupies an unique, sanctified space in the Irish imagination and identity. It’s a prison which held many Irish nationalist heroes, from key figures associated with the 1798 Rebellion to Young Irelanders and Fenians to Charles Stuart Parnell. Most significantly, as the site of execution of many of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, it cannot be seen to trivialise the hallowed ground on which their deaths took place. Other jails with less famous occupants from the dim and distant past, most of whom were forgotten criminals rather than celebrated revolutionaries, have more licence for a little irreverence.

Inside Kilmainham Gaol

At Kilmainham Gaol, a broad swathe of Irish history is told through a combination of the guided tour and on-site museum. Visitors learn the history of the prison (and of Ireland), from its opening in 1796 to its closure in 1924 and the campaign to restore and reopen the Gaol in the 1960s. The story of the 1916 Rising is a key story of Kilmainham Gaol, and the guided tour ends at the site of the 1916 executions. For many visitors, though, it is the accounts of children imprisoned during the famine for stealing a piece of bread or for begging on the street that have most resonance.

One of the major attractions of dark tourism sites such as prisons is that they possess something no purpose-built museum can offer: authenticity. A story can be told anywhere, but being able to walk the corridors where history took place, stand in the cells, glimpse the sky through the iron bars and see the towering perimeter walls is an experience that cannot truly be replicated elsewhere. Doing (a little) time in these prison museums is definitely time well spent.

Dr Gillian O’Brien is a Reader in Modern Irish History at Liverpool John Moores University. Declaration of interest: she was the historical advisor for Phase 1 of the redevelopment of Spike Island and also for the development of Kilmainham Courthouse (which is now part of the Kilmainham Gaol experience).

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

Spike Island: Ireland’s ‘Alcatraz’ and Dark Tourism

Spike Island: the Irish ‘Alcatraz’ and the growth of dark tourism

Spike Island.
http://www.spikeislandcork.ie/

Gillian O’Brien, Liverpool John Moores University

Spike Island – the former fortress and prison off the coast of County Cork in Ireland – has been named Europe’s leading tourist attraction at the World Travel Awards. The island beat off competition from Buckingham Palace, the Eiffel Tower and Rome’s Colosseum to win what is described as the “Oscars” of the travel industry. It is a win for the community and also a win for so called “dark tourism”, whereby travellers seek something a tad more macabre than the traditional trip to the seaside.

There is no doubt Spike Island has a fascinating history. Situated in Cork Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world, it has been home to a monastic settlement, a military fortress and a prison. Since the fortress reopened to visitors in June 2016, it has become a popular tourist destination, attracting over 45,000 visitors this year.

Visitors travel by boat from the town of Cobh to the island where they can explore the star-shaped fort which was home to thousands of soldiers and prisoners from the late 18th-century until 2004. There they learn about the history of the island, from its place as a home to early Christian monks, through the key strategic role it played during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Era, to its reincarnation as an island prison in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Interior of the old shell store which tells the story of the transportation of prisoners.
Simon Hill, Author provided

The growth of ‘dark tourism’

Spike Island is one of a growing number of attractions in Ireland that can be called “dark tourism” sites. Dark tourism is closely associated with death, suffering and the macabre. The concept is far from new – Madame Tussaud became famous in Paris during the French Revolution when she cast waxwork death masks of the guillotined and by the 1830s she was exhibiting waxworks of murderers in London.

Sites associated with death and suffering have long been commercialised. In my book, Blood Runs Green, I wrote about the public fascination with death, and particularly brutal death, in Gilded Age America. In Chicago in 1889, thousands of “dark tourists” paid a dime to visit the house where a man had been bludgeoned to death and a further dime to take away souvenir shards of blood-stained wood (no one seemed to notice that far more splinters of wood were sold than had been necessary to build the house).

Academic studies of “dark tourism” have tended to focus on sites associated with the holocaust – particularly concentration camps such as Auschwitz. But some research has been conducted on prison islands, notably Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, which was home to Nelson Mandela for 18 of his 27 years in prison.

Other studies looked at Alcatraz, the famous prison island in San Francisco Bay. Both sites have key dominant stories – the image of Alcatraz is dominated by Hollywood visions of the island prison, while Robben Island is most closely associated with the political prisoners of the apartheid regime. Both sites make efforts to expand the visitor experience beyond these narrow histories, but with limited success in the public perception.

Tourists listening to an audio tour on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, in 2015.
Supannee_Hickman/Shutterstock

Responsible tourism

Part of my role as the historical advisor for the Spike Island Project was to consider issues associated with representing incarceration, punishment and execution. History should be neither sanitised nor sensationalised. Dark tourist sites are often tempted to provide the gory details of executions, highlight escape attempts and focus on the brutality of jailers. But it is also important to consider the victims of crime and the ways in which their experience might be marginalised when sites focus on the sensational.

Our project identified four key narratives that would allow the social, political and military histories of the island to be told: Cork Harbour, the Island Fortress, the Island Prison and the Island Home. Our intention was not to privilege one theme or story, but to offer visitors a multi-layered experience that revealed a diversity of voices ranging right across the island’s past.

Tourism is a business and commercial realities are a factor in developing any tourist site. Sites need to make money and it is the responsibility of the design team to make the content as accessible and as interesting as possible. Unlike Alcatraz, Spike Island had few famous prisoners and has not been immortalised in Hollywood films. As the historian responsible for researching and writing the island’s story, this was a good thing, as it enabled me to tell the whole story of the island as a place of refuge, defence and of incarceration.

Visitors can wander through the remains of the island village and imagine growing up on an island complete with its own school, church, fortress and prison. They can walk the corridors of the prison and stand in the cold, damp cells. They can patrol the perimeter of the fortress and imagine defending Cork harbour from a flotilla of invading ships. These are the types of experiences that cannot be replicated in a purpose-built museum.

The challenge of telling complex and diverse stories in a compelling and attractive way is a considerable one and involves input from a lot of people. But I believe that Spike Island successfully treads the fine line between education, entertainment and sensation. It is neither exploitative nor does it shy away from its difficult past.

Gillian O’Brien, Reader in Modern Irish History, Liverpool John Moores University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.