Some Things

Research Project
I really enjoyed doing a research project on environmental rhetoric, called Environmental Rhetoric: A Case Study of the Mullaghmore Debate. This project drew on the study by Killingsworth and Palmer, Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America , and surveyed the rhetoric - both visual and verbal - used in documents issued by various bodies who were vocal in the case of Mullaghmore.

Report on Development Education
Roland Tormey in Sociology at Mary Immaculate College Limerick and myself co-authored a report on development education resources. It was funded by 80:20:Acting for a Better World and was entitled Who Buys the Third World?: A Survey on the Best Means of Promotion and Distribution of Educational Resources in Development Education: Pilot Survey carried out in the North Munster area. We interviewed two teachers in the Limerick area (a Geography and a Religion teacher), and, aided by their responses we designed the Questionnaire. An good 47% responded and we presented the report in August 1998. The basic results of the questionnaire led us to conclude that Development Education resources and not marketed sufficiently. Many publications do not even include the costs of marketing and promotion in their initial budgeting. Most marketing is done via word of mouth or conference networking. The Report is currently being published and we would hope that it will contribute significantly towards higher effectiveness in this awareness-raising aread of education.

Salsa Verde
In February of this year, Rachel (an old buddie) and I got together some dance classes which finally took shape as a Dance Club in Limerick. On foot of the strong interest in latino dance some latin american nights have been got together with Pollyanna as DJ along with percussion and good fun!

PhD Studies
While I decided not to continue with by academic research, the completion of two years of a PhD in Literature is something I enjoyed. I was registered with the Department of English at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and being supervised by Chris Morash. My area of research was the representation and agency of landscape in selected fictions/prose of the first half on Nineteenth Century in Anglo-Ireland. I was giving particular attention to Charles Lever and William Carleton because of the richness of their texts in this area. One of the best resources was the National Library in Dublin, but of considerable value also is the Galway Resource (a compendium on microfische) which, luckily, is held in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick.


� Home