Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC May 1974 5-13-1974 The aiD ly Egyptian, May 13, 1974 Daily Egyptian Staff Follow this and additional works at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/de_May1974 Volume 55, Issue 165 Recommended Citation , . "The aiD ly Egyptian, May 13, 1974." (May 1974). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in May 1974 by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. cp;gyptiBn The Irish Co nnection .'Magazine Southern Illirxis University Mcrda, . ...... 13. 197.--Vol 55 No 165 Trans-oceanic bonds link Ireland to SIU By David Hi.,., At this point the listener customarily lurches from his seat and with trem­ "So you're from Ireland? Tell me, bling limbs and staring eyes shambles how come you traveled 'way across the through the door and out into the night, world to study at SlU?" whereupon aU four Irishmen fmish ofT his pitcher of beer. This is a question I get three times a day, and I have long been in a daze Yet it is aU quite true. The Po!!" .... trying to come up with a simple an­ here. His name was Eoin O'Mahony, swer. But not any more. I DOW have a celebrated throughout Ireland for bis new reply. I place my beer carefully on wit and gorgeous flowing beard, known the counter, lean forward like the an­ for many years as the Irish Pope, and cient mariner, flx the listener with my customarily addressed as " Your heady eye, saying in a low hoarse Holiness." Somehow or other SIU whisper : "It seems you have not yet waylaid him during a lecture tour of the heard of The Irish Connection ..... States, whereupon he settled down for a spell as Visiting Scholar and enjoyed It works marvelously. Usually the himseU immensely. listener leaves abruptly. multering sometl)ing about an urgent appoint­ When I was an undergraduate in ment. Only rarely does some hardy sociology in Galway, I sat re­ !pirit ask for details. Then he reaUy reverently at the feet 01 Cari>ondale's gets it. Gerry Booth, and learned the SlU-Hugh Did you know-I ask-that SlU came Duncan brand or sociology before I very cJoae to being housed in a haunted ever heard of Durl<heim or Weber. lrish caatle in County Cork' And did Before Booth, we borrowed Dick loss is the Irish Senate's gain. <It is said certain James Joyce. He was you know that the Pope was here in Stivers from SlU. Last year we got that many Senators have been seen fur­ fascinated and began to read and could CarboodaIe as Visiting Scholar and that Gerry Gaston. Next year, who knows tively slinking into psychoterapists' collect aU he about James Joyce. he was an lriishman? And did you know whom we may get' clinics, and that many manifest a slight That student became Dr. Harley Cr!>essmann , that a certain jnsIructA>r at SIU recently tremble in hand or limb.) an optometrist in Du got a cable appointingbim to the Senate Most of these characters had a ten­ Qyoin, and over the years this man of 01 the Irish Government? And did you dency to ask frightfully embarrassing modest means assembled what became know l/)at SIU once succeeded in cap­ questions about Ireland, questions we The Irish CoMectiOD really does known as the frnest collection of Joyce in hands. I t";•• wild Irish poet and bring him had never thought or, and of course we exist. It may stiU be a frail growth, but material private partlaUy tamed. to. Cad>oodaIe, whet-e came close to communal nervous its slender tendrils a!ready eDt wine, they nearly succeeded ill domesticating breakdown. In the interests of justice, if like ivy, sectors as varied as sociology, Many years later Morris Ubrary was him? And did you know that if you sat not of revenge, we decided to loan to athletics, Morris Ubrary, English, an­ opened at SIU, and contained a tiny in on a socioJ~ Jecture in Ireland's SIU our one and only Michael D. thropology, journalism and community rare boot collection filling tittle more Galway Univel'Slty that you.might hear Higgins, better than whom DO man was development. than a wall cabinet. An exhil)ition was the lecturer ~ in the aooents of fltted by nature for the asking of unan­ held or this smaJJ collection, and Dr. Southern DIinoia? Or that if you atten­ swerable questions. Carbondale has Croessmann was invited to lend 'his ded • similar Jecture at SIU you mifht partially recovered from that par­ How did it aU begin ? Where lie the Joyce materials to fill out the well get that lecture in a GaIway-lrish ticular visitation. D . HiggIns'temi roots of the Irish Connection? Un­ exhibition. It was the beginning of a accent? And do you know that at this here he got a cabi:1rom the Irish believably, it all goes back to the long friendahip, and fUUlllY ·lIOme yeai-s very moment as we sit here in Jim's Government announcing his appoint­ 1 wenties and 'thirties in a little town in before his death, Croessmann presen­ Pub, .... ,.. ..... eMireI, ........... ment to the Senate or the Republic of Southern Illinois, Du QjJoin . One ted his entire collectioo to SlU for a .,.~! If you don't believe me, Ireland, which appointment was duly autumn evening in 1923 a young Du nominal fee. This became the nucleus Iiateo to the accents in which the more celebrated by much of Cari>ondaIe in Q90in student was browsing in a shop in or a steadily growing coUectioo of Irish ferocious arguments are being couduc- the traditional Irish manner, for three Oticago's Loop, and found a copy of a manuscripts which has DOW become ted .... days and three nights. Carboodale's just published work caUed U1yae. tiy a world famous, and includes the papers Photos: The places and faces of Ireland by David Rice Prints by Peter Stenberg \ ol Lennox Robinson, Katheryn Tynan, sector SO ideally suited to Ireland's Myles na Gopaleen, letters of Yeats, needs that one might safely forecast Joyce, Shaw, o'Casey, Padraic Colum , growing and enduring links in the area Lady Gregory, George Russell , Mary of community development. There are Lavin and many others, Unks in many other departments. The School of Journalism has brought to While all tlUs was happening in the Carbondale as visiting professor, Liam early 196Os, a number of people in dif· D. Bergin, widely respected newspaper ferent sectors of SIU seem to have editor and political commentator and discovered aU at once a shared interest has sent student Tom Finan to Ireland in Ireland, albeit each for a different for an internship with the Carlow reason . Sociology's Prof. Charles Nationalist. Anthropology has had its Snyder was at that time engaged in a Irish students ; the Department of study of alcohoUsm and was beginning English has close ties with Ireland. to look into the Irish experience with There are ties too in athletics : as early the problem. Anthropology's Prof. Cal as 1965 pole vaulter Mike Bull came Riley had spent a year in Europe using from Northern Ireland on an athletic Ireland. as a base. and returned with a scholarship and returned to become an facination for Ireland's prehistory. Olympian aod United Kingdom Cham· Dean R. McCoy and Prof. Bushee were pion. Today Gerry Criag of Derry com· building the Library's now celebrated petes for SIU on the cross-country Irish collection. It was found that many team. on campus had long·standing conne<:· lions with or deep interest in Ireland : Over the last decade the Irish Con· Prof. Henry Piper, Dean Basil Hen· nection has brought SIU people to drick, then director of the SIU Museum. Ireland and has brought a succession of Prof. Alan Cohen who was updating the Irish men and women to Carbondale, annual Joyce bibliography, Prof. Ted people as varied as author Mary Lavin , Boyle with his interest in Irish theater. poets John Montague and Seamus Prof. Howard Long with close lies to Heaney and Northern Ireland Prime Irish journalism, Prof. Sydney Moss Minister Terence O'Neill. Always there who had taught at Dublin has been the elusive goal of permanen­ University, Prof. Eddie Epstein, whose tly establishing an Area Studies repute as a Joyce scholar was fast Program. Perhaps the high point was becoming international, who was reached in 19'/0. That was the year woriting on 110e Ordeal or S&epben when Carbondale hosted the annual dedicated and tenacious people on both Both areas know well the emotional ~ and later participated in the conference of the American Committee sides of the AUantic. depression that is the child of economic 1969 Joyce symposium at Dublin. for Irish Studies. It was also the year depression. Both are top-heavy with when SlU went ahead with serious Among the various ties between Car· elderly citizens and watch their youth One gradually became aware that an plans for establishing an SIU Institute bondale and Ireland, one Unk has grown nee to the cities because they cannot informal Irish Connection already 10 Ireland. The Irish Government of· stronger with the years and has almost give them jobs. Both areas lack an existed, and it was .clear that many fered the gift of Lady DooeraiJe's for· become a tradition. This is the tie bet· economic infrastructure and must would be happy to work towards the mer castle and estate in County Cork, ween SIU and Galway University.