Galway’s United Nations: 34 Languages spoken at my university workplace!

In celebration of international Mother Language Day we installed, in the foyer of our workplace (the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Data Science Institute, NUI Galway), a World Map in which our colleagues decorated with scripts written in the alphabets of their own language.

February 21^st is a global day of commemoration designed to increase awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity. It is officially recognised by the Galway’s United Nations: 31 Languages spoken at my university workplace as an opportunity "to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world."

It was first initiated by Bangladesh. So it is appropriate then that it was my good friend and colleague Safina Showkat Ara from that country who suggested that we also mark this very important occasion at our research institute. I was only to happy to oblige.

And what a wonderful exercise it turned out to be. For in populating the map we happily discovered that there are at least 34 languages spoken at our research institute- Arabic, Armenian, Bangla, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Magahi, Mandarin, Marathi, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Ukrainian, Urdu, Russian, Sanskrit, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Vietnamese and Yoruba. Wow!

We hope that this new initiative will become a new tradition that will continue to be observed for years and years to come.

It is also worth noting that my other good friend and colleague Sina Ahmadi correctly pointed out that millions and millions of people across the world are today deprived of learning in their mother language in their own countries. Denial of a people’s right to express their cultural identity has been used throughout history by brutal repressive regimes often to overcome resistance to foreign rule. For hundreds of years the British imperial forces in Ireland tried to destroy our right to independence by a combination of war, ethnic cleansing, introduction of foreign settlements, economic exploitation and a denial of cultural expression by the native Celts. 

It was Pádraig Pearse, the great Irish revolutionary and leader of the 1916 uprising against British rule, who summed up so well the need to resist the latter policy of ‘cultural assimilation’, “A country without a language is a country without a soul.”

Today cultural assimilation is the policy of many countries towards indigenous peoples living in forests, wetlands and mountains, none more  so than in Brazil where President Bolsonaro

aggressively pursues a campaign of taking Amazonian lands from the Amerindians for commercial exploitation by ranchers, palm oil growers, miners and loggers leading in the process to the loss of the Earth’s lungs. 

In a time of growing globalisation it is important that we promote harmony, the sisterhood /brotherhood of humanity, and peace between cultures, race and sexes based on respect and equality. Fundamental to this view is that we should also treasure diversity in all its form. For the world would be so much poorer if we lose our traditions, heritage and language. Variety is after all the spice of life! 

Furthermore, as you can see from the large poster in the front of the photograph, our institute is where people from all over the world come together to work on research into tackling Climate Chaos in so many sectors (peatlands, air, water, waste, manufacturing, cities...). We stand united for the common good.

Nóta: Tá muintir na Rúise agus na hÍsiltíre inár n-ionad oibre a labhraíonn Gaeilge!

Re-enactment of World's First Pirate Broadcast from Easter Rising 1916

Irish Rebel operating wireless transmitter, Easter Week, 1916 (Drawing: Helen Caird)

World’s First Pirate Broadcast: Re-enactment of the 1916 Wireless Transmission by the Irish Rebels.

In recognition of the historical role that the Irish rebels played in the history of global wireless communications, there will on at 7.30pm tomorrow  (Monday April 25^th) in the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland, located at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics in NUI Galway, be a re-enactment of the radio transmission of April 25^th 1916 which became the world’s first pirate broadcast.

Museum members John-Owen Jones and Frank McCurry will send Morse code transmissions using the high voltage spark technology as operated by the rebels in which induction coils (as invented by Irish physicist Nicholas Callan of Maynooth College) were used with a Morse telegraph key.

The event is free and all are welcome to attend. However advanced booking is required and can be done by contacting museum curator Brendan Smith at brendan.smith@insight-centre.org

 

The 1916 Easter Rising, when Irish rebels rose up against British rule and declared an Irish Republic, was the setting for probably the world’s first radio broadcast. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett, one of the rebel leaders and a signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, was a keen advocate of the new developing technologies of wireless telegraphy. He established a special wireless unit within the Irish Volunteers.  In the lead up to the Rising, Plunkett developed an technologically ambitious plan to use radio to coordinate national and international communications, to provide information on the movement of weapons into Ireland and to spread the news of the rising across the world. One of the first steps was to make radio contact with the German government in order to relay messages onto Roger Casement who was organizing the purchase and transport of weapons to Ireland. This process was to be facilitated by rebels taking over the wireless and telegraphy station in Caherciveen Co. Kerry on the Atlantic coast. But as it turned out, neither the arms-ship the Aud nor the submarine that was bringing Casement back to Ireland were equipped with wireless.

Through republican sympathizers working at the nearby trans-Atlantic telegraphy station on Valentia island, the Kerry operation would also allow the sending of progress reports on the Rising to Clan na Gael and other supporters in the United States. Caherciveen would be used as a two-way wireless station with the rebel headquarters in Dublin. With the cutting of land-line telegraph and telephone cables from Dublin and the occupation of the main hub of tele and postal communications hub in Ireland, namely the General Post Office on Sackville Street, it was hoped that it would be the Irish rebels that would have the upper hand in the battle for control of electronic communications in and out of Ireland. Unfortunately one of the two taxis hired to take the four Irish volunteers to Carherciveen from Killarney rail station on Good Friday crashed on its way killing all occupants. So no two-way wireless system was established from the Atlantic coast to Dublin. 

On the first day of the Rising (Easter Monday) seven volunteers under the command of Fergus Kelly left the rebel HQ at the GPO to take possession of the nearby ‘Irish School of Wireless’ to establish radio contact with Cahirciveen. Though radio was banned under the Defense of the Realm Act which came into operation once World War One began in 1914, nevertheless the school was still used as a training centre for wireless operators.  The spark transmitter was made ready and the dissembled rooftop antenna was re-erected on the roof with the aid of commandeered cabling and in spite of firing from British snipers. However as the receiver’s batteries were past repair, they never knew that the Atlantic station had not been activated and would not therefore re-transmit messages from Dublin.  Yet the Morse code message sent at regular intervals into the atmosphere was in fact received by radio operators in a number of countries. The world’s first pirate broadcast was picked up in Wales, Bulgaria, Germany and by ships. 

Written by James Connolly and sent out by volunteer David Burke, the message was message was, “Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising.”

Transmissions ended when the volunteers had to abandon the building on Easter Thursday as a result of heavy British shelling.