JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY

SOURCES 109In 1966 the Finnish government, when SDP Chairman Rafael Paasio was Prime Minister, began aproject on Red Finland, 1917-18 and after twenty years the project has come to fruition with manydissertations. In the 1980s, many labour organisations began sociological and history surveys ofthemselves including the Finnish TUC. Hannu Soikkanen, 'the grand old man' of Finnish labourhistory, is writing a major work on the SDP. Finally there has, of course, been a rich functioning ofthe'bare-foot' non-academic research.Simo LaaksovirtaTheses AbstractsSeamus S. Duffy, Mechanics' and Similar Institutesin Counties Antrim, Armagh and Down, 1820-1870,and their Contribution to the Education of theworking class Adult. (DPhil, University of Ulster,Magee, 1987)This is a study of the Mechanical Institutes andsimilar societies in the counties of Antrim, Armagh andDown in the period 1820-1870. It was the aim of thisresearch to throw some light on an heretofore neglectedaspect of the social history of education. The investigationwas based on the minute books of varioussocieties in the local newspapers of the day. This lattersource was, indeed, where much of the information wasunearthed. Other sources which provided some informationwere contemporary pamphlets, and governmentreports.The work is divided into an introductory sectionwhere the self-help philosophy is examined, and theMechanics' Institute movement in England is treated asan expression of that philosophy. A chapter on the Irishsocio-econorruc background precedes a study of howthe self-help philosophy impinged on the Irish consciousness.The main part of the work, a study ofindividual societies in the counties of Antrim, Downand Armagh then follows.In the case of Armagh, it is the Mechanics' Institutein the City of Armagh that is treated in depth, thoughreference is made to the later Natural History andPhilosophical Society. The history of working classeducation in Belfast then follows. Here, again, it is theBelfast Mechanics' Institute which forms the mainbody of the study. However, other important attemptsat educating the Belfast working classes' are alsomentioned. Principal among these latter are the WorkingClasses Association with its associated People'sReading Rooms, and the government sponsored Schoolof Art. In dealing with County Down, efforts at selfhelpin education in Downpatrick are dealt with in somedetail, and the chapter concludes with an examinationof other interesting societies in County Down.The concluding chapter of the thesis attempts todraw together the threads which have been pursued inthe case studies. It is the author's conclusion that theMechanics' Institutes and similar societies in NortheastUlster contributed to a significant extent to theeducation of the working class adult in a period wherethe provision of such education was veryJow on the listof priorities of successive governments.Eithne McLaughlin, Maiden City Blues: Employmentand Unemployment in Derry City, (PhD.,Queen's University, Belfast, 1987)This study used qualitative and quantitative, historicaland contemporary, data and methods to examinegender, household, and familial relationships and rolesin the context of an area which has experienced veryhigh male unemployment rates since the mid-nineteenthcentury. Lack of economic development in thearea and the corresponding dominance of the clothingindustry (employing a 90% female labour force) has ledto both popular and official representation of the city asa place where traditionally 'women work and men areon the dole'.The study found, however, that household economicpractice and labour supply, both in the past andpresent, has borne little relation to this social andpolitical representation of the city. The causes andimplications of the disparity between representationand practice is explored and the complex interplay ofsocio-economic practice, economic policy and Stateintervention, and political and social constructions of'gender' and 'unemployment' drawn out. The contradictionsand strains of everyday life inherent in an areacharacterised by high male unemployment, a highintensity of women's reproductive role and femalecentredkin networks, and dependence of the localmanufacturing base on (primarily young, single) femalelabour, set in a wider framework of Church andState definitions of men as heads ofhouseholds/providersand political division and conflict with the State,form the conclusions of this study.