• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• Other research productsclose
• Arrow@TU Dublin close
• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage close
• European University of Technology close

The auditory modality offers great potential to interface designers in an increasingly busy world due to its unique advantages as a communication channel and the low storage and processing overheads offered by auditory display systems. However, the problem of increasing ambient acoustic noise presents a significant challenge to the sound designer. This thesis addresses this problem by applying theories from the field of acoustic ecology in the design of more efficient auditory interfaces. A review of the literature identified five specific concepts from this field which may have practical application in this regard. A case study was subsequently carried out to examine the human ear’s ability to determine the semantic context of short non-speech schizophonic sounds. In so doing, two sets of sounds were established based on high-level semantic discrimination which were in turn used in a controlled experiment to determine that the semantic context of a background sound plays only a minor role in the amount of attention it elicits in a competitive listening scenario. A further iteration of the experiment revealed that the level of auditory attention elicited by background sounds in the presence of a competing foreground music stimulus could be altered by manipulating frequency bandwidth. In addition, musical ability was studied as a factor and it was determined that it has only a minimal effect on one’s capacity to attend to multiple concurrent auditory tasks in a competitive listening scenario. The work contained in this thesis makes a number of contributions to the field: the identification of five key concepts from the field of acoustic ecology as being of practical use to sound designers in the design of more efficient auditory interfaces for use in busy real-world environments; the development of an experimental procedure using high-quality audio assets and equipment that allows for the examination of auditory attention in competitive listening scenarios across four performance measures; empirical data from two controlled experiments which presents evidence that high-level semantic processing plays only a minimal role in the allocation of auditory attention for background sounds in competitive listening scenarios, while low-level variables (specifically frequency bandwidth) can be manipulated to alter the amount of auditory attention elicited by background sounds in the presence of competing music stimuli; and correlation analysis data which presents evidence that musical ability has only a minimal effect on a listener’s capacity to attend to multiple concurrent auditory tasks in a competitive listening scenario.

The Jewish faith is the most ancient of the mono-theistic religions and is considered the first religion in the world that has a written set of rules. The canonical content of Jewish law (Hallakah) is contained in two places, the Torah and the Talmud. Both of these are the Jewish Holy Scriptures and contain the laws given to the prophet Moses on Mount Sinai. To non-Jews, perhaps the most well-known of Jewish laws are the strictures surrounding food and diet. These include inter alia, the non-consumption of pork and shellfish. These laws regarding food are in fact most ancient and concern not only the food itself and consumption thereof but also preparation, storage and service. This study focuses on the difficulties modern-day Jews face in Dublin whilst endeavouring to keep kosher. The main research question is: Is keeping kosher in 21st century Dublin a challenge for the Jewish community? The Jewish community in Dublin is not only a minority (less than 1,700 people) but is also in social science terms an invisible minority. When contrasted to the overwhelmingly Christian mainstream of Irish society where neither Catholic nor Protestant have any major strictures around food, this makes for a section of society that in food terms are left to fend for themselves in terms of provisioning. This study deals with the difficulties encountered by a shrinking community where the numbers required for critical-mass supply chain logistics are not present and examines the implications this has for the community trying to remain kosher. Through a series of interviews and questionnaires, the Jewish community is examined and attitudes and opinions are sought in order to formulate the conclusions. The findings are in keeping with the original theory; that in short, the difficulties are very real and have an everyday impact on the food choices of those trying to remain observant at table. The challenges uncovered by the research are: cost of product, poor selection available, little availability and distances involved in making purchases. These continue to cause problems on a day to day basis for the community. The most influential factor affecting the community and its food habits is the size and numbers of those attempting to remain observant at table.

William Vincent Wallace Bicentenary Recitals Wexford Festival Opera, Oct.-Nov. 2012. These unique recitals of drawing-room music and opera excerpts celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Irish composer, William Vincent Wallace (1812–1865) and focus particularly on his unknown songs and piano music. Wallace was one of the most extraordinary musical personalities of the nineteenth century – not only a composer, but a virtuoso on two instruments (piano and violin) and a global traveller. He visited parts of the world that no other Irish musician had set foot in and widened his sphere of influence by establishing a music school in Sydney, Australia where he is still regarded as the first great instrumentalist to visit that continent. From here he blazed a trail through South America where he was maestro to a season of Italian opera in Mexico City. A new career began as impresario before his return to London where his own first opera, Maritana, was an outstanding success. Tales of his adventures and escapades certainly helped to promote the popularity of his publications, particularly of his salon music. He was then just thirty-three years old and had already had enough experiences to fill several lifetimes.

The School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology, TU Dublin, Autumn Newsletter captured the many events, research, awards, significant contributions and special civic and community activities which the students and staff members of the school have successfully completed up to the Winter period of 2019. The successful completion of these activities would not be possible without the active and on-going support of the 'INSPIRED' friends of Culinary Arts (school supporters) and our school's industry association supporters.

The words Dublin or Ireland do not immediately come to mind when haute cuisine is mentioned. However, two leading French chefs, the brothers Francois and Michel Jammet, opened a restaurant in Dublin in 1901 which, up until its closure in 1967, remained one of the best restaurants serving haute cuisine in the world (Mac Con Iomaire 2005a; Mac Con Iomaire 2006). Haute cuisine was served in many Dublin hotels, clubs and restaurants during the twentieth century and came under similar influences as London and other European cities, moving from the Escoffier orthodoxy to the influence of nouvelle cuisine. This research reveals that French haute cuisine was widely available in Dublin hotels and restaurants from the late nineteenth century. German and Austrian chefs and waiters were widely employed in Dublin until the First World War, after which, Swiss chefs became more prevalent. Dublin restaurants enjoyed increased business during the ‘Emergency’ as gastro-tourists and army officers came to Dublin from England and Northern Ireland to dine. Restaurant Jammet during the years of WWII was reported to produce ‘the finest French cooking from the fall of France to the liberation of Paris’ (Ryan 1987). In 1949, another French chef, Pierre Rolland, arrived in Dublin as chef de cuisine of the Russell Hotel and the restaurant under his leadership also became world renowned for haute cuisine (Mac Con Iomaire 2004b). Dublin restaurants serving haute cuisine enjoyed a ‘golden age’ in the two decades that followed the Second World War. The kitchens and dining rooms of the Russell and Royal Hibernian Hotels became nurseries for young Irish chefs and waiters who gradually replaced the Continental head chefs and waiters and became the culinary leaders in the 1970s. When the Egon Ronay Guide covered Ireland for the first time in 1963, the Russell was awarded three stars – the highest possible accolade. It was described as ‘one of the best restaurants in Europe’ in the 1964 guide and by 1965 the entry for the Russell Hotel Restaurant read ‘words fail us in describing the brilliance of the cuisine at this elegant and luxurious restaurant which must rank amongst the best in the world’ (Egon-Ronay 1965:464). The Michelin Guide to Great Britain and Ireland was first published in 1974, awarding one star to the Russell Hotel which also closed in 1974. Haute cuisine moved from the restaurants of Dublin to the country house hotels during the 1970s and 1980s. The next Michelin star was not awarded in Dublin until 1989, to another French chef / restaurateur, Patrick Guilbaud. By 2001 there were two Dublin restaurants awarded two Michelin stars each, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, and Thornton’s, run by an Irish chef Kevin Thornton. Another Irish chef, Conrad Gallagher, was awarded one Michelin star in his restaurant Peacock Alley in 2001, and seven other Dublin restaurants were also awarded Red ‘M’s in 2001, symbolising good food and a reasonable price. This thesis is presented in three volumes. Volume I presents a broad review of the literature concerning the emergence of haute cuisine in a European context from Ancient Greece and Rome up to 21st century England and France, which acts as a historic backcloth against which the developments in Ireland can be seen. Ireland’s culinary history is reviewed in part one of Volume II, focusing particularly on the growth of public urban dining locations from taverns, coffee houses, clubs, chop houses to the emergence of the first French restaurant in Dublin in 1860. The main body of Volume II offers a chronology of how restaurants developed in Dublin from 1900 to 2000. Using a combination of documentary evidence, archival sources, material culture and oral histories, this volume attempts to establish the influence French haute cuisine had on this development. Sources will be critically analysed and compared with the findings of Volume I. Finally, the findings are assessed, conclusions are drawn and results are offered for consideration. The growth of restaurants in Dublin during the twentieth century is divided into four phases: Phase One: Dublin Restaurants (1900-1922) The Last Years of Imperial Rule Phase Two: Dublin Restaurants (1922-1946) From Independence to post-Emergency Phase Three: Dublin Restaurants (1947-1974) The Golden Age of Haute Cuisine Phase Four: Dublin Restaurants (1974-2002) Decline, Stagnation and Resurgence Volume III presents over 40 transcribed life history interviews with chefs, waiters, restaurateurs and discerning diners, from which much of the information for this research derives. This volume acts both as a reference to the themes discussed in Volume II and as a repository of life histories and material culture as a resource to future scholars of culinary history, social history and folklore.

This practice-led thesis constitutes a timely response to the absence of audio and visual representation of labour practices and post-industrial space in the context of Ireland’s accelerated economic development during the past decade, resulting in its current status as the most globalised economy in the world. The significance of Ireland’s global position is amplified by the fact that the South of Ireland never experienced the Industrial Revolution and has thus been propelled from an agricultural-based economy to one defined as post industrial. In both its methodological design and implementation, the study stakes out new terrain through the combined use of photography, digital video and ethnographic methods, further engaging with the oral testimony of workers in the post-industrialised multinational location, fieldsite of Hewlett-Packard Manufacturing and Technology Campus, Leixlip, County Kildare. The thesis comprises three chapters together with an introduction and conclusion. The first chapter situates Hewlett-Packard’s presence in Ireland within an historicised and economic framework, while simultaneously providing critical readings of propagandist representations by the public and private enterprise sectors. The chapter’s juxtaposition of these readings, together with disparate spatio-temporal labour practices, historical periods and the introduction of different theoretical paradigms, enacts a strategic textual device used throughout this chapter and the following two. The second chapter engages directly with methodological questions underpinning the research project, alongside foregrounding different field work practices. The textual presentation of interview transcript material, photography and digital video is brought into dialogue with depiction of industrialisations form the late nineteenth century to the present. The third and final chapter both identifies and establishes theoretical and representational strategies at work in the rationale, design and content of the re-constitution of the research material in the format of an installation titled ‘The Breathing Factory

This volume of essays which originated in the inaugural Dublin Gastronomy Symposium held in the Technological University Dublin in June 2012, offers fascinating insights into the significant role played by gastronomy in Irish literature and culture. The book opens with an exploration of food in literature, covering figures as varied as Maria Edgeworth, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, John McGahern, and Sebastian Barry. Other chapters examine culinary practices among the Dublin working classes in the 1950's, offering a stark contrast to the haute cuisine served in the iconic Jammet's Restaurant; new trends among Ireland's 'foodie' generation; and the economic and tourism possibilities created by the development of a gastronomic nationalism. The volume concludes by looking at the sacramental aspects of the production and consumption of Guinness and examining the place where it is most often consumed: the Irish pub.