MORE OF THE SAME.

This may not surprise you.

I've come across some new stuff, mostly pertaining to the "Little Books" that Mullan wrote. These were compilations of saint's (or blessed folks') quotes with a forward by Mullan, in a convenient, pocket-sized paperback (for all your saintly needs, of course.) It was interesting to watch the conversation about permissions to publish certain quotes, and who his market was for other things. There was also a lot of older things - the Donal de Roiste case again, for instance, with more correspondence and drafts of the final book (Speaking Truth to Power) as well as clippings from Donal's sister's run for the Irish presidency, which was foiled in part by Donal's case.

So, what you're all here for: the pictures!

These are edits from one of the Little Books. Lots of unreadable notes.

(Sorry this is sideways - I thought I had finally figured it out! Apparently not.) These were quotes from Oscar Romero, collected for the Little Book. Really, really interesting stuff.

Okay, so I know that Oscar Romero is a very serious guy and his story is very serious as well. But...1989 artwork has some interesting ideas on how to portray that...

I don't think I would have gotten along with Teresa of Avila....(Mullan actually said, in an e-mail, that she was a "tough cookie" and I think he felt similarly to me. Interesting stuff!)

I am VERY curious about this person. But I'll respect her right to privacy, just as Mullan did.

Letters from India, from Mother Teresa's order. Very cool!

More Mother Teresa notes...

Aaaaand this was in Mullan's collection of biographical information about Mother Teresa. This caused me, obviously, to fall down the Wikipedia warphole. Apparently there's a group of New Agey religious who believe that Mother Mary manifests to those who have entered higher planes of existence, and that Mary passed along some messages about Mother Teresa. Nice ones!

More Gordon Banks photos. He looks like the nicest man!

...see?? I love football players.

really.

Can you imagine receiving Christmas cards from your childhood hero? SO COOL

And I guess they made comic books about football. That's also pretty cool and likely matches the demographic...

This was about a warehouse in Ireland that held lots and lots and lots of explosives but had very very poor security. Mullan thinks that this was linked to the De Roiste case. The photos from this warehouse were frightening - explosive components scattered all around, terrible or barely-there fencing, and the possibility that they were pilfered for terrorist use later...

If you look veeeerrryyy closely, you can see my FIRST WORK-RELATED INJURY

And I finish on this note! I don't think I need to tell all y'all how I feel about this article. (There were a lot of these. Blech.)

Until next week, everybody!!

Don Mullan, Don Mullan, Don Mullan....

I'm plugging away through the archive and it's all very melancholy, of course. I can only read so many eyewitness accounts of bombings (Dublin/Monaghan) or shootings (Belfast, Derry) or other types of violence before I need to close my eyes and sit for a bit in quiet and comfort myself.

Luckily! Mullan had other interests! And on Wednesday, I came across a box of entirely football paraphernalia. Mullan credits his childhood (and adulthood, honestly) hero worship of Gordon Banks as keeping him out of the IRA after he experienced Bloody Sunday in Derry. The story is fairly fascinating - he worshiped Banks, despite his status as playing for England, and his love for the man led to keeping an extensive scrapbook of his achievements. One night, when soldiers broke in to his home, they were surprised to see all of the Gordon Banks posters - and Mullan says that they were able to connect with one another as humans rather than soldier/victim, occupying/oppressed, or English/Irish. And, since Banks was such a decent man, Mullan knew that the Brits couldn't be all bad.

So, of course, Mullan became an extensive collector throughout his life. My mentor is only recently a citizen of the United States (hurrah! wooo!) but grew up just outside of London (I think) and when I showed her the pamphlet from the 1966 World Cup, even she knew it was a big deal - and she says that she knows less than nothing about football. Apparently that was the last year that England won.

Without further ado: the photos! (I took a lot of photos of ads, since they're very strange to me.)

A map of Belfast.

so much football stuff

subtle.

I think this is one of the "pro"s of sport - look at how the world can come together (to fight against England)!

I guess this is a big deal.

This may be a bigger deal - to me, anyway...

Tea! and he's got a haircut like mine! (I need a haircut, clearly)

...yikes. 

If anyone's interested, this is a fascinating article on the experience of processing David Foster Wallace's collection on the Pale King. It resonates a lot with me!

This week was...well, more of the same. I'm still wading through the Don Mullan papers. That's been exciting, and uncomfortable. I think I was spoiled with the Prejean papers - she's genuinely an amazing person. There is not a streak of hypocrisy in her. Any "scandals" that she was involved in were because she was too good, or too loving.

I'm not saying that Mullan is not a good person, who has offered wonderful things to the world, since he most certainly has! - however, he's human in a way that Prejean isn't. I've come across what seem to me to be lots of petty litigation, and also some misfiled personal documents that are making me question Mullan as a ethical person...that's no good (please don't sue me.).  All that aside, he's an excellent researcher and he's done a lot for Ireland, so on to what I know y'all are here for: the pictures!

This seemed at first to be a mysterious bit of paper. In fact, it's documentation of Mullan's "EUREKA" moment while he was researching the events in his book, "Speaking Truth to Power." 

Doodles? Research? Thinking on paper? I'm as mystified as you are.

 

...this was from his friend and partner in humanitarianism, Gary White Deer. It made me laugh, since so much of the rest of the collection is so gloomy - for good reason! But I was glad for this lighthearted bit.

This, too, was from Gary White Deer. It's nice and uplifting for a busy student like me.

Hoo boy. This week has been a rough one.

The Don Mullan papers are organized, sort of. They're at least in binders. But I can't for the life of me figure out if there's any coherence behind what got placed with what - practically nothing is dated - and it's all really interesting! It's taking me a very long time to get through anything because I keep getting distracted by content - soldier 027's testimony, for instance, or books regarding other Nationalist/Loyalist conflicts, or emails between Mullan and one of the people he wrote a book on (dude was rude!). I can't help but wonder what people would think, if they knew that I was reading their testimonies - some crude, some heartfelt, some alarming, some incredibly sad.

There were extensive (mostly unreadable) notes on the back of this drink coaster. I KNOW.

Mysterious map of India. Not sure why it was there...

We got a new shipment of books! These are Florence Kelley's! (She is super cool, in case you didn't know.) (Also, juveniles were arrested for "general incorrigibility." If that was still a crime, we'd have EVEN MORE overcrowded jails.)

Check it out! My archives! It's complete! (Not the Mullan papers, obviously.)

Portrait of Ghandi as a Young Man. Or postcard.

Aaaaaand this is their new home. It's nice to have this one finished and not feel like I'm a total failure with approaching the mess of the Mullan papers. I like feeling like I'm capable of finishing something, even though it was relatively a much smaller project and already fairly well-organized.

That's all for this week. I'll keep plugging away and taking pictures of the more unusual things!