This chapter considers poems which are about an art object. The ekphrastic process provokes consideration of how poetic representation works, partly because it embodies the Ancients' view that there is an intimate relationship between pictorial art and poetry. This view is encapsulated in the saying that 'A poem is a speaking picture; a picture is a silent poem'. Ekphrastic poetry has a long history, and the earliest well known example is the description of the shield of Achilles in Book XIII of Homer's Iliad. The most frequently cited examples of ekphrasis in English poetry are: Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'; Robert Browning's 'My Last Duchess'; and W. H. Auden's 'Musee des Beaux Arts'. These poems effectively constitute the ekphrastic canon and critics conventionally use them to analyse and classify the various elements and devices seen in ekphrastic writing.

A defendant wishing to defeat or reduce liability pursuant to a claim in negligence can prove a relevant defence. The key defences are contributory negligence, voluntary assumption of risk, the plaintiff’s own intoxication, engagement in dangerous recreational or unlawful activities, or other statutory defences such as failure to bring proceedings within the time limits prescribed by statute.Contributory negligence is the plaintiff’s own failure to meet the standard of care required for their own protection, where that failure is causally relevant to the injury. The defendant must establish that the plaintiff failed to take reasonable care for their own safety or the protection of their own interests and that this failure was a cause of their harm created by the plaintiff’s conduct. A successful defence of contributory negligence results in an apportionment of the damages between the plaintiff and the defendant.

This chapter assesses three different issues which directly influenced the training and military capabilities of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The issue of gunrunning was the key element of A. T. Q. Stewart's Ulster Crisis. Other issues surrounding UVF arms do require reappraisal such as the legal framework in which the arming of the force was conducted, the type and numbers of firearms obtained and the ultimate fate of these weapons. Local UVF units had to provide much of their own equipment and supplies, including for many some firearms; this was recognised by HQ which compiled a list of approved suppliers. UVF finance was very limited and this helps to explain why UVF HQ was unable to impose its authority on local units. Headquarters reluctantly provided rifles but everything else from tinned food to transport wagons was left to local committees and officers to organise on their own initiative.

This chapter examines the role of capabilities, social capital, and cultural capital as distinct layers of resources that might facilitate functional integration. It uses the term ‘functional integration’ to denote what migrant workers themselves might consider as viable lives in the host society as distinct from host-society integration goals. Many migrants might envisage a temporary sojourn in Ireland that allows them to build better lives for families at home, only to encounter damaging levels of exploitation, risk, and isolation. Many of the experiences considered in this chapter are those of migrants who have been trafficked into what the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) describes as bonded or indentured labour. The chapter discusses the role of supportive social ties as a bulwark against vulnerability in the labour market, focusing on the experiences of the Brazilian community in Gort, County Galway. It also looks at the attributes of some of the immigrants who have demonstrated considerable willingness to participate in Irish society. The case study draws on interviews with immigrant candidates who contested the 2009 local government elections.

The Patent Company was in trouble. The big names of the late Stuart stage were now to be found at Lincoln's Inn Fields rather than at Drury Lane or Dorset Gardens, and the London playgoing audience seemed more inclined to put their hands in their pockets for the rebels. The patent house employed a number of strategies to recover its share of the audience, including the repeated use of personal burlesque, which, as Judith Milhous observes, ‘gave Drury Lane actors a chance to show off in their own persons, as well as a chance to distort and exaggerate their rivals'habits’. Here then was an opportunity for the Patent Company players to develop their own public identity and win their own audiences. One of the more intriguing aspects of this approach is that it implicitly demonstrates the strength of the Players' Company position and the extent to which the Patent Company players participated in the battle with the rival company.

Lord Bew has argued in his Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006 that the failure of the power-sharing experiment in 1973-74, and especially on the proposal for a Council of Ireland, was largely the product of inflated nationalist aspirations encountering raised unionist anxieties amidst exaggerated official assumptions about what was politically achievable. These three As can be said to have fostered a fourth A - ambiguity - which was destructive of the project for political stability. If these four As together constitute a template for instability, there appears at first sight to be an irony. Has not ‘constructive ambiguity’ contributed to the enduring peace since the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement? This chapter suggests that the experience of 1973-74 still applies in Northern Ireland and that it is the absence of ambiguity which makes aspiration, anxiety and assumption institutionally manageable.

This chapter comprises an introduction to Gertrude More (1606-33), a Catholic nun who spent most of her life in exile in Cambrai at Our Lady of Comfort convent protected by Henrietta Maria, and her two posthumously published works: The Holy Practises of a Devine Lover or the Sainctly Ideots Devotions (1657) and The Spiritual Exercises of the Most Vertuous and Religious D. Gertrude More (1658). More was the great-great-granddaughter of Sir Thomas More. More's works, which are mostly prose but include several poems, demonstrate her piety and instruct all believers to engage in regular spiritual practices. They also include allusions to the Song of Songs, where More figures Christ as her divine lover, and these are explored in vivid, corporeal images.

Criminal law is divided into two general categories. Substantive criminal law is concerned with the declaration of conduct that is prohibited and the calendar of associated penalties. Procedural law regulates the conduct of authorities during the investigative and trial phase of proceedings. The law of criminal procedure is divided into three broad phases: pre-trial, trial and sentencing. Each phase is governed by important policy concerns relating to due process, the right to silence, the liberty of the individual, privacy and equal treatment. Some of these policy concerns will be discussed throughout this chapter. This chapter provides a overview of some of the important aspects of criminal procedure, but readers are encouraged to consult specialists reference texts in their own jurisdiction for detail.We begin this chapter by considering the nature of summary offences, before turning to explore the concept of public peace and its associated relationship with procedure and powers. We then consider the major categories of summary offences relating to public order, before concluding with traffic offences.