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In 2017, the participants of a higher education professional development (PD) working group (meitheal) met face-to-face and remotely to examine the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (NFTL) Framework for Professional Development. Through collaboration and mentorship, members of the meitheal successfully familiarised themselves with the PD framework document and built a community of practice of inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional practitioners. Using a self-study conceptual framework, this article reflects on the work of the meitheal, its establishment and organisation, its influences on the participants and its place in the national PD project. It draws on the shared reflections of the participants and feedback gathered throughout the project, by means of discussion, written reflections, focus groups, audio and video diaries, and NFTL feedback sheets. It draws conclusions and makes recommendations for future professional development projects, drawing on the epistemological, technological and social foundations of self-study theory.

Summary: Programmed cell death (PCD) is fundamentally important for plant development, abiotic stress responses and immunity, but our understanding of its regulation remains fragmented. Building a stronger research community is required to accelerate progress in this area through knowledge exchange and constructive debate. In this Viewpoint, we aim to initiate a collective effort to integrate data across a diverse set of experimental models to facilitate characterisation of the fundamental mechanisms underlying plant PCD and ultimately aid the development of a new plant cell death classification system in the future. We also put forward our vision for the next decade of plant PCD research stemming from discussions held during the 31st New Phytologist workshop, 'The Life and Death Decisions of Plant Cells' that took place at University College Dublin in Ireland (14–15 June 2023). We convey the key areas of significant progress and possible future research directions identified, including resolving the spatiotemporal control of cell death, isolation of its molecular and genetic regulators, and harnessing technical advances for studying PCD events in plants. Further, we review the breadth of potential impacts of plant PCD research and highlight the promising new applications of findings from this dynamically evolving field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As eco-criticism moves in the mainstream of film studies, questions remain about the relationship between ecological film representations and audience understanding. Addressing definitional tensions within eco-film research, this article argues that eco-criticism can be pragmatically grounded in terms of eco-film's pedagogical pertinence for specific audiences. Through guided film viewing and student focus groups, the article explores how the Irish film, "Eat the Peach" (Ormrod, 1986), can be used to provoke reflection on the ecological impact of human imperatives toward economic development and personal fulfillment. The findings highlight how local narratives elucidate conflicting cultural values and attitudes toward the environment.

Amid pressure for climate action worldwide, processes of deliberative democracy are being called upon to address public policy complexities, include citizens in decision-making, restore faith in public institutions and enhance governance processes. The citizens' assembly model is lauded internationally for the much-needed structure it provides to support bottom-up governance efforts as well as the potential for effective citizen engagement on complex topics. The Irish Citizens' Assembly, which took place from 2016 to 2018, is heralded as an example of best practice in design and execution. Yet, there is a dearth in analysis of its form, structure, impact and content, particularly in the climate crisis context. This paper examines one element of the deliberative democracy process that aimed to include a wider breadth of publics beyond the 99 citizens randomly selected to take part: the public submissions invited as part of the Citizens' Assembly process. In total, 1185 submissions were received on the topic of climate change. Our study undertakes a comprehensive content analysis of these submissions. Specifically, we explore (1) the content and concerns foregrounded within the submissions, (2) the frames and rhetorical strategies employed and (3) the stakeholders and scales called upon for climate action. The study identifies trends, preoccupations and salience within the corpus of written submissions and expands our understanding of citizen perceptions of climate science and policy. We offer both operational lessons for others aiming to enact similar deliberative forums as well as communications lessons for wider efforts to deepen public engagement on the climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irish agriculture is currently dominated by a cattle economy that can be traced from its historical origins under British imperialism to subsequent expansion and intensification since Ireland's accession to the European Union (EU) in 1973. Its current growth-directed trajectory has been underlined by the controversial Food Harvest 2020 document produced by the Irish government with major input from agribusiness interests, which envisages significant intensification of beef and dairy farming. Combining ecosocialist theory with an eco-film analysis, wecast a critical eye over the range of externalities generated by "Green Revolution" technologies that form the centrepiece of most farming in Ireland today. We have analysed three films that represent Irish farming over the last century—Man of Aran (1934), The Field (1990) and Pilgrim Hill (2014). In particular, the concerns of Pilgrim Hill have been foregrounded, dealing as it does with a certain dysfunction at the heart of farming today, while the first two films have been used to consider the historical context. While government and industry campaigns have promoted the idea of "grass-fed" sustainable agriculture in Ireland, Pilgrim Hill highlights rather the difficulties faced by alienated farmers living and working in degraded ecologies under conditions of neoliberal capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens' assemblies can contribute to inclusive, citizen-driven policymaking. This commentary focuses on Ireland's Citizens' Assembly, an internationally acclaimed deliberative forum that examined pressing social, environmental and political issues facing the country, including climate change. Citizens' assemblies bring together randomly selected, representative samples of the population and task them with deliberating on public policy questions. They have been posited as a solution to complex public policy challenges, and form a key demand of the environmental activist organisation Extinction Rebellion to tackle the perceived inability of the political system to adequately address the climate crisis. We discuss key strengths of Ireland's Citizens' Assembly experience that could be replicated elsewhere, along with teasing out some limitations of the process. We suggest how the communication of citizens' assemblies could be improved, including in relation to their recruitment methodologies, use of witnesses and citizen feedback processes. In doing so, we provide lessons for others wishing to enact similar deliberative processes across topic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of rural Europe has witnessed vast changes over the past two decades, including major demographic and economic change. The question of how these changes have affected individual well-being and quality of life remains largely unanswered. This paper aims to shed light on this topic by employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods in the analysis of rural quality of life in Ireland, including focus groups, locally-specific surveys and two representative surveys of individuals carried out in 2001 and 2007. We use the respondents’ self-reported life satisfaction level as a proxy for their well-being to examine the determinants of quality of life and also examine how attitudes have changed over this period. Results show a consistently high life satisfaction in rural Ireland. The greatest changes are witnessed in attitudes to the provision of facilities and services. Respondents’ perceptions of the benefits and limitations of rural living remain constant between the two periods, focusing on quality of life and environmental issues. However, the main problems of rural living have shifted away from the cost of housing to access to healthcare and public transport. Issues that are found to be important at the local scale include economic indicators (for example, security of income, home ownership), dwelling characteristics, social factors (for example, belonging to the community) and environmental amenities (for example, access to green space, good-quality environment). The importance of these issues is born out by the analysis at the national scale. The paper concludes by exploring the policy implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irish public sphere discourse about the United States has, particularly since the September 11 attacks, been regularly reproached for being 'anti-American'. This paper explores the cultural politics of this charge by creatively juxtaposing the analysis of an Irish current affairs programme with a Hollywood made 'Irish' movie. The value of our analysis, we argue, is that, taken together, both objects enable us to problematize the politics of the other, thus providing us with a more complex context for exploring the overdetermined question of political-cultural (dis) identification. We interrogate the ideological simplicity of the discourse structuring the anti-American charge, while at the same time showing how Irish news media representations enable such a discourse to be articulated. We also explore a more generous mode of Irish cultural identification through a reading of Jim Sheridan's 2003 movie In America, though we simultaneously problematize the assumption the movie can be read as a straightforward 'homage' to America. We conclude by cautioning against reified modes of analysis that project a fullness onto political-cultural identities that are always formally open, and over-privilege the national as an object of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In order to evaluate adaptation within dairy production systems in Ireland with regard to the effects of global atmospheric change, it was necessary to complement research on primary production (grass yield) with investigation of the production system as a whole. There has been little work evaluating climate change impact on low-cost, grass-based dairy production which is currently regarded as the most profitable form of agricultural production system operating in Ireland, and is also successfully employed elsewhere in the world. A system simulator, Dairy_sim, was used to evaluate the long-term (2080) impacts of global climate change on low-cost, grass-based dairying in Ireland assuming a maximised production scenario (producing the greatest output of milk on a given land area). If a workable system, based on current management principles could be found, then the system was regarded as being capable of adaptation. At 11 locations in Ireland dairy production was investigated using Dairy_sim for both well-drained and poorly drained soils using a 2080 climate-period forecast. Climate change impact was evaluated by looking at changes in system properties such as stocking rate, grass yield and silage supply following simulation for baseline 1970 (1961–1990) and 2080 (2070–2099) climates. For the maximised production scenario it was found that dairy production in Ireland should readily adapt to forecasted changes in agrometeorological conditions and can remain functional. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Mainstream neoclassical economics takes it as given that the consumption of goods and services (output) is positively related to well-being. Work (labour-input) is assumed to be negatively related to well-being at the margin and so is only undertaken in exchange for payment. This view has been challenged for decades in the psychology and sociology literature and results suggests that employment status (especially unemployment) has profound effects on well-being, even at the margin. It is surprising then that several labour force status categories have been under researched in the literature to date. In this paper, using a sample of Irish adults carried out in 2001, we extend the current literature to examine the impacts of additional labour force status categories on life-satisfaction based on International Labour Organisation (ILO) classifications. These include part-time employment, disconnection from the labour force and being disabled, unable to work. Additionally, we expand the analysis of unemployment in the happiness literature and examine if the effects of unemployment and part-time employment on life satisfaction are conditioned by gender. Insights show that being part-time employed has a significant negative effect on life satisfaction, particularly for males. Being unemployed is found to have a significant negative effect on well-being, independent of gender and income, but no such effect is found for the local unemployment rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dairy cow system simulator, Dairy_sim, designed for assessing the interaction of climate and management on dairy cow production, based on rotational grass grazing, was further developed by integrating a soil water model. The soil water model was based on the concept of soil water deficits, and influenced the growth of grass herbage in the simulator when there was an excess of water over field capacity and when water content in the soil was approaching wilting point. The soil water model was tested using baseline meteorological data (1961–1990) and then the system simulation was parameterized and tested for poorly drained soils using data from a research farm in the west of Ireland. After testing, the effects of regional differences in climate on system management on well- and poorly drained soils were compared. Down-scaled Global Climate Model (GCM) data for the baseline years (1961–1990) were used for this purpose. These data resulted in slightly more favourable weather than that recorded. It was found that the simulator was capable of generating results in good agreement with published data for dairy production on poorly drained soils. The regional analysis showed dairy farms on well-drained soils out-performed their equivalents on poorly drained soils and, in general, were able to sustain higher stocking rates by 0·6–0·9 cows ha−1. Dry matter production was around 1·5–3 t ha−1 greater per annum on well-drained soils compared to poorly drained soils. The simulator, Dairy_sim, also captured a large difference in the requirement for housing and forage between the well and poorly drained soils. The simulation model can now be used to evaluate interactions between soils, systems and weather, and is thus a more useful tool for developing practical advice and for evaluating the impacts of possible climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Indices ranking the quality of life in cities based on climatic, environmental and urban conditions have a long tradition in the hedonic literature. In this paper we propose an alternative set of indices based on subjective well-being (SWB) data linked to regional level amenities. SWB indicators provide a direct, self-reported evaluation of life satisfaction and can be used to rank quality of life among different locations in the absence of data on housing prices and wages. Using SWB data in Ireland, we show how to rank quality of life in regions in three different ways: 1) using a simple unconditional average of SWB across locations, 2) conditionally, controlling for personal characteristics of individuals and the environmental amenities in their area and 3) weighting the environmental endowments in each location by the marginal rate of substitution between income and the amenity. The results show a very high correlation between the three indices and suggest that variation in SWB across locations is not random, but is driven to a large extent by the endowment of location-specific amenities across locations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Jim Sheridan is one of the fathers of Irish national cinema with Oscar-winning films including My Left Foot (1990) and powerful nation building narratives like The Field (1990) and In the Name of the Father (1993). His recent work has tried to become more internationally appealing with an evocative study of Irish emigrants in America and most controversially his recent biopic of the internationally known black rapper, 50 cent. By examining In America and Get Rich or Die Tryin this article will assess how Sheridan adapts his Irish preoccupations while trying to take on Hollywood. More than any other Irish director, Sheridan uses family, race, otherness, and Americana, in general, to dramatise Ireland's affinity with America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the historical overview illustrating the relationship between seminal Irish film and nature tourism. Studies show that the country's tourism is oftentimes matched with its romantic image. Ireland's wild tourist sites remains etched on the imagination of tourists, as film critics like Luke Gibbons and Ruth Barton explored the phenomenon from several perspectives, particularly on early Irish settings that were developed by American films.

Abstract: Changes in water and nitrogen management for spring barley and potato, arising from possible climate change in Ireland, were assessed using simulation models. The locations in Ireland with the highest proportion (by area) of barley and potato production were identified and 1961–1990 and 2041–2070 monthly climate data were used to drive mechanistic crop models. Nitrogen and water response curves were created using current recommended management guidelines as a starting point. A series of step-wise manual irrigation simulations were then undertaken to estimate the minimum future irrigation demand for specific areas. It was concluded that there will be little impact on spring barley production, but in some areas (towards the centre and western half of Ireland) it might be possible to reduce nitrogen application rates by half. The impact of climate change on potato production will be more pronounced: without irrigation yield will only remain viable in areas where rainfall remains high, elsewhere between 150 and 300mm of irrigation will be required each year, but this might be offset by the possibility of reducing nitrogen inputs by up to half. It was also concluded that potato production on less suitable (heavier) soils would be less desirable if irrigation is required because of possible run-off losses that may occur. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The promotional and academic discourse surrounding new media suggests that they offer more fun and more pleasure than existing or traditional media. However, academic work within media and cultural studies has failed to interrogate these claims empirically. This article critically assesses the conceptualization of pleasure as it is deployed in media audience research and attempts to update these conceptualizations by drawing upon game design theory and key concepts from new media theory. The article goes on to evaluate these concepts through an empirical examination of the varied experience of digital games, DVDs and digital television in a variety of households in Dublin, Ireland. Central to the findings is that while pleasure and displeasure are largely undertheorized, these terms, when deployed empirically, afford a useful entry point into evaluating media experiences. The article identifies key differences between the experience of online and offline new media and calls for more research into the pleasures of play and control in relation to both new and more established media use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model that describes the utilization of herbage by cattle in a rotational grazing system is presented. The model considers swards as being structured into two phases: a long phase associated with old dung patches, and a short phase. Both phases are treated as consisting of a series of horizontal strata corresponding in depth to a bite depth. The sward is divided into feeding stations consisting of either the long or the short phase. In each, only the surface stratum is available for grazing at each time step. At any time step, the individuals of a herd of cattle, distributed at random, encounter the entire range of strata. The rate of intake of each member of the herd depends on the intake properties of the stratum that it has encountered. The number of cattle that encounter each stratum type is variable so that the mean intake per member of the herd is the weighted mean. The core feature of the model is the simulation of the change over time in the frequency distribution of exposed stratum types and the distribution of grazing across this range of strata. The members of the herd are assumed to select a feeding station based on preference for leafiness of the encountered stata and the phase. The decision to graze or not is based on the comparison between the current vs. the previous feeding station. Model parameter values were based on published data. The proportion of leaf and bulk density of a phase or the strata were determined from an analysis of a sample of sward profiles. Using bite dimension, bite weight, biting rate, search time, feeding station area and selective behaviour, it was possible to simulate sward depletion that is very similar to the observed data from grazed paddocks in experiments in south-east Ireland. The model of herbage utilization adequately described the changes in intake and sward structure during grazing and it was concluded that it was suitable for use as part of a simulation of a grazing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dairy system simulator, Dairy_sim, was designed to assess the interactions between climate and management in spring-calving milk production systems based on the grazing of grass pastures. The simulator comprises three main components: a grass herbage growth model, an intake and grazing behaviour model, and a nutrient demand model. The simulator was initially parameterized using the Irish National Dairy Blueprint. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the simulator was most sensitive to stocking rate, milk output per cow and nitrogen fertilizer inputs, but less sensitive to other variables. Field data from four grazing systems were used to test the simulator and it was concluded that Dairy_sim was suitable for evaluating the interaction of climate and management for rotational grazing dairy systems based on perennial ryegrass pastures with Friesian cows. The simulator, Dairy_sim, was then used to evaluate the effects of the regional climates of Ireland on system management. The results indicated that, between regions, herbage production at the same input of nitrogen may vary proportionally by 0·10 and that the length of the grazing season may vary by 0·25. It was concluded that the simulator could be a useful tool for developing region-specific dairy production blueprints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When compared to the agronomic aspects of agriculture the contribution of climate is poorly integrated into the body of scientific knowledge in Ireland. It is known that specific crops grow well in specific regions and that success of a crop can be related to climate factors. The aim of this paper was to derive agroclimatic regions of Ireland using hydro-thermal climate (as expressed by climographs using mean monthly rainfall and temperature) in conjunction with a statistical clustering technique (k-means clustering) to relate crop yield, estimated using mathematical simulation models for grass, barley, maize, potato and soybean to hydro-thermal climate data. A dataset, on a 10 km×10 km grid, consisting of monthly radiation, rainfall, maximum temperature and minimum temperature was used to drive crop simulation models to predict average yields, for each grid square. Results showed that the crops simulated were sensitive to either available water or length of growing season. As there are few objective measures of the ideal number of clusters to use in order to create agroclimatic regions, clusterings to 3, 4 and 7 regions were evaluated against known properties of the Irish climate and crop responses. A seven cluster agroclimate region map was thought to be a good basis for describing Ireland’s agroclimates and was compared with climate data for the national synoptic station network. Results suggested a reasonably good correspondence between clusters and their associated synoptic observation stations. Some anomalies were observed. The resulting agroclimatic map could be used for extrapolation of empirical research findings, for agri-environmental experimental design and as a framework for assessment of the impact of climate change on Irish agriculture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract Keeping within the temperature limits set by the Paris Agreement on climate action will be a significant challenge. Nuclear power generation may contribute to achieving these targets, however, there are significant environmental, economic and health risks attached. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, this paper explores how nuclear power generation is framed in the Irish print media, and discusses the implications of these frames for how nuclear power is perceived within the context of climate change mitigation in Ireland. Two Irish broadsheet papers, the Irish Times and the Irish Independent were selected for data collection, focusing on Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents. The prevalence of informational and balanced articles suggest that to some extent, an open debate on nuclear is already occurring. Nevertheless, significantly more articles take an anti-nuclear stance (34% in 1986 and 27.5% in 2011) than pro-nuclear (2.1% in 1986 and 3.3% in 2011), reflecting the lack of public appetite for nuclear power. This may limit the potential for a wider debate to occur within the context of reducing domestic emissions. Considering the urgency of addressing climate change, a full and balanced societal debate on how nuclear power, other energy alternatives (e.g. wind) and the energy sector more generally, can contribute to national climate policy targets may be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]