This thesis focuses on the Irish Republican Courts which existed during the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-1921, also known as the Irish War of Independence. The republican courts were a part of an Irish...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the Irish Republican Courts which existed during the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-1921, also known as the Irish War of Independence. The republican courts were a part of an Irish alternative government, which existed alongside the then still present British government in Ireland. It focuses especially on the motives of ordinary Irishmen to use the republican courts, what is was that made them function, and to what extent they can be considered to have functioned successfully as judicial institutions. Their success as judicial institutions was measured by comparing them to British courts, the Petty Sessions, in terms of the number of cases and types of cases each dealt with. The results amount to a correction of the existing image of the republican courts.Show less
The Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web, has become the primary source of information for a substantial number of people in the world. In many libraries, computers have taken over the...Show moreThe Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web, has become the primary source of information for a substantial number of people in the world. In many libraries, computers have taken over the main task of access to information and have pushed books to the periphery. But ever since its beginnings in 1990, the Web has changed and so have the ways we use it. An analysis of the Web's (cyber)space through graph theory can help identify how these changes have come about, and in what direction they are expected to push the Web in the future. The modern search engine, the Web 2.0 revolution, cloud computing and the shift to mobile devices have shifted the nodal structure and nodal features of the Web, which is expressed in a shift from exploration to information-retrieval, and from informational to largely social uses. Increasingly, the dynamic nature of websites has decoupled the content from the form, resulting in a lack of accountability of authors towards their web pages, which are claimed to be the result of “objective” algorithms. This supposed objectivity obscures the process of centralisation on the Web, in which the hubs are getting stronger and absorb traffic. As a result, there is a loss of associative data between non-hub web pages. The growing schism between form and content also makes it harder to spatially reify the information on the Web, since content is not necessarily fixed in its location and presentation. This spatiality matters, because it greatly benefits associative understanding and memorisation of information. The realness of the virtual space of the Web is analysed and is found to be real in the sense that it has real consequences. Moreover, the application of the spatial metaphor to the inherently non-spatial digital data is shown to be vital to effective use of the Web. Several strategies and tactics are proposed to stop this reduction of space and associativity in the Web.Show less
