Historical Society moves to prevent repeat of obscene disruption

THE Kilrush and District Historical Society meets via Zoom tomorrow and has been taking care to prevent a repeat of the incident that marred its previous lecture.

On that occasion, a lecture on Republican Surveillance of Women during the War of Independence, was disrupted by intruders displaying pornographic imagery. (See Champion story here)

The lecture was being given by Dr Mary McAuliffe, a historian, lecturer and Director of the Gender Studies Programme at UCD, who described herself as being “pretty shocked” by the events of the evening.

“We had to abandon it, the images were of porn, there were naked genitalia,” Dr McAuliffe told the Clare Champion at the time.

“Then there was the screaming, it wasn’t just images there were voices and in the chat function there were horrific things, sexist abuse, racist abuse. Everything was being impacted.”

A spokesperson for the Society told members, “Let me apologise for the Zoombombing which forced us to abandon our February lecture midway through and brought the society to national attention for all the wrong reasons.

“While there is very little that can be done to completely prevent those who wish to engage in such despicable behaviour from joining an organisation whose activities they wish to disrupt or from impersonating its members, we have been forced to make some changes to how we use Zoom and how we publicise our events from this month.

“Attendees will be vetted by the hosts before admission to the Zoom call and may have their audio and video turned off by the hosts.

“Please identify yourself by your full name (first name and surname) and video or photograph.

“You will not be admitted if you use an alias such as “phone” or “tablet” or “computer” or “PC” (even if your real initials are PC) or “Kilrush” or “Clare” (even if your real name is Clare).
This week’s lecture will take place at 8pm this Tuesday, March 29.”

The speaker will be Michèle O’Dea and her talk is entitled Scattery Island Conservation Works.

The Society spokesperson said, “Some lucky people have been isolated on Scattery Island from time to time during the last two years of Covid-19 restrictions, and the rest of us are looking forwarding to hearing about the great work that has been going on there and in due course to seeing it.”

Ms O’Dea is a Senior Conservation Architect with the Office of Public Works (OPW).  She is responsible for the care and presentation of the national monuments in the west and northwest of the country, from the Shannon Estuary to Malin Head.

This area includes some of the most significant heritage sites in Ireland and islands such as Scattery Island, the Aran Islands, Inishmurray, Clare Island and Tory Island as well as a number of inland islands such as Holy Island (Inis Cealtra) in Lough Derg on the River Shannon and islands in Lough Key.

These sites are maintained by the OPW operational staff, which comprises of skilled carpenters, stonemasons, stonecutters and general operatives.

Ms O’Dea has asked that the Society donate her honorarium to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) Kilrush Lifeboat Station.

The Society has provided instructions for people who need to change their current alias to their real name:
* if you do not already have a username and password for Zoom, then sign up at https://us04web.zoom.us/signup
* go to https://us04web.zoom.us/profile
* sign in with your own Zoom username and password if necessary
* click the “Edit” link towards the top right of the window
* type your real name in the Display Name box
* upload a photograph of yourself if you wish
* click the blue Save button

The spokesperson continued, “Please remember to remain muted during the presentation, particularly if you intend to take telephone calls or watch television or listen to the radio or use bad language to your barking dog at the same time.

“You may also want to keep your video off after being admitted to the Zoom call in order to prevent pressure on bandwidth at either end.

“If you wish to participate in the discussion while muted, then you can select “Reactions” from the menu at the bottom of the Zoom window and select “Raise Hand” from the pop-up which appears.

“The hosts can then turn on your audio and video and allow you to participate.”