Three Sides Live | Professor Etienne Rynne Lectures | October 1994 | Part I
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Prof. Etienne Rynne leading a UCG Arch Soc
group on Scattery Island,
Co. Clare, in 1996 (© Chapple Collection)
Prof. Etienne Rynne passed away on the 22nd of June
2012. Since that time I’ve wanted to write something about him for this blog. And
herein lies the difficulty: Etienne and I had – to put it mildly – a
tempestuous relationship … at times we were the best of friends … and at other
times … less so. In the aftermath of his death I thought about putting pen to
paper … but what could I write? The appreciation that appeared, from Terry Barry, in Antiquity is fine insofar
as it goes, but it’s a rather dull affair, giving little more than a list of
places and dates, publications authored and edited, and positions held. It’s
all good stuff, but it hardly gives a deep sense of what the man was like in
person. Nonetheless, Barry does note his ‘engaging style of public speaking
that countless students had enjoyed in lectures in Galway.’ The obituary
published in the Irish
Times covers the same ground, only really enlivened by a couple of quotes
from him and one from Prof.
John Waddell. By far the best of Etienne’s obituaries is the one by Paul Gosling in the
Summer 2012 issue of The
Newsletter of the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland. It again gives
the obligatory names, places, publications and dates, but also attempts to
convey more of the personality of the man. Gosling makes particular note of ‘the
vivid colours of his 35mm slides were matched by his breadth of knowledge and
vibrant delivery’. And that’s where I left it! In the face of these three
obituaries, I didn’t feel that I had much to add beyond a list of scurrilous
stories that generally involved either alcohol or the two of us shouting at
each other … quite often both together. I’m not ruling out ever recording a few of these … but not just yet!
For a number of reasons, I recently found out that
it is relatively easy to transfer audio tapes to digital files … so long as you
have a working tape player! As I was hunting through my attic, looking for long
unlistened to bootleg recordings of various artists, I was reminded that I was
once given some recordings of a very different kind. In the period from 1993 to
1995 NUIG organised a diploma course in archaeology, aimed at non-archaeology
graduates. A good friend of mine bootlegged almost the entire course,
eventually passing on all the audio tapes to me. They’ve moved house with me
several times and have gone from one storage area to another, unlistened to for
almost 20 years. My understanding is that Etienne gave three lectures as part
of this course, covering early monasteries, illuminated manuscripts, the Tara
Brooch along with the Ardagh and Derrynaflan Chalices. In amongst the bag of
recordings are two audio tapes with recordings on three sides made in October
1994 (hence the reference to the 1982 Genesis album).
The first of these, an introduction to the early
monasteries, is presented here and the others will follow in due course. While
the audio recordings are, obviously, missing the necessary visual accompaniment
they do give a much richer feel for his near unique presentation style and manner
in which he interacts with the audience. Throughout he notes that he is giving
only the most superficial of introductions to these subjects and that with his
regular students these topics would be covered in greater depth and over a much
longer period. They also capture his sense of humour, the anecdotes that he
studded his lectures with, his running misogyny, and sheer joy at baiting his
audience. Insofar as I am aware, these recordings comprise a unique account of
his public speaking style. I also see these recordings as having an importance
beyond themselves in that they may be used as a rough baseline to judge more
recent developments and discoveries in the field of Early Christian studies.
Former students who did not attend these specific
lectures will easily recognise many of his jokes, anecdotes, and general mannerisms,
along with his obsession with hand-outs, his continual war with the slide
projector, and the general sense of mayhem that seemed to accompany him
wherever he went. For those who did not know him and never had the opportunity
to hear him speak, I hope there is still much to enjoy here too.
As an aid to understanding the structure and
progress of the lectures, I’ve provided roughly time stamped notes on topics
covered and, on occasion, quotes from both the lecturer and a number of
audience members that can be heard in the background.
0:15 ‘Security is now on its way’ to open the
projection booth
0:45 passing out the hand-outs
2:05 audience member: ‘Jesus, he’s a terrible
fu*king schoolmaster’
3:23 Early monasteries … it’s all in the hand-out!
3:33 Early Manuscripts is going to be a rush job –
nice picture show!
4:00 No bloody way am I going to do just the
Ardagh chalice
4:40 I saw you come in late!
5:10 – still giving out hand-outs
6:10 Audience member 1: ‘Do you be at this sort of
thing when you’re lecturing?’
Audience
member 2: ‘what?’
Audience
member 1: ‘Do you be at this sort of sh*t when you’re lecturing?’
Audience
member 2: ‘If I was quarter of an hour late there’d be nobody there!’
8:10 ‘if you want to see details in the Tara
Brooch or details in the Book of Kells, I’d advise you sit as close as
possible’
8:55 note about upcoming conference in Claremorris
11:10 ‘Come back to our mutton’
12:27 about those hand-outs
14:15 ‘let’s get back to what we were talking
about – early monasteries!’
14:30 how to recognise an early monastery
15:25 the Vallum
15:55 ‘Because the Romans never came’
16:20 St Patrick & the
Roman army
16:53 Holy wells
17:35 Navan Fort
18:00 Loughnashade
trumpets
18:30 St Bridget
19:02 ‘Round towers are not
features of early monasteries’
20:00 ‘Celtic Church in inverted commas’
21:20 ‘everyone is a hermit’
21:41 ‘Anyone could be made a bishop – you didn’t
even have to be intelligent’
23:10 ‘We got cut off from Rome by the influx of
Barbarians everywhere except Ireland’
24:00 Circular vs rectangular enclosures & the
Celtic love of curves
24:40 Grianan of Aileach
& Dún Aonghasa
as pagan Celtic cult centres
25:00 Inishmurray
as pagan Celtic site
28:00 Cursing
stones are not Christian
28:25 Nendrum as pagan
Celtic cult site
30:01 Kells
30:15 Moyne
31:00 Kiltiernan
32:25 Church Island, Cork
33:02 ‘What did the churches look like?’
35:10 McDarra’s
Island
36:20 ‘We have one good description of an early
church from the seventh century’
36:30 The Church of St Brigit, Kildare
37:00 technical difficulties
39:50 Athenry Rood Screen
40:02 Battles with slide projector: ‘That’s not
working now … but ye saw it before, damnit!’
40:05 ‘that was taken in a Greek church in Paris …
there’s a very nice little church there … on the rive gauche … well don’t go to
mass in it! Well, I went to mass thinking it was a very handy, thinking I’d get
a mass next to where I was staying … it went on and on and on ... and they were
all singing and they were all marching around … never stopped … it was lovely
but I didn’t have three hours to spare’
41:15 ‘I hope you have enough in your hand-outs …’
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Prof. Etienne Rynne discussing a reused Romanesque
fragment in the church
on Scattery
Island, Co. Clare, in 1996 (© Chapple Collection)
|
Part II | Part III >
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