Cassandra Voices

Tag: concetto

  • Guglielmo Marconi’s Irish Connections

    The life of Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, has been celebrated on two primary occasions in Ireland. First, in 1997 at the centenary of his first wireless transmissions, and also in 2007 at the centenary of his first commercial TransAtlantic wireless transmissions between Ireland and Canada.

    Both anniversaries were celebrated in Clifden, Connemara, where, in a rural site at Derrigimlagh, Marconi had built his most powerful radio station fit for the purpose.

    For the 2007 celebrations, I produced a twenty minute documentary on the life and achievements of Marconi. This was presented at the Italian Institute of Culture in the presence of a select audience, which included Marconi’s daughter Princess Elettra, and her son Gugliemo.

    The documentary entitled “Marcon’s Legacy in Ireland” is a comprehensive, somewhat emotional profile of Marconi that engages with him as a man and father, as well as his profound scientific achievements.

    Tracing the path of his life from birth in 1874 to death in 1937, it shows how, as a young boy, he showed a passion for constructing rudimentary gadgets that drew on the filed of electromagnetism, for which he and developed a deep fascination.

    This culminated in him developing the capacity to transmit wireless messages to his brother in the perimeter of his garden in Villa Griffone, his family home near Bologna.

    That was only the beginning of a distinguished career as an inventor which led to the invention of radio, as we know it today.

    Marconi’s many links with Ireland are highlighted in the documentary, including a connection with the RTÉ grounds where Montrose House stands, which was inhabited for some time by Marconi’s mother, Annie Jameson who was a member of the famous family of distillers.

    Indeed, his first wife Beatrice O’Brien, was the daughter of Lord Inchiquin of Dromoland Castle, Co Clare; although he eventually, amicably divorced her to marry an Italian countess Cristina Bezzi Scali.

    His surviving daughter Princess Elettra, was the guest of honour at the presentation of the documentary at the Italian Institute of Culture in Dublin in 2007.

    She said: “I love Ireland and I know Ireland was very important to my father, I’m very grateful because Annie Jameson was the only one who believed in my father when he was very young.”

    In 1909, Marconi shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun for their “contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy” (radio communications).

    Feature Image: Marconi demonstrating apparatus he used in his first long-distance radio transmissions in the 1890s. The transmitter is at right, the receiver with paper tape recorder at left.

  • Interview with Concetto La Malfa

    This week Cassandra Voices editor Frank Armstrong sat down for a chat with veteran Italian journalist Concetto La Malfa, who has been living in Ireland for almost sixty years.

    He initially arrived for a two month work placement with Aer Lingus, before embarking on a chequered career that includes founding a magazine for the Italian community, which he edited for almost thirty years, acting as the Irish correspondent for the Corriere dello Sport, and teaching Italian in UCD.

    He continues to work as a journalist, principally throught the site he runs: http://italvideonewstv.net/, where he mainly broadcasts short videos discussing important international events.

    Concetto explains how he came to Ireland at a time when the country was still relatively poor, and he says, a little depressing, compared to his native Sicily at least. At that time, Dublin was he says: “a poor capital in a poor country”.

    Indeed, he was slightly disturbed to find that there were only five Italian restaurants – four run by the same brothers – and he struggled to adapt to the Irish lifestyle, missing his native cuisine in particular.

    Since then, Ireland has developed considerably, economically at least, although Concetto likens the country to a dwarf with a giant heart, given the disproportionate size of Dublin’s c. 1.5 million population compared to the c. 3.5 million in the rest of the country.

    Dublin he argues, ‘is a capital city that has grown in a hurry’ and that many things should work better, pointing to the state of the streets and, in particular, the prevalence of street crime.

    In terms of Sicily, he asserts that the mafia is as visible as the IRA was to the ordinary Joe Soap in Ireland. Although he acknowledges that organised crime has has hindered development on the island.

    He keeps away from the intricacies of Italian politics, preferring to concentrate on the big picture, but cites a telling statistic that there have been 67 governments in just 74 years. He wonders whether this is a sign of a democracy that goes too far.

    During his period as correspondent for Corriera dello Sport he became acquainted with Giovanni Trappatoni and Liam Brady, who spent seven seasons in Italy playing for Juventus and Inter Milan.

    Finally, Concetto has formed the view that the West is conducting a war by proxy in Ukraine, with the blood of the Ukrainian people, and that every single weapon sent from the West makes the possibility of a diplomatic resolution more distant.

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