Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Diarmuid O'Se


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   merge to Tomás Ó Criomhthain. Merge: Add a paragraph or two to the article on the author, describing him and the other key characters. That would seem to be the best compromise solution.  DGG ( talk ) 17:55, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Diarmuid O'Se
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Non-notable person, known only as a character in his nephew's writings. Other than the description provide as a quote from Ó Criomhthain's book, the article consists entirely of a genealogy of O'Se's descendants. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 20:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

what life was like on the Blasket Islands, and what better way to do that was to give the most colorful character his own page. The page was to inspire people to read the Islandman, not to promote the sale of the book but so that people would know what life was like on the Blasket Islands, as life there was unique to any where else...ever..-BettySheaMagee
 * Keep Thomas O'Crohan purpose on writing was so that people would never forget

The list of decendants was meant to show that just 3 of the Rake's children produced more offspring than the entire population of the Great Blasket Island  at any one time, and to show the closeness of the families that The Blasket Islands produced, that continued even when they were voted off the Island becasue the Island could not support a population more than 150 people. It is also meant to show what the emigrants were up against when they got to the United States.BettySheaMagee —Preceding unsigned comment added by BettySheaMagee (talk • contribs) 21:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment It is not Wikipedia's purpose to promote anything, as you have stated it is your intent to promote The Islandman, even if you do not stand to gain personally by anyone's reading of that book. The fact that O'Se produced more offspring than his hometown contained is not entirely relevant or remarkable.  And the hardships faced by Irish immigrants to the United States are documented in the Irish American article; any additional information can be added there.  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 21:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep This person is a main character in published literature. This satisfies WP:BASIC. In addition, according to the Blasket_Islands and related pages, "The islanders were the subject of much anthropological and linguistic study around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries". The person was part of an isolated population and culture that has been of anthropological interest, and thus the page is a starting point for some of that information. Also mentioned on the related pages are the geographical disbursement of descendants of islanders especially around the Springfield, MA, USA area.Maybe it could use to have some additional information added and the descendants section de-emphasized or reduced. -Johnm4 (talk) 21:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment


 * Comment calls for the person to be the subject of "secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." Being a character in one's nephews memoirs hardly counts. And while the people of the Blasket Islands may, as a group, be notable, there is no indication that this particular person is individually notable.  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 22:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment-This is not a random uncle of a random person. All Irish school children are required to read about the uncle called the "Rake" in the Islandman...-BettySheaMagee —Preceding undated comment added 22:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC).
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Above comment reformatted for readability.
 * Comment
 * 1) The following has been added to the article, showing secondary sources that makes it WP:BASIC compliant.
 * Diarmuid was one of the most important characters in the Blasket 'Story'. He was one of the main characters in An tOileánach (The Islandman). Tomás Ó Criomhthain (Tomás O'Crohan) who was encouraged by Carl Mastrander in 1917 to write about life on the Blasket Islands. His books are considered classics of Irish-language literature containing portrayals of a unique way of life, now extinct, of great human, literary, linguistic, and anthropological interest. Regarding mentions of him in other books, he has quite a central role in Seanchas ón Oileán Tiar ('folklore from the western island'), a collection of folklore which the renowned folklorist Seamus O Duilearga (James Delargy) collected from Tomás Ó Criomhthain. Diarmuid is mentioned several times in the review of same by Máire MacNeill which was published in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 71, No. 280 (Apr-Jun 1958).
 * 1) Content has been added to the article.
 * 2) In  regards to the list of descendants, there is a great deal of interest in what has happened to the Islanders who immigrated to the United States. The Blasket Centre in Ireland has an exhibit that fills an entire room about this subject. In 1996, PBS did a 90 minute documentary called Blasket Roots American Dreams about this subject. ..BettySheaMagee
 * Reply You have already established that O'Se was a character in O'Crohan's book. As for his mentions in other books, those are merely derived from his appearance in O'Crohan's initial work, and so do not add to the notability of the subject.  As for O'Se's descendants: if the decision of this discussion is to keep the article, then it would suffice to say that O'Se had over 150 descendants across the northeastern United States.  It is not necessary to provide the detailed genealogy including the names of all of the descendants' pallbearers.  None of the descendants are individually notable, and Wikipedia is not a genalogical database.  WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 22:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,   A rbitrarily 0    ( talk ) 21:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * DELETE unless much better evidence. Rationale:
 * The article covers an individual whose asserted significance relates to being a pivotal character in a classic Irish work of literature. However the problems seem fatal.


 * The claims for notability are poorly supported and tenuous. Not every person mentioned in a classic story or folk history is notable. Some are, some are not. I would judge that to be notable, Diarmuid O'Se (as an individual or as a folk history character) would be covered in multiple reliable or academic sources. I would expect academic papers or books with significant (non-trivial) coverage of him. I would look for the article to focus on what these secondary sources say of him, with citations of its claims. I would also expect more than just two collections of folk tales (one written by a relative, the other explicitly derived from the first), if notable. But I see none of this. There is a claim that he has "quite a central role" in a collection of folklore, and in the context of reviewing that same collection is named "several times". Beyond this the evidence in the article relates to notability of Tomás Ó Criomhthain, the author of the book mentioning him and his blood-relative. There is no strong evidence he himself was considered notable by third parties. A further quick search online (by either spellings and on books and scholar materials) shows no significant references.
 * I also have further concerns over possible WP:NOT issues. The author is a relative and there is no evidence of discrimination in his own selecting of material - if his uncle were notable in folk history then others would have written, not just a relative, and again other academics would have provided coverage. (And we cannot deduce that there should have been more coverage if actually there was none.)


 * Accordingly delete. Notability requires good evidence that the subject has obtained significant secondary coverage by the wider world. Being described in a folklore book by a nephew, which then has very minor related mention elsewhere, is not anywhere close to "significant coverage in secondary sources". FT2 (Talk 00:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Note that the following are not reasons to keep or delete. They are however worth noting to ensure a good focus for the discussion:
 * Style and content problems - The article as it stands appears to be written in a very unsuitable style. It is not neutral, and its bulk is not a summary of what reliable sources say on the subject, so much as a full genealogical history of the subject's descendants. Style and content issues are not a reason to delete but if the article survives it would need massive trimming and cleanup -- almost stubbing -- to fix the encyclopedic tone.
 * Inspiring readers - "The page was to inspire people to read the Islandman" is an argument that lacks force. The question is whether the subject is encyclopedic, not whether an article could inspire some readers to perform some real-world action. We don't assess articles by their author's intent though.
 * Notability of islanders in anthropology - "The islanders were the subject of much anthropological and linguistic study... The person was part of an isolated population and culture that has been of anthropological interest". This would be notability for the islanders.
 * Entry point for information on islanders - "The page is a starting point for some of that information [on the islanders]". Not an encyclopedic basis for this article.
 * FT2 (Talk 00:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.