Talk:Maureen O'Carroll

PROD removed

I have just removed the {{prod}} from this article, because the information contained in the article is sourced, and referenced to the Oireachtas memnbers database. The article itself links to the front page of the dataabse: the precise info on O'Carroll is at http://oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=15&MemberID=838&ConstID=85 --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 17:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

see also discussion on my talk at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Proposed_deletion_of_Maureen_O.27Carroll. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 23:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Date of death

The following discussion is copied from User talk:BrownHairedGirl.

Hello BrownHairedGirl. I've tagged Maureen O'Carroll for proposed deletion. We've received an email from a reader through Wikimedia's open ticket response system claiming that the subject is still alive, despite the article's claim otherwise. There are no references backing the information and I wasn't able to find any with a quick search online. If you can provide reliable sources, please do so and remove the template. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 02:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Pathoschild, Thanks for the note. I have removed the {{prod}} tag from the article, because I believe that the article is properly referenced. The two sources for the information in the article are:

• http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?id=2483 , which confirms her electoral history
• the Oireachtas members database: the article links only to the front page of the database, but the data on O'Carroll is at http://oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=15&MemberID=838&ConstID=85 , including her dates of birth and death.

If I understand you correctly, the reader does not claim that O'Carroll did not exist or that she was not a TD, and that the only issue at stake is the date of death (or rather whether she died at all). We have two conflicting sources: the reader's email and the Oireachtas database. Of the two, it seems to me that the Oireachtas database is the more reliable (it is a published source, run by the parliament itself).

I have corresponded on several occasions with the officials in the Oireachtas who run that database, and I have found then to be very conscientious and approachable: like Wikipedia, they insist on verifiability.

May I suggest that the best course of action would be to suggest to the reader that they either point us towards another published source, or contact the oireachtas (see contact details at http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/ ) to offer them whatever evidence they have to show that the database is wrong? It seems to me that to prove a negative (viz that O'Carroll is not dead) probably requires some original research, which Wikipedia cannot do, but the Oireachtas can.

What do you think? --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 18:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that; I somehow missed the database entry. I've disambiguated the link to the database and asked the concerned user to provide a reliable source. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

That sounds fair enough. The Oireachtas database members database is not perfect, but it is a published source and it has very few errors. If there is another reliable source, we'll have to consider how to hnadle any conflict, but as yet we don't have anything. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 09:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The reader points out an interesting contradiction in our sources. If O'Carroll died in 1984 (database profile), how was she elected to the Tramore town council in 1999 (electoral history)? ;) —{admin} Pathoschild 21:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. The electionsIreland site is an independent one run by volunteers, and I have found this sort of error before on that site, when two candidates of different names end up being conflated (I had spotted that in this case, and gave it little weight). Maureen O'Carroll the TD would have been 86 years old at the time of the 1999 local elections, and 91 years old when the next council elections were held in 2001. That in itself would be unlikely, but the entry on O'Carroll at the Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics not only confirms the birth and death dates, but adds the information that she was a mother of ten children.

A Google search throws up plenty of hits for the Tramore Councillor, including 15 mentions in the local paper (The Waterford News and Star). She is recorded there as, amongst other things, an advocate for skateboarders and a candidate for Chairperson of the Town Commissioners. In 2002 (at www.kc3.co.uk/~dt/Ireland.htm) she is reported as a campaigner against the Treaty of Nice.

Such an active political career in Tramore all seems highly improbable for a ninety-year-old mother-of-ten from Dublin: if it was indeed the same person, her career would have been so remarkable that her age and political career would have been mentioned in some of the reports in the local paper and she would have achieved widespread coverage in the national media, rather than merely routine mentions in the local paper. (With ten children, the Dublin O'Carroll would probably have been a great-grandmother by then).

So as well as expanding the article, I have reverted your removal of her date of death. I will also write to electionsireland.org to ask them to check their records and see if they have anything other than a shared name to link the Tramore and Dublin candidates. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 05:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I've copied this discussion to Talk:Maureen O'Carroll and invited the user to discuss there. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)