Picture by Sergey Lysikov
It’s easy to get depressed. You might have been checking out all those bonfires, or that crucifixion of taigs threat, or the big wooden cross that accompanied it, or the rubber tyres skilfully inserted into the various bonfire structures. But the Belfast Telegraph has good news: the Twelfth celebrations will employ some 3,000 police officers.
Now you may be thinking that’s actually bad news, in that the police are being employed in case, as has happened again and again and again since their inception, the Orange marches end in violence. But that’s a negative way of looking at it. Think of it in productivity terms.
The policemen will be paid for their work. They will have that money to spend. They’ll perhaps buy a dozen red roses for their wife, or toys for the kiddies, or maybe a pot of paint to freshen up the outside of the house. All sorts of possibilities open up because of the work they’ve been given. None of that would be possible if it hadn’t been for the Twelfth.
There are naysayers and cynics who’ll argue they could have bought even more roses or toys or paint if they’d spend time getting those paramilitary flags removed, or the sectarian graffiti or the big wooden cross that was constructed to go with the graffiti. These naysayers and cynics are wrong because that’s asking too much. These are sensitive situations. It doesn’t always do to blunder in and upset the community, or at least that part of the community that’s likely to provoke rioting and mayhem. Much better to let a bit of law-breaking go on thatntry to confront a bit of law-breaking and end up with a lot of law-breaking. I mean, a flag never hurt anyone. Or a cross or a crucifi…Well, yes, maybe that did but you know what I mean. You don’t want to be stirring up a hornets’ nest.
So let us be grateful for the things we have and the peace we enjoy and carnival spirit of flags and bonfires and the sound of marching feet. As the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland has said: “The Twelfth has always been, and will remain, a day of celebration and a family day out.” If that doesn’t cheer you up and make you laugh, nothing will.
Not forgetting of course the boost to the economy that will be engendered by the replacing of windows, doors, roofing tiles and melted roads that will be caused by the searing heat of all those monster bonfires!
Great idea to give them the veto over Ireland’s future, don’t you think?
I wasn’t consulted on that one, Roy – and I would agree with you on it.
Veto over Irelands future? how so Roy?…
Veto over Irelands future? How so Roy?…
Not forgetting the hundreds of street cleaners (paid from our rates) getting double time for working on a public holiday.
seen a few of the brethren gathered in buckna as i was going fishing down the antrim coast,it was like time stood still the cut of them,i pulled in beside two oul boys for the crack and asked directions for glenarm ,anyway he leans in the window and goes into a whole rigmarole giving directions my two young lads in the back are killing themselves laughing as we drove off,da did ya see his ears theres birds nests in them he says,later on sitting on waterfoot harbour bobby sands laughter of our children came to mind think he was right,their a laughing stock the world over.
Truly is thinking positive your only man, Esteemed Blogmeister.
(Literary note: ‘your only man’ was a favourite phrase of Myles na Gopaleen /Myles of the Wee Ponies in his legendary legerdemain column in The Unionist Times. A phrase the Tyrone native borrowed from the pages of Hamlet.
Considering the cornucopia of quotes he had to choose from – Hamlet was indeed no one wee pony settlement – this choice showed just what a genius of choicean proportions Myles was.).
One mentions this because it is to the pages of The Unionist Times that the thinker of positive thoughts looks today for nourishment.. Specifically to the obituary columns, that repository of cheerfulness. where May the Good Lord have Mercer on their Souls has long been the watchword of TUT.
Now that they have downsized their four-page supplements of yore to cover the cock-a-hoop celebrations of the Clockwork Orangemen in Noreneverland (no need to flag a white horse no more, once the message has been relayed and absorbed, Roger. Over and out).
Which is not to say that the eternally inventive TUT does not find new ways to bottle the old Mi Wadi. One week it may be the turn of their Agony Aunt or, such as this week, the dispatch part of their hatch, match and d. columns.
Virtually impossible to peruse this black edged corner of jocund de profundis without crooning:
‘You’ve got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between’.
How often has one come across the smile-provoking term ‘the deceased did not suffer fools gladly’. Which is fluent obituary in TUT for ‘the deceased was actually, at the end of his or her day, but no going forward, the two ends of a boiled sh–e’.
Now, while of course this phrase does not appear in the obituary which caught Perkie’s inner eulogy peruser today,the Eleventh of Never, nonetheless there is much within it not totally irrelevant to today’s blog, and so, to ponder:
-‘Born in Blarney Street on the north side of Cork City, he was educated by the Christian Brothers, who fostered his love of Irish.
Yet, as seen in the following passage from his memoir ‘Black Cats’ Tales’ there was a yawning gulf between the dreams of his boyhood days and his subsequent love affair with Irish.
‘St. Mary’s Parish Hall stood at the junction of rods at the top of Shandon Hill in the north side of Cork. It, was the big venue for us youngsters in those days, with our great heroes, Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and Hopalong Cassidy, up on the white screen at fourpence a time. And the fallout was even better as we galloped home down the hill, walloping the hell out of our backsides in pursuit of Red Indians’.
The pivotal phrase here is indubitably: a ‘yawning gulf’. A y. gulf, perhaps of Grand Canyon proportions. The other crucial or, erm, life or death word here is ‘Irish’ which is fluent obituary in the paper of record for ‘leprechaun’. The latter word imported along with the mandatory packet of spangles from those joyous jaunts of the TUT daytrippers of yore to the wrangle-free orange groves of Finaghy.
What one is actually reading here, when translated from the fluent obituary of the anonymous scribe is a disarmingly charming slice of life-affirming, low intensity racism.
As we are deep into DruidZane Grey area here perhaps a little translation would not be lost at this p. in time, going f.
What we are being told about the deceased, Liam O Murhchu of Trom agus Eadrom Infamy (for it is he !) is that there was a non-negotiable Grand Canyon between the cowboy tales of his eadrom/ lighthearted boyhood and the leaden-footed leprechaun of his trom/heavy-hearted adulthood.
How different things would have been if he had, instead, hit the Hiberno English trail, whose most significant landmark is, of course, The Canyon of Grandaka the Free Southern Stateen. As in: ‘How are you? ‘I’m grand’. ‘And how is the care? ‘Grand, they’re all grand’.’And you? Grand, grand’.
The message being beaten out here with all the rhythmic insistence of a, erm, Lambeg Drum is that lephrechaun is- unlike the preternaturally versatile Hiberno-English, ill- equipped to deal with the Other.
In Other words, while one may indeed well enjoy, say, ‘Trathnona Beag Areir’ by Albert Fry of Ulster 9 with its (albeit) deathless (alleged) lines:
‘Is a Ri na Gloire Gile
Tabhair ar ais an oiche areir’
it blatantly fails to equip one to appreciate such musical lines from Barbary Allen from the celestial sound of the Brothers Everly:
‘They buried her in the old churchyard
They buried him in the choir;
And from his grave grew a red red rose
From her grave a green briar’.
Guess which inferior lingo is represented by, erm, ‘a green briar’?
In linguistic terms, Barbary Allen was truly Ms. In-Between: a doll decidedly not to be messed with.
‘
Around this time of year, 11th/12th July, the Law doesn’t apply to Loyalists, the PSNI stand by and watch hate crimes being committed under the disguise of “culture”, such as burning the Irish flag or other nations flags, like the Polish flag which has been burnt a number of times over the years, this has been mostly done due to the fact the vast majority of Polish people working here are Catholics.
The PSNI stand by while Loyalist bands, especially near interface areas, play sectarian tunes and display banners to loyalist paramilitaries or dead UVF/UDA members. All of this goes on right under the watch of our “police service”, the people who are suppose to uphold law and order, without fear or favour.
Then we have loyalist community workers making up nonsense stories on the run up to the 11th about how they try to stop Irish flags being put on bonfires and how the flags are “put on at the last minute by kids”. Right now as I type this (19:54, 11/07/2015) there are many bonfires all around Belfast decked out in Irish flags and photos of Alliance/SDLP/SF politicians and theres plenty of opportunity/time for loyalist community workers or the PSNI to remove them but is it done? No, because the law doesn’t apply to Loyalists on the 11th/12th July, obviously and the loyalist community workers suddenly go blind for a few hours.
Around this time of year you can see elements of the RUC being displayed in the PSNI, the deliberate sitting back and allowing Loyalists to do what they like because its their “wee country”.
What a pathetic and failed state Northern Ireland truly is….
Total agreement about a pathetic and failed entity ( I wouldn’t abuse the English language by calling it a state ) but , Ryan , I think you may have developed amnesia regarding the other 363/4 days. Camp Twadell is illegal and the twats that occupy it are blatantly breaking the law ,,erecting flags/rags , or anything else , on street poles is illegal as the people in The Glens of Antrim found out with something as innocuous as Nathan Carter posters. Bonfires are illegally constructed on publicly owned land using banned carcinogenic materials. The racist and sectarian slurs constantly voiced by Unionists are illegal ,but it goes on and on. The police had on opportunity for a new beginning but they blew it….they reverted to type and certainly don’t warrant our support
Effigies of Adams, McGuinness and Bobby Sands in a coffin were placed on one bonfire.And not a word from one Unionist politician.