The Australians and others call it ‘cultural cringe’. That’s when a people or group look at what they consider a superior cultural tradition and assume the cringe position on the worth of their own tradition. It shows must sharply in colonial or post-colonial situations. When I was young, American pop-songs, American hairstyles, an English accent – these were things that absorbed and impressed me. You could get your kicks on Route 66, but the idea of getting anything on the road to Fivemiletown was laughable. We loved the Goons, our school library when it finally allowed Sunday papers to go on display chose the Sunday Times and The Observer. It was hard to know whether we were little West Brits or ersatz Yanks.
Hugh Linehan has a piece on the Irish Times which in effect urges us to get back in the cringe position, at least in relation to Britain. In an article headed ‘What have the British ever done for us? Quite a lot”, he argues that we are similar to/the same as the British in terms of language, food, books, education, legal systems, humour and weather.
“Britain is a place of opportunity for Irish artistic talent, while Ireland represents an enthusiastic and lucrative market for the British entertainment and culture industries…Hundreds of thousands of us live over there and hundreds of thousands of them live over here.In both cases, assimilation is seamless to the point of invisibility.”
I’d be reluctant to contradict a cultural authority on these matters such as Hugh Linehan (yes, Virginia, we call this the cringe position), but let me overcome my reluctance.
Language. Yes it’s true that we had the Irish language beaten out of us by our friendly neighbour, and then an aversion to the Irish language beaten into us by decades of ineffective teaching; but the fact remains that we have a distinct language. It’s just that an awful lot of us do the cringe thing and associate it with open turf fireplaces and gummy crones in the corner. As to our use of the English language: we use it in a distinctively Irish way.
Food. Since ever I can remember, spuds have been a part of my main meal of the day and, I suspect, the main meal of a huge number of Irish people. And no, we didn’t borrow it, or bacon and cabbage, from the British. The degree to which we resemble the British in our taste in food is reflected in the multi-ethnic range of restaurants and recipes: French, Italian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese – it’s quite a culinary United Nations in both countries.
Books. Yes, we have a huge appetite for English books. But we also have a huge appetite for American books, and for books by Irish writers. In fact there are those who’d argue that Goldsmith Yeats Joyce, Synge were writers who shaped the history of English literature.
Education. Here the border plays a major role. In the north, we do indeed follow the British system pretty slavishly, with the DUP in thrall to the point where they ache to follow Britain’s latest move in terms of marking GCSE and A Level from 1-9 instead of the traditional G- A* . The south of Ireland is quite distinct in terms of its Leaving Certificate, which resembles a European Baccalaureate more than the English A Levels.
Legal systems. Pass. Beyond the fact that we find ways of locking people up without charging them and trying people without a jury, I know little of the similarities or differences between Ireland and England.
Humour. Yes, there are similarities between the two – they love Father Ted and so do we; on the other hand I know a lot of Irish people who simply never got Monty Python or even Bridget Jones. And tell me that the Cork or Kerry sense of humour is the same as that of a Cockney and I’ll check your head for scars.
Weather. Yes indeed – both countries do get a lot of rain. But every time I look at the weather forecast map, I’m struck by how much better it is in England, particularly in the south-east. And I know a BBC producer from London married to a Kerry woman who loves the fact that they go to Kerry for their holidays – “It’s a different world” – but moans that it bloody never stops raining there.
As to Hugh L’s thing about the British producing and we consuming, there’s a lot of truth in what he says. Their output of TV programmes, films, music, etc, is on a hugely larger scale than us. But I’d say we punch our weight in all those areas, and maybe above it. And would you ever mistake ‘An Poc ar Buile’ for ‘Greensleeves’?
Linehan’s position, even his title, comes out of the Monty Python team mockery of the Palestinian opposition to the Roman Empire and all its works and pomps. The joke is fun when you hear it the first time; served reheated about thirty years later by the Irish Times, it smells a bit.
Which brings us back to the cultural cringe thing. G B Shaw said “The ordinary Britisher imagines that God is an Englishman”. You’d never find an Irishman or woman thinking the Almighty could be so perverse.
It appears to be a choice between cultural cringe given the contents of one newspaper or an existential crisis in the European Union according to Jean-Claude Juncker. The menu of the day from one reviewer featured predictable puns about the British Bake Off and for dessert we were treated to a feature about a vicars and sluts party. After such a review, perhaps Mr Juncker has a point, there is a need to question the meaning, purpose or value of life.
My greatest fear is that we end up a cultural nothing like Oileán Mhanannán. An out of the way Blackpool. That may be unfair to the Manx cultural and language activists but it’s the opinion that the outside world has of this historic island. This is what happens when an area is used by outsiders as a playground. The tourists try to put their stamp on it. You can see it in Spain where each visiting country tries to mould their playground in their own likeness. Keep an eye on Cuba. Soon to become an American Disneyland. Or Dún na nGall, where the locals are ashamed of their language and their ‘backwardness’ in front of the tourists. People are attracted to Cymru because of its difference. Soon we will be a bigger version of Malaga – if we had the weather. If we were closer we would be little Americans. It’s cool to have a mid Atlantic drawl. Is having the world a b’day big melting lot’s a good thing? You have to admire the Poles etc who bring their culture with them and are not overrated with our British dependency.
Is having the world a great big melting pot a good thing?
Overrated. Many apologies.
I suppose I never got that cultural cringe thing at all. I’ve always been omnivorous about “culture”. Land boundaries seem to play such a little part in it for me. I think it’s down to individuals really .Let’s put it like this ..Not everyone can be a George Best or a W.B. Yeats….Not everyone could have been an Elvis , a Monet, a Turner or a Bob Dylan. If you look at cultural totems and the stuff we latch onto, these creative types are not the norms at all. They are the oddities…the currants in the social cake. They’re the oddities bubbling up from the huge mass of people ,who enhance life for the rest ….and inspire the rest ….or at bottom , possibly simply entertain the rest. They might even seem more glamourous than the rest. How many George Bests were there in the world? How many Van Morrisons? They came out of a tiny corner of Ireland but they were the freaks. They made their mark of personality and artistry on a world stage but who’s to say that they would have been any different should they have been born in Australia or Spain. Van Morrison took an American music which was based on African and Celtic idioms and made something of his own from it…and then took it out across the world.
When I was younger American culture was the thing. Anything from America seemed bright and new .It’s only an illusion but it worked back in those less- connected days .The very idea of a hamburger or a Drive -In Movies was an amazing thing. As you say Jude ,you only got your kicks on Route 66…and maybe, 77 Sunset Strip or Highway 61. The distance between Belfast/Liverpool? London was immense in those pre-motorway days and furthest fields always seemed greener.The Beatles phenomenom changed all of that, I suppose .It made us look closer to home and made us all unconsciously appreciate our subtle differences but also the things we also shared across the land …across the world.Stuff like that mixed our cultures together.
PS…. Culture …or the idea of “culture” is a strange thing.Every country is seen by the “outsider” as some kind of other Disneyland ,full of characatures .People unconsciously pigeon-hole people…the loud American…the plummy Englishman ..the charming talkative Irishman..the dour Russian…whatever .It’s an odd thing.I always remember that during the Cold War that the greatest and most valuable currency was Levi American denim jeans and Beatles records which were worth more than gold. That’s what people thought was culturally valuable.
What makes other cultures attractive and interesting is their difference. In your world all cultures would be the same. A fuzzy shade of rainbow?
The snap chosen to illustrate the chap name of Hugh Linehan’s happy-crappy article, Esteemed Blogmeister, could hardly have been more apt.
A scene from that pits of Pat’s inherent fits of the grovel in his eternal pig-furnished hovel whenever seeking the approval of our neighbours in the near Orient , that never-ending source of all that is new, nice, feisty and novel and whose dirty work Pat has done with pick, lickspittle and shovel :
– Father Tedium.
One has put to hop, step and jump to the last lines of the piece to find that which sums up the umpa-lumpa kernel of this nutty piece.
-The notion that Irish cultural identity has to mean aggressive non-Englishness should finally be laid to rest.
Eh?
Whose notion? Sounds alarmingly like a slogan which the PR wing of The Unionist Times Undertakers has undertaken to, erm, plant in the mentality of the commonality.
Imagine the following line concluding the Linehan Linen-hall homily:
-The notion that the Shoneen cultural identity has to mean aggressive non-Irishness is still alive and kicking.
(Goddess bless your imagination, ma’am).
The Unionist Times is much given to running these series about, erm, checking the pulse of Irish Identity; each series being an identical twin with any of the previous ones.
Does this sorta thingy happen in other states ?
During a recent jaunt to Denmark, The Perkin’s inner itinerant moseyed up to Helsingor quicker than one could say, erm, Alan Whicker. Helsingor is, of course, the hamlet which was Englished to Elsinore by The Great Shakes, never having been there.
Why, oh why can’t these grating Danes be more like the Irish and speak….English ? At least as their first language. Surely, that’s not asking too much.
‘Hamlet’, of course, is the play of The Great Shakes which famously contains more quotes than non-quotes.
Two will do.
-There is something r. in the state of Denmark.
Such a pity that The Great Shakes didn’t write his Irish Play to go with his Macbeth or his Hamlet. Perhaps he reckoned he’d have found so many rotten things in the Land of Feints and Dollars he feared he’d stink the Globe out and so ruled the possibility ditto.
Even as The Unionist Times was launching its latest identical series a random performance of r. was being played out – in of all places ! – the home city of its most prolific epistle-writing disser of nativsm.
That happened on Leeside (for it was it !) when, erm, a Gaeilgeoir was awarded the Order of the Boot/ Brogue from his job as a barman in the tavern called The Flying Enterprise.
For the unpardonable crime of spouting Leprechaun to some L-spouting customers.
Gaeilgeoir, incidentally, is a favourite word of the all inclusive, uber-permissive Unionist Times. Doesn’t have no truck though with such blatantly sub-racist terms as its echo-word (gulp) Shoneen which they consider, well, Non –U. To say that The Unionist Times takes umbrage at this non-U word is only the half of it.
Sadly , one was served pints of Carlsberg in Danmark by probably the rudest bartenders one has ever encountered in one’s experience: dey all insisted on speaking Danish to each other , like. Can you believe it, boy? Shower of langers with their lager-fuelled language.
-The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
That is the second quote from Hamlet which will fit this particular bill. The overweening tone that The Unionist Times series positively palpitates with , goes as follows:
-We English-speaking Irish are quite happy in our identical skins.
(Skin Fein, anyone?).
Queen Gertude incidentally is the lady who speaks that line about another lady – the lady who (unknown to her) is actually playing her in The Mousetrap. Queen Gertrude is not to be confused with the heroine of a Hollywood movie called ‘Getting Gertie’s Garter’ which has the distinction of being The Perkin’s introduction to the Silver Screen.
As he recalls it most of this palm-court comedy was concerned with looking for the eponymous Gerties’s Garter. (The significance of which search only sank in decades later).
It is probably (as the Danes like to say) safe to say that Gertie didn’t spend as much time searching for her g. as The Unionist Times spends protesting about its uber-Irish identity.
Before winging it to Denmark the Perkin had whickered off to Hellenic heaven and hack a couple of months previously.
One mental souvenir of Athens will suffice: the bust of the late Melina Mercouri. (That would be the sculpture representing her handsome head, m’lud ).
Now, the marvelously mercurial Melina M. was a lady who liked to protest. But then, she hath a lot to protest about. Not least during her stellar spell as Minister for Greek Culture.
It was the location of the bust which caught one’s attention: at the foot of the Acropolis looking specifically in the direction of the Parthenon.
That location was not a haphazard choice. For it landmarked her passionate devotion to having the ‘Elgin’ Marbles returned to their rightful home. (Lord Byron described Lord Elgin’s souvenir collecting as ‘looting’).
It did not take long for the tune of ‘Never of a Sunday’ to do the rounds of one’s melodic memory. Simultaneously, the name of Heather Humphreys came to what one is still pleased to call one’s mind. For H.H. plays the equivalent role in the Free Southern Stateen as MM. did in her time in Greece.
The similarities do not end there: for one of the smallest beads on her rosary of Irish culture is the, erm, Leprechaun.
HH, not only does not speak the Leprechaun on a Sunday, a Sunday, a Sunday but her monoglot Monaghan tongue treats M, T, W, T, F and S also as the Leprechaun’s day of rest.
Not sure if the Times of Greece (no more than The Times of Denmark) was running a series on how happy its staff are in their identical Grecian skins. Sadly, as The Great Shakes put it:
-It was Greek to me.
PS Breaking-wind news:
The FOT-fall of he who kicked this can of worm-eaten worrying about one’s Irish identity was to be heard in the studios of Newstalk fm, the flag ship of the DOB-land wireless world as recently as Tuesday evening.
Fintan O’Toole (for it was he !), it will be recalled as recently as last Saturday was pronouncing with solemn bells and shrill whistles nothing less than ……The Death of Anglophobia.
By Tuesday morning, however, he was calling for ‘A Statute of Limitations on Brit Bashing’. Obviously, something had happened over the weekend in the Bathroom of his Behemoth Brain that we are, alas, not privy too. But it was obviously on the scale gigantic to have effected such a rapid, erm, volte-faeces.
Then, by (gasp) Tuesday evening, he who was smugly content with his identity and in the skin of a modern major Shoneen was abruptly babbling about the necessity for (oh, horror !) the necessity for :
-Indigenous creativity.
What, one can only wonder, is actually GOING DOWN in the Bathoom of his Behemoth Brain?
Can it be (whisper it / abair e go bog i gcogar) that Fine-minded Fintan has begun to lose his………,……………E-Marbles ?
Perkin – three times I highlighted-for-copying different sections of your Epistle today, and three times abandoned them as I came on yet another glinting diamond. Anyway, I think I’ll give the nod to
“Queen Gertrude is not to be confused with the heroine of a Hollywood movie called ‘Getting Gertie’s Garter’ which has the distinction of being The Perkin’s introduction to the Silver Screen.
As he recalls it most of this palm-court comedy was concerned with looking for the eponymous Gerties’s Garter. (The significance of which search only sank in decades later).
It is probably (as the Danes like to say) safe to say that Gertie didn’t spend as much time searching for her g. as The Unionist Times spends protesting about its uber-Irish identity.”
I only wish I had a counter that’d tell me how many people read your magnificent comments and how many are, alas, the swine before whom your pearls are cast. My Leprechaunspeak doesn’t take to ‘May your hand never lose its cunning’ but even in perfidiousalbantalk it still is a sincere wish… Maith thú aris, Perkin ( agus aris agus aris agus aris…)
“The Land of Feints and Dollars he feared he’d stink the Globe out and so ruled the possibility ditto.”….I rest your case , Jude …all else is gravy dripping from the Mighty Perk’s spoon….
GRMMA, EB agus Protean PK, a chairde.
Alas, not unlike the wonderful Warrington Minge aka the wondrous Peter Sellers, one is lost for words, even as one learns one’s lines for one’s next theatrical production:
-‘Tomorrow is the New Yesterday’.
PS Any chance youse could launder the wrinkles out of one’s solitary, multi-tasking thespian cheque? Say no more, Seymour.
I believe a sense of humour is a pretty universal thing, witness the success of American shows eg Bilko, Cheers, Friends. The French love Chaplin and Benny Hill. A certain site dedicated to ‘Irish’ humour regurgitates saucy jokes from English postcards of the1950’s some of them hilarious, most excruciating.Jewish jokes about smothering mothers or tight farmers merge seemlessly with mean Irish farmers and virgin Irish bachelors dominated by ‘Mammy’. I never really got Monty Python.The ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch was laboured and unfunny yet is revered as a ‘classic’. I found Monty Python and the Holy frail funny but the Life of Brian ALOS.The bit about the Romans was never really funny. The Romans did indeed build fine roads and magnificent buildings – with slave labour! They introduced niceties like crucifixion and genocide of those who resisted them. Then there was the Collosseum, Christians thrown to lions and gladiators who hacked each other to pieces for the amusement of the Emperor and mob alike. Ironically one the first things th “Barbarians” did after the fall of Rome was ban these vile spectacles. So civilisation is in the eye of the beholder.We could make similar comparisons between England’s bounty and brutality towards Ireland. For original Irish humour, some of it very black, read Flann O’Brien (especially “At Swim-Two-Birds”) or Mairtín O’Catháin, “An Eochair”(The Key)
Now that’s what I call a thoughtful and interesting comment, Brian. Go raibh cead maith agat…
Yes Brian…some humour really is universal.We all laugh at the daft and the absurd but not always . Many people don’t do “irony” at all so many’s a joke will fall absolutely flat. Some depend omn a subtle understanding of language ….ronnie Barker’s “fork Handles/four candles” sketch , for example.
Milligan , Sellers and those Goons laid a ground-plan for much of the Monty Python gang , so if you “got” the unique surrealism of the Milligan and that lot , you probably were able to tune in to their successors like Monty Python. Some humour travelled very well. …especially pantomime and slapstick. I enjoyed Chaplin who was actually a really a very “serious” and structured humourist, but always preferred Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy for their sheer well-crafted naivety…Stan Laurel was a master at that.Benny Hill did little for me but something like Steptoe and Son made me laugh out loud…much of that rested on excellent acting and damned good writing. For some really odd reason the comedian Norman Wisdom became an absolute god in …of all places …Albania .There …he was a national hero….Albania?!!!! …don’t ask!
Ps By “smothering mothers” I mean mothers who stifle their sons’ deveopment by interference or too much “affection”.
I knew that…
Níl aon náire orm roimh mo chultúr féin. Gaelach agus bródúil. Tá cultúr Shasana suimiúil go leor ach tá níos mó dúile agam i gcultúir nach cultúir angla-mheiriceá iad.
I have no shame of being Gaelic. English culture is quite interesting but I prefer non-anglo-amercian cultures. I can understand why someone who speaks no language other than English would be interested solely in anglo-american culture. But to me to have only this would be quite boring no offence to Hugh or anyone else.
“Language. Yes it’s true that we had the Irish language beaten out of us by our friendly neighbour, and then an aversion to the Irish language beaten into us by decades of ineffective teaching; but the fact remains that we have a distinct language. It’s just that an awful lot of us do the cringe thing and associate it with open turf fireplaces and gummy crones in the corner. As to our use of the English language: we use it in a distinctively Irish way.”
We all speak English. More people speak Welsh than Irish Gaelic. A ‘distinctively Irish way’ of speaking English sounds like something somebody would say who is trying too hard to emphasise difference.
“Food. Since ever I can remember, spuds have been a part of my main meal of the day and, I suspect, the main meal of a huge number of Irish people. And no, we didn’t borrow it, or bacon and cabbage, from the British. The degree to which we resemble the British in our taste in food is reflected in the multi-ethnic range of restaurants and recipes: French, Italian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese – it’s quite a culinary United Nations in both countries.”
People in GB eat lots of potatoes too. Our menus are virtually the same. Out supermarkets stock the same foods.
“Books. Yes, we have a huge appetite for English books. But we also have a huge appetite for American books, and for books by Irish writers. In fact there are those who’d argue that Goldsmith Yeats Joyce, Synge were writers who shaped the history of English literature.”
So do people in GB.
“Education. Here the border plays a major role. In the north, we do indeed follow the British system pretty slavishly, with the DUP in thrall to the point where they ache to follow Britain’s latest move in terms of marking GCSE and A Level from 1-9 instead of the traditional G- A* . The south of Ireland is quite distinct in terms of its Leaving Certificate, which resembles a European Baccalaureate more than the English A Levels.”
Different exams. Broadly similar curricula.
“Legal systems. Pass. Beyond the fact that we find ways of locking people up without charging them and trying people without a jury, I know little of the similarities or differences between Ireland and England.”
The Irish legal system is the same as England and Wales’s. Scotland is the outlier in the British Isles.
“Humour. Yes, there are similarities between the two – they love Father Ted and so do we; on the other hand I know a lot of Irish people who simply never got Monty Python or even Bridget Jones. And tell me that the Cork or Kerry sense of humour is the same as that of a Cockney and I’ll check your head for scars.”
Lots of people in GB don’t get Monty Python either. If Kerry and Cork have a distinct sense of humour then so do English and Scottish regions.
“Weather. Yes indeed – both countries do get a lot of rain. But every time I look at the weather forecast map, I’m struck by how much better it is in England, particularly in the south-east. And I know a BBC producer from London married to a Kerry woman who loves the fact that they go to Kerry for their holidays – “It’s a different world” – but moans that it bloody never stops raining there.”
Same temperate climate.
“As to Hugh L’s thing about the British producing and we consuming, there’s a lot of truth in what he says. Their output of TV programmes, films, music, etc, is on a hugely larger scale than us. But I’d say we punch our weight in all those areas, and maybe above it. And would you ever mistake ‘An Poc ar Buile’ for ‘Greensleeves’?”
We both produce and consume each other’s output. It’s the same market for entertainment etc.
“We all speak English. More people speak Welsh than Irish Gaelic. A ‘distinctively Irish way’ of speaking English sounds like something somebody would say who is trying too hard to emphasise difference”
Yes….because the English forced the Irish to…..and no, not everyone speaks English, Irish is slowly but surely growing in usage. There will come a time when there will be just as many Irish speakers as Welsh Speakers. I’m just one of many pupils currently learning my native language.
“Out supermarkets stock the same foods.”
You could say exactly the same about American, French, Spanish, etc supermarkets……
“Scotland is the outlier in the British Isles.”
The term “British Isles” is outdated, even the British Government acknowledges this, ever since the 26 counties got Independence. Not to mention Britain is an island, only Britain, strictly speaking, is British….Ireland never was part of Britain. The Isle of Man is not part of Britain, its in the UK but that’s a different entity. The entity of the United Kingdom is similar to that of the European Union or Soviet Union. English, Irish, Welsh, etc are all true nationalities. “British” isn’t. Passports and all that stuff doesn’t create a nationality (except in a “legal” sense) nationality/culture is fostered over centuries, even thousands of years, between peoples. The Germans were always German even while the Holy Roman Empire existed.
“Lots of people in GB don’t get Monty Python either. If Kerry and Cork have a distinct sense of humour then so do English and Scottish regions”
No one said they didn’t….but the point I think Jude was making is that they aren’t similar to Irish humour. Though I would agree Irish and Scottish humour is very similar, not surprising given Scottish and Irish culture are very entwined (Irish/Scottish languages, etc), a majority of Scottish people have Irish DNA…..maybe the only major country in the world where a majority of its people have the DNA from another country….75% of the people of the North have Irish, not British, DNA….
“Same temperate climate”
Really? because England has been getting hotter. While it was raining with heavy winds in Belfast a few days ago, London and Southern England was enjoying an “Indian Summer”…..indeed, England’s climate has been changing so dramatically that there is even a growing English Wine industry, the climate is suitable for growing the vines and grapes……I think the closest Scotland or Ireland will ever come to making their own wine is Buckfast tonic wine…..
“We both produce and consume each other’s output. It’s the same market for entertainment etc”
Could say the same about the USA or Canada too….Ireland’s exports more to USA than UK…..
“Yes….because the English forced the Irish to…..and no, not everyone speaks English, Irish is slowly but surely growing in usage. There will come a time when there will be just as many Irish speakers as Welsh Speakers. I’m just one of many pupils currently learning my native language.”
Everyone does speak English. You and others might be learning Gaelic as a hobby and a political badge but you’renot fluent in it and still speak English.
“You could say exactly the same about American, French, Spanish, etc supermarkets……”
No you couldn’t. American, French and Spanish supermarkets all stock significantly different product ranges than British and Irish supermarkets.
“The term “British Isles” is outdated, even the British Government acknowledges this, ever since the 26 counties got Independence. Not to mention Britain is an island, only Britain, strictly speaking, is British….Ireland never was part of Britain. The Isle of Man is not part of Britain, its in the UK but that’s a different entity. The entity of the United Kingdom is similar to that of the European Union or Soviet Union. English, Irish, Welsh, etc are all true nationalities. “British” isn’t. Passports and all that stuff doesn’t create a nationality (except in a “legal” sense) nationality/culture is fostered over centuries, even thousands of years, between peoples. The Germans were always German even while the Holy Roman Empire existed.”
What you call the islands is irrelevant. The point remains that the Irish legal system is the same as England’s and Scotland’s is the outlier.
“No one said they didn’t….but the point I think Jude was making is that they aren’t similar to Irish humour.”
The implication was that the Irish were more likely not to “get” Monty Python than people in GB, which is untrue.
“Though I would agree Irish and Scottish humour is very similar, not surprising given Scottish and Irish culture are very entwined (Irish/Scottish languages, etc), a majority of Scottish people have Irish DNA…..maybe the only major country in the world where a majority of its people have the DNA from another country….75% of the people of the North have Irish, not British, DNA….”
Define “Irish and Scottish humour” and explain how it’s different to humour elsewhere in the British Isles.
“Really? because England has been getting hotter. While it was raining with heavy winds in Belfast a few days ago, London and Southern England was enjoying an “Indian Summer”…..indeed, England’s climate has been changing so dramatically that there is even a growing English Wine industry, the climate is suitable for growing the vines and grapes……I think the closest Scotland or Ireland will ever come to making their own wine is Buckfast tonic wine…..”
Yes. Same climate. Doesn’t mean the weather is he same in every region.
“Could say the same about the USA or Canada too….Ireland’s exports more to USA than UK…..”
No we couldn’t and no it doesn’t. Irish presenters, entertainers and writers are involved far more in British media than they are in Canadian and American media. There’s no significant difference in consumption of American and Canadian entertainment between Britain and Ireland.
Only someone who has never made any real attempt at learning another language would describe the process as a hobby. Learning a language involves complete dedication and years and years of hard work. It involves listening carefully to others and a lot of embarrassment when trying to masters new words, concepts, sounds, phrases, humor and indeed culture. Language is the most important way we have of expressing culture. If you speak only one language you will only see the world from the confines of that language and the cultural references it offers. Properly learning a language involves a shift in personality. When it is your ancestral language it is an act of decolonisation.
The only way you will ever be able to understand is to have a go at learning a language yourself. We all have choices in life. Although I can speak English I prefer to speak Irish with those who are able. To call this a political badge is not only insulting, it is also misinformed and down-right arrogant.
I find it hard to disagree with a word of that, Colmán (not that I was trying very hard). Maith thú!
“Only someone who has never made any real attempt at learning another language would describe the process as a hobby.”
That’s untrue because I have attempted to.learn languages and I described others’ involvement as a hobby.
“Learning a language involves complete dedication and years and years of hard work. It involves listening carefully to others and a lot of embarrassment when trying to masters new words, concepts, sounds, phrases, humor and indeed culture.”
For some that’s true. Others just learn it as a hobby.
“The only way you will ever be able to understand is to have a go at learning a language yourself. We all have choices in life. Although I can speak English I prefer to speak Irish with those who are able. To call this a political badge is not only insulting, it is also misinformed and down-right arrogant.”
That’s fantastic. But you’re part of a tiny minority.
Grma Jude
To say that I or any other Irish speaker are in a tiny minority is also ill-concieved. If we knew no other language but Irish you may well be able to say this but the fact of the matter is that we know your language as well as you know it and in addition to this we have another language which we speak fluently. As bilunguals we are in the majority. Some 40 percent of the world speak only one language the rest speak two or more. Irish-speakers are of course included in this figure.
“As bilunguals we are in the majority. Some 40 percent of the world speak only one language the rest speak two or more. Irish-speakers are of course included in this figure.”
That’s nonsense. Only a very small minority are fluent in both Gaelic and English.
Jude, I’m afraid your education is sadly lacking and you’ve been following the wrong member of the Linehan family.
Methinks you’ll find a considerably greater intellect and education in the writings and words of our own John Linehan (aka May McFettridge)!
It does not appear that Jude bothered to read the article since Linehan actually addresses the cultural cringe in it.
I can see nowhere where he urges any cringing or in any way suggests British culture is superior to Irish. He simply points out we have a lot in common and suggests that for many people (though clearly not all eh Jude?) old prejudices and tensions have disappeared.
And Jude somehow manages to,omit Linehans remark, in response to his own question;
” … It looks as though it’s now possible to answer “quite a lot” without being accused of being, in one of Hyde’s most lasting phrases, “a west-Briton”.”
Clearly Linehan has not realised that some still cherish the old hatreds after all.
“Clearly Linehan has not realised that some still cherish the old hatreds after all”
I agree Gio, just a matter of time before they start having 4000 parades a year and marching around in a circle outside places of worship……why don’t they just move on?…….
Ryan
Not sure what point you are making, but if you are saying that Jude is not the only one that looks back in anger (sorry for the British cultural reference) then I agree.
It is easier to cling to the old certainties than go forward into an uncertain future.
You don’t think it’s possible that the past might illuminate the future, gio?
Jude
Of course. But some people look to the past to avoid looking at the future..
We should be able to say in 2016 that our culture and British culture have in many ways inter-married over time without being accused of cultural cringe.
No-one,or at least not Linehan, is saying that one is somehow superior to the other. Point out where you think he said that.
“Which brings us back to the cultural cringe thing. G B Shaw said “The ordinary Britisher imagines that God is an Englishman”. You’d never find an Irishman or woman thinking the Almighty could be so perverse”
I always remember the time the former Respect MP George Galloway (whose mother was Irish Catholic/Republican) said that his school teacher once told his class, admiringly: “The Sun never set on the British Empire”. When the young George went home and repeated to his Irish grandfather what his teacher said, his grandfather replied: “Want to know why the Sun never set on the British Empire? Because God didn’t trust the British in the Dark”. George told that story to a packed audience and got a round of applause and a lot of laughs.
“we do indeed follow the British system pretty slavishly, with the DUP in thrall to the point where they ache to follow Britain’s latest move in terms of marking GCSE and A Level from 1-9 instead of the traditional G- A* ”
The DUP/UUP do indeed have an unhealthy obsession with Britishness. From printing out 40,000 leaflets to stoke up Loyalists about a Union flag getting its flying days reduced to designated days to imitating House of Lords members by shouting out “Hear Hear!” in Stormont. When I first seen them do this on the BBC’s “Stormont Today”, I really did cringe. Even many SF members could be seen pulling faces in an effort not to smile or laugh. This level of unhealthy devotion to Britishness is widespread in Unionism. When the Northern Ireland soccer team plays, striker Kyle Lafferty alone sings God Save the Queen loudly with his hand over his heart. During Euro 2016, Vincent Kompany the Belgium Striker, took to twitter to question why Northern Ireland was playing ENGLAND’s national anthem…..many people, including English people, were pondering the same thing….
‘What have the British ever done for us? Quite a lot”
They have indeed done quite a lot for us…..despite the fact we clearly didn’t want them to. The British has been the main source of trouble for Ireland going back centuries. I think Hugh is taking Ruth Dudley Edwards line and is asking us to be “grateful” for countless massacres, a British designed and enforced Famine, Plantation that delivered our colourful neighbours in the north who first planted the seeds of sectarianism and maintained it with the creation of the 6 county state under the threat of unjustified violence.
Putting the disastrous social consequences aside because we speak about them very often in the North, the overall ECONOMIC consequences of British interference in Ireland going back centuries isn’t spoke about often. The amount of materials, resources, money, etc stolen from Ireland through the centuries is enormous. They stripped Ireland of so much wealth that the vast majority of people were reduced to making a living on very basic, staple food. This British interference has hampered Irish economic growth for centuries, which was the intention, of course. When the South got Independence (within the last 70 years, which is a blink of an eye in historical terms) only then did we see economic growth in Ireland where Britain didn’t rule. The Irish culture of emigration was built by the British because the vast majority of Irish Catholics couldn’t get jobs. We see when the Northern state was built Unionism tried to keep this emigration going by discrimination and emigration. Needless to say this culture of emigration must end if we ever hope to build a proper, prosperous country. You cant have a prosperous country if your taxpayers are running away.
We do have a lot in common with the British but I could say exactly the same about the Americans, Australians, Canadians and to a lesser extent the French, Spanish, Italians, etc.
As the old saying goes: Ireland is closer to Boston than Berlin. When it comes to London, Ireland is ALOT closer to Boston still…..
A quote from Winston Churchill on the Irish: “We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English”
Dear Winston could make an exception for Hugh Linehan and Ruth Dudley Edwards…..
“We see when the Northern state was built Unionism tried to keep this emigration going by discrimination and emigration”
Sorry, meant to type discrimination and gerrymandering.
Another error: Vincent Kompany isn’t a striker, he’s a Defender/Mid field for the Belgium national soccer team. I believe he was injured and didn’t play in the Euros.
“The Irish culture of emigration was built by the British because the vast majority of Irish Catholics couldn’t get jobs”
DECENT jobs, meant to type, due to lack of economic growth. Of course the North was where all the growth/investment was concentrated, in Unionist heartlands, which I’m sure was no coincidence….
I think I better stop eating Kinder Mexi King chocolates while typing….chocolate fingers and keyboards don’t mix….
An enduring example of long standing cultural cringe is the enduring popularity IN IRELAND of a piece of racist garbage called”An Irish Son’s Letter” (ie to his mother). This was “doing the rounds” when I was a child in the nineteen fifties on Irish Linen tea towels and postcards. It depicted a moronic looking middle-aged and ink-spattered individual, clay pipe in mouth laboriously writing a letter in ink. It contained such gems as “if you don’t receive this letter let me know” and much worse.Even as a child I bristled with indignant fury on reading it. Ironically in the UK including occupied Ireland the wording was changed to reflect anti-racist (hate) legisllation and it became simply “A Son’s Letter.” But the clay pipe and the festooning with a shamrock border left no doubt as to the nationality of the son. (It was produced by a firm in Bradford, Yorkshire) All in the past you say, why whinge. Well, not quite. Last month on a visit to the wonderful Ionad Dún Lúiche in the Donegal Gaeltacht what did I spy among th T-Shirts “as Gaeilge” the traditional music CD’s, the Aran geansaís, the tin whistles and bodhráin, the Irish language text-books. Untramelled by tiresome British Race Hate legislation, in all its 1950’s Imperial glory reposed “An IRISH Son’s Letter”. Can we really blame the Heronvolk for making a few grubby shekels when (as with the Murdoch press and Sky TV) the Untermensch eagerly pay to be ridiculed.?