The story of the successive Partitioning of Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore has not been a stellar one, fellers. And the latest effort is part of the same drear and dismal tale of gobsmacking lopsidedness.
That would be the current Dub-insprired Sub-Dividing by the whizz -phissing kids of the marketing division of Bored Fáilte which can only be classified as an, erm, Ocean Dance of Imbalance.
L to R, looking at the map we find: The Wild Atlantic Way (WAW) and then, (gulp) Ireland’s Ancient East.
Now, if WAW has the WOW ! factor, not so with IAE: as regards a Re-branding Strategy, going forward, Ireland’s Ancient Eastie is in sore need of a Beastie !
Mind you, regarding this matter of brand naming P.’s Green S.S. , this execrise too has been in the main, and on the main, unscucessful.
Perhaps, the one exception was the nomen which the Romans baptized the island from the Mainland:
-Hibernia.
Even, then, where the political climate is concerned, it took nearly a thousand years to pick up a head of scream. It wasn’t till the arrival of the grating Danes that the Hibernia of hamlets and hunchbacked harp-stringers began to truly experience its erm, Winter of Discontent, g. forward.
The branding of Hibernia as ‘The Island of Saints of Scholars’/’Oileán na Naomh agus na n-Ollamh’ endured for more time than, say, The Unionist Times cared to remember. But a short, sharp dose of eminently reasonable religious racism by that orange-tinted Organ of Record soon demolished in a mere decade what it took countlesss decades of the rosary over the centuries and on the knees to erect.
Returning to the boom-town rationalists in Bored Failte one hardly ever hears a solitary syllable anymore about the designation of WWW (Wicklow Wexford Waterford) as the (gulp) ‘Sunny South East’.
From that ill-judged effort at brand-naming (talk about ‘Ill Meteo by Moonshine’ !) sprang the Wild Atlantic Way and then, (gasp) Ireland’s Ancient East. (More of which anon).
But, of course, it was the Partitioning whose central architect was David Lloyd George with his God-like Nod and his witty Welsh wink about a ‘Terrible And Immediate War’ which led to the simply marvellous carve-up of Hibernia into Norneverland and the Free Southern Stateen.
The TAIWaning of Hibernia, as it has been called by the Confucian school of confused constitutional history, contained as its core principle the twin prongs of ‘Cosh and Dosh’. These were calculated to right the wrongs perpetrated by the Murder Squads of M.Collins whom the Bouyant Boyo George had, though his own modest claim, ‘by the throat’.
Submit to the C. and the D. will follow. This pithy mantra might best be redundantly expanded to indicate that the C. was targeted at the Croppies while the D. was dog-eared for the DUP-er Troopers.
Curious, all the same, Sammy, how ‘Cosh and Dosh’ can nourish the twin-feelings of Moral and Cultural Suepriority (MACS) . One has but to glance at the continuosly In-your-face face of – lemme see? – ah, yis !- The Newt.
Take a gawk at the dial of ‘Is é an Déardaoin an Duine’ every Thursday in The Unionist Times: from one eye is gleaming Moral and from the other is glinting Cutlural which downstairs at lip level one spies the Ubermensch’s eternal Undergraduate smirk of Superiority, even Super-Superiority.
-SUPER MACS !
Re-spect.
Speaking of SUPER MACS and Merlin, the Welsh Wizard, and the latter’s penchant for combining Sterling and Stenguns, brings one, by a commodius vicus of recirculation to the imbalance of the Wild Atlantic Way (WOW!) and the low (!) profile Ireland’s Ancient East.
The times and TUT alike are demanding a re-branding. And the only consensus is pointing a bony finger at the need for an inection of that which Ireland’s Ancient Eastie is in most need:
-The Beastie of Drama.
- Indeed, a Drama in Three Acts, commencing with the place of the moment:
-Act 1: Portstewart.
Now, as Portstewart lies on the (gulp) Causeway Coast, it is automatically excluded from inclusion in the Wild Atlantic Way. But is it ruled of of Ireland’s Ancient East?
Consider the following: the Wild Atlantic Way, the dodge hodge-podged up by Bored Fáilte, extends to that Occidental touristy sliver of coast which lies within a radius of the roars of the Atlantic. Depending on the prevailing weather conditions, this is an elastic sliver – one has but to recall the bower oul’ Luke Kelly’s giving full welly to the foam-flecked lyrics of T. Moore-le-rá:
-Oe’re the free boundless ocean where stupendous waves roll in thundering motion.
Bored Fáilte, long in the wisdom tooth, has decided that any parcel of land which does not lie within the roars of the oar-defying Atlantic is, ergo, part and p. of Ireland’s Ancient East.
Year on year, the (gulp) Dubai Dutyfree Irish Open Gulf-Golf Championship has become, erm, branded as The Homecoming of Rory Mack.
(How Bored Fáilte in Dubland drooled over that Dubai Dutyfree prefix !)
Sadly, there was a certain dearth of drama last weekend, apart from Jon Rahm’s, erm, drahmatic bringing of the Pan-o-rahm-ic Gulf-streamed Golf course of Portstewart to its knees, even as it, erm, Basqued in the sunshine. Or was there?
Well, for starters, Bette Midlers and Big Enders, those knowlegdeable critics of the Thespian Art whose judgement The Perkin respects (implicitly) maintain that Rory’s homecoming partication on Thursday thru Friday smacked of a two hander by another Irish Nobel Winner, one who played off a high-falutin’ low handicap on Carrickmines 9 hole course, back in the day:
-St. Samuel á Beckett.
Rory Mack, MBE, of course is a de facto winner of the Nobel Prize for Nobility, with his Rory Foundation, thus rendering him above all snarky criticism from the preternaturally narky Irish sporting hacketariat. Thereby ensuring they can treat the triumphs and failures alike of Rory Mack as the twin imposters that they indubitably Dubai-dutyfree are, while continuing to adopt the eternal tone reverential and the gesture genuflective while microphoning the Macro-Mega Star.
Re-spect.
Day 1: Rory’s play was greeted with the sound of one-hand clapping rather than with the, erm, roars of jubliation.
Pause followed by another pause.
Day 2: Rory failed again, but this time failed better: he failed to make the cut.
Pause followed by silence.
NIKE it or NOT
The greenest thing about Rory Mack
Is a Jacket he never wore on his back
Strives to be Masterly
Contrives t.b. dis’sterly
On the greens his putts lack that deftness of whack.*
(*Fails to get the, erm, line right)
If the Perkin’s inner ever-helpful low-faluting high-handicapper has a reluctant suggestion to make it would be for Rory Mack to take a club out of the Welsh Wizard’s bag (see Lloyd George above) or rather out of the Wife of the Welsh Wizard’s bag:
-The Broomhandle Putter.
The Drama of Act 1, Portstewart is not spent yet :
-Hear ye! Hear ye !Deus ex Mackina time !
In the long hot summer of 1955 a future Nobel Prize Winner found himself playing summer stock in the Town Hall of Portstewart. He was there as part of the A-Mack touring repertory company. A-Mack, being Anew McMaster, a Scouser with roots in Farney, renowned for his barnstorming performances of The Great Shakes. A-Mack was married to a sister of Micheál Mac Liammóir who was not married to a sister of A-Mack..
While Harold Pinter (for it was he!) was playing in Portstewart the prompt-word filtered through from stage left in the interim that Peter Hall was about to direct an English-language version of ‘Waiting for Godot’ by a low-handicapper on the nine-hole Carrickmines golf course (see above) in London, rather than in Londonderry.
The Hackney-born Harold could barely pause to get home.
The Homecoming, is right.
Can Ireland’s Ancient Eastie take any more of this Dramatic Beastie?
(To be Contd).
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