ONE WAY CULTURAL TRAFFIC FOR IMPERIAL POWERS – by Donal Kennedy

The existence of the game of Hurling after two thousand years came as a surprise to many Britons when the BBC screened the All-Ireland Final recently.

I came to live in England in November 1964 and have seldom met English people with much, if any knowledge of Ireland beyond what Britain’s cultural mandarins in the Foreign Office, “Security Services” the BBC, THE TIMES and THE GUARDIAN feed them. If THE TIMES is TweedleDum, THE GUARDIAN is TweedleDUMBER.

POLITICAL CENSORSHIP HAS BEEN THE RULE IN  BRITAIN ALL MY LIFE

The long incarceration of Julian Assange was no aberration.

I was born in Dublin in December 1941, three weeks to the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. My younger sister was born on August 4th 1945, two days before the Americans bombed Hiroshima. I was blissfully unaware of the war.

I can recall being asked to tell my father that the news was on the wireless.

The Wireless was the BBC. I knew there was a King of England but not that there was a President of Ireland, nor a Taoiseach. I do not recall hearing the name de Valera, until he lost office in 1948. Then his name was so often on the Radio Eireann News that I thought he was head of our Government.

My father voted Fianna Fail always, as “the best of a bad lot.”  Radio Eireann went on the air at 5 PM on weekdays.

So, as well as clearly remembering the burning to death of Grace Archer in September 1955 I can recall my annoyance when that series replaced DICK BARTON SPECIAL AGENT and its signature tune THE DEVIL’S GALLOP.

Tommy Handley and ITMA…, MUCH BINDING IN THE MARSH..MRS DALE’S
 DIARY, and, of course JUST WILLIAM, the Outlaws, Ginger, Henry and Douglas and Violet Elizabeth Bott.

When I learned to read I devoured William, Biggles, Billy Bunter, and scores of English books, plus English Comics (there were no Irish ones) I borrowed them from my local library.I think my experience was shared by most of my generation in the 26 counties. And that we were as well versed in English culture as our English contemporaries.

In addition we had books and papers on Irish life and culture which were unheard of or unknown to the vast majority of our English contemporaries.

I believe that Vietnamese, Malays, and Indians had an understanding of their Imperial masters, while those masters understood little of the peoples they misruled.

Ho Chi Minh and General Giap understood and approved Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite rather better than did Charles De Gaulle. Ho taught that the American people were NOT their enemies whereas the US Government was.

I think this explains the Gobshite Ignorance of David Aaronovitch of THE TIMES betrayed in his comments on the 1916 Rising, and of Max Hastings in “ALL HELL LET LOOSE” in his comments on Irish neutrality and Eamon de Valera.

I reviewed Hastings, and published a blog on Aaronovitch some time back. So my  reasoned comments are on the record.