Why do we have to go on about “what it means to be Irish”?
During the discussion on yesterday’s post, occasional fly in the ointment AE Mouse interrupted our “what it means to be irish fun” to if we are more obssessed with being Irish than other nationalities.
None of the traits mentioned here apply to me or anyone I know. Does that mean I am not Irish?
Or maybe it just means I don’t like to define myself as part of the national collective.
Immediately, Fergal from Tuppenceworth agreed:
AE Mouse I was just about to make the same point. Being Irish does seem to require a great deal of discussion about what being Irish means. In the 80’s we were always dying to know what other countries thought of us. Now we’re always dying to know what we think of us. I wouldn’t go as far as to say we’re no different from any other country, but I bet a lot of immigrants here wish we’d just get over ourselves. By way of commencement, I propose a morotorium on the phrase “Only in Ireland”
Only in Ireland would a light parlour game turn into a serious examination of our identity.
However, Stop the Lights commented this morning:
My Jewish mother-in-law refers to ‘jewish mother things’ which are no different from what my Irish mother would do. A recent French poll found that the nationality they find most annoying in the entire world are other French people and what’s Schadenfreude except begrudgery with a happy outcome?
So it’s the same all over.
And I’d tend to agree. Maybe we talk about ourselves so much because we’re trapped between two cultural superpowers, and our history of emigration has always forced us to focus on those things which connect us to other Irish and make us different from other nationalities.
But I don’t think we’re alone in that. The Germans are in a constant state of self-examination, as are the British, the Australians, the French, and, presumably, half the United Nations. And there would be have been no Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm if being Jewish didn’t seem to be mean constant navel-gazing.
So, while I’d agree with Fergal that being Irish does seem to require a great deal of discussion about what being Irish means. But, in answer to AE Mouse’s question of whether we’re more obssessed than any other nationalities: I don’t think we are.
Now you’re obsessing about obsessing.
Comment by cw | March 13, 2008 at 10:17 amtrapped between two cultural superpowers
Will Bono and Michael Flatley ever just leave us be?
Comment by JD | March 13, 2008 at 10:38 amAE Mouse raises a good point. Part of the reason Irish people are into self-examination is that right now ‘we’ are spread all over the world and not quite sure what that means for being Irish ‘at home’. Furthermore, when people from other, very different cultures arrive here, we tend to circle the wagons. Of course someone is Irish if they don’t recognise any of these things in tyhemselves and this is going to change more and more quickly and very soon. I feel a thesis coming on so i’ll stop now. I should have a blog really.
Comment by 73man | March 13, 2008 at 10:42 amSurely self-examination is a good thing?
Comment by Neill | March 13, 2008 at 11:06 amSelf examination is a good thing. But not self examination in the narrow way we tend to do it.
That is the marietta biscuits, buying your round, Father Ted, aren’t we all a load of big eejits altogether kind of self examination.
While this kind of talk may comfort us in a rich tea dunked in a cup o strong tae kind of way it’s just not the whole truth anymore.
I think the reason I find this obsession with defining ourselves so irritating is because as 73 Man says what ‘we’ - whoever that is - are now has changed beyond all recognition. Which IMHO is also a very good thing.
Comment by AE Mouse | March 13, 2008 at 11:49 am‘The unexamined life is not worth knowing’. Socrates
Why is self-examination of one’s national identity considered ‘narrow’?
To reject self-examination on a personal level in favour of defining yourself explicitly by the country in which you were born would undoubtedly be a tad limiting.
But surely rejecting the importance of the society that has produced us is an equally flawed approach?
AE Mouse, you say it’s a good thing that we’ve changed beyond all recognition. This may or may not be true - and I would argue, as a student of history that while cosmetically many things have changed, quite a lot of our strengths and flaws as a ‘national collective’ have endured - but how can you possibly come to such a conclusion without some degree of self-examination of said national collective?
Furthermore, I think it’s a human as opposed to a distinctly Irish phenomenon to question your national identity. The fact that some of the basic problems Irish society had faced since independence - lack of access to education, widespread unemployment, poor telecommunications - have to some extent diminished does not take away from the importance of the discussion.
Comment by Royston | March 13, 2008 at 12:06 pmIn any case the whole thing was a bit of light hearted fun really,was it not? A “bit o’ craic”, you could say.
The Irish love a bit o’craic, so they do…
Comment by Neill | March 13, 2008 at 12:39 pmI know plenty of people who would no more get caught up in the ’rounds’ thing than they would go about dressed as a leprechaun.
Comment by Cyd | March 13, 2008 at 12:40 pmWe used to be defined as a society by devout Catholicism, fiery Nationalism, bucolic sensibilities and anti-English sentiment.
Nowadays when people talk about what it means to be Irish they talk about ephemera like Tayto Crisps or red lemonade.
Its the extended adolescent, postmodern, homogenous, Western, capitalist-fuelled consumer culture that has us fetishising these trivialities in a hysterical search for identity.
So there.
Comment by David Bowie | March 13, 2008 at 1:56 pmNowadays when people talk about what it means to be Irish they talk about ephemera like Tayto Crisps or red lemonade.
There’s always one!
Comment by JD | March 13, 2008 at 2:35 pm“We used to be defined as a society by devout Catholicism, fiery Nationalism, bucolic sensibilities and anti-English sentiment.”
Yeah. Those were the days, weren’t they?
Comment by Neill | March 13, 2008 at 2:54 pmI don’t like Tayto crisps.
I must be the other one.
Comment by cw | March 13, 2008 at 2:55 pmand i just thought your post was funny…
Comment by red | March 13, 2008 at 4:22 pmRed - Wrong.
Comment by Shane | March 13, 2008 at 4:40 pmDid you know REM qualify as Irish?
Comment by Ivor | March 13, 2008 at 4:55 pmhttp://www.hotpress.com/news/4498079.html - (Jim’s in Texas - we can steal from Hot Press).
The fact that this conversation is being held in english should be taken into account in our little debate.
Comment by Pat O | March 13, 2008 at 5:20 pmThe nationality law makes me Irish. I have a passport and a Social Services Card and participated in the Drugs Payment Scheme. Both parents were Irish born.I worked and raised (some) hell in Sligo and Galway…but I am American. I found that out by having to defend American policies which I don’t even believe in, namely the death penalty and our gun laws (pre-Iraq). What makes me American? A belief in our Bill of Rights and my membership in the ACLU. God I wish we didn’t it but we do.
Comment by Kevin Carty | March 13, 2008 at 5:24 pmPat O - In what way exactly?
Comment by Shane | March 13, 2008 at 5:40 pmShane, I was elaborating on your statement about being in between two cultural superpowers. Germans, French, Italians, etc. don’t have to live with such dominant external cultural forces. Could the quest to identify “what it means to be irish” be a symptom of a national Napoleon complex?
Comment by Pat O | March 13, 2008 at 5:56 pmThe phrase “national Napoleon complex” pleases me greatly.
Somehow I can’t help but hear discussion about the “uniquly Irish” with a sceptical ear. Pop culture quirks aside, most of the stuff countries think uniquely their own is fairly widesread. For example, you’d think the US was the only place in the entire world with free speech, to hear some Americans go on about it. Recently a jewish congressman and Holocaust survivor died and the press went straight for the “Only in America” narrative, forgetting the rather obvious exception of Israel, not mention several others. Similarly, when I hear the phrase “Quintessentially English” with its mixture of smugness and tweeness, I feel my gorge start to rise. I can only assume that claiming swearing as uniquely Irish (what about Australia?) looks just as absurd to the rest of the world.
Comment by Fergal | March 13, 2008 at 8:38 pm“I can only assume that claiming swearing as uniqueley Irish (what about Australia?) looks just as absurd to the rest of the world.”
No. Irish people swear a lot more. Australians swear when they’re angry (which actually is a lot of the time) but Irish people swear casually and often without even noticing they’re doing it.
I know one bumpkin who even managed to get a swear word inbetween syllables of the one word when he exclaimed that he had “rea-fuck-alised” something.
Comment by David Bowie | March 14, 2008 at 9:44 amSwearing in the middle of a word is absofuckinglutely my favorite kind of swearing. I have an American friend who likes to refer to her home state as “Califuckingfornia”
Comment by Fergal | March 14, 2008 at 11:22 amYanks do it to make a point. Irish people do it as a reflex.
Comment by David Bowie | March 14, 2008 at 1:45 pmAs an Irish person living abroad, I find the fact that the rest of the world takes time out to celebrate our national day strange but really reassuring. Maybe the question we need to ask ourfuckingselves is why do they do that?
Comment by Queenie | March 14, 2008 at 2:21 pmHey I’m not arguing with you Dave, I just thought I’d tell you something funny my friend said.
Though if you really do want an argument, I’ll point out that I never said Australians or Americans swore more than us, just that swearing isn’t uniquely Irish. I’ll grant you though that we are very good swearers. Certainly, I’d put us in the top fucking five.
Comment by Fergal | March 14, 2008 at 2:30 pmQueenie - For the surprise twist with the language at the end there, you win Post of the Day. Your prize is only the honour of winning, of course. I have nothing else to give.
Comment by Shane | March 14, 2008 at 2:38 pm“Ourfuckingselves” is indeed outstanding. Post of the day, not to mention infix (look it up) of the day.
Comment by Fergal | March 14, 2008 at 2:41 pmFergal, it’s also another example of the kind of thing that would spruce up the letters page. And I hope you weren’t offended at being overlooked for your “top fucking five”. it was good, but it was no “ourfuckingselves”.
Comment by Shane | March 14, 2008 at 2:44 pmYou called it fairly Shane. I knew I was well beaten when Queenie turned up with her little gem
Comment by Fergal | March 14, 2008 at 2:49 pmAh for fufuckingcking sake, give it a rest lads!
Comment by JD | March 14, 2008 at 2:54 pmMerry fucking Christmas, everyone.
I need a drink.
Comment by David Bowie | March 14, 2008 at 5:03 pmI think Shane you nailed AEs Irishness that she couldn’t identify: ‘Only in Ireland would a light parlour game turn into a serious examination of our identity’.
Comment by Tom Ennis | March 15, 2008 at 3:21 pmDespite what you may think AE, national introspection is not peculiar to Ireland. Its hardly unreasonable for people to occasionly examine what it means, if it means anything, to be from a place, especially with lighthearted lists of supposed national traits.
‘I AM A HUMAN BEING as the elephant man put it so eloquently. Not an Irish human being. Just a human being.’ really AE? thats straying into Thatcher’s ‘there is no society’ territory.
I probably dislike or even despise as many of the cod Oirish things you do and there is much that is despicable about the ‘Old’ Ireland but the New Ireland is no angel either. Despite this, whenever I go to the hometown or even arriving back in Dublin from overseas, I get a little buzz, a sense of place.
And I stand my round (even if someone is suddenly drinking doubles…)
I think that Irish are the only ones who actually swear affectionately - like when someone tells us something and we say, smiling - “ah fuck off, ”
Comment by Tri | March 20, 2008 at 3:39 pmor “I fucking love this,”
or “I fucking love you,”…