Ba bheag an tsuim a léirigh muintir na hÉireann sa scéal nuair a fógraíodh go dtabharfadh Banríon Shasana cuairt ar an tír seo. Rinneadh trácht ar an chuairt i bhfad siar, bhí a fhios ag daoine go raibh sí le teacht, ach shíl formhór na ndaoine nach leanfaidís an scéal agus nach gcuirfidís iontas nó spéis ar bith sa chuairt nuair a tharlódh sé. Ach i rith na laethanta beaga roimh theacht na banríona, thosaigh na daoine ag caint. Uaireanta ní raibh i gceist ach focal grinn, ach ba léir go raibh daoine ag cur suime sa scéal i ngan fhios dóibh féin. Faoin am a leag Banríon Eilís a cos ar an fhód Fódhlach ní raibh scéal ar bith eile i mbéal na ndaoine.
Thuig an tír gur stairiúil an ócáid í. Bhí a fhios ag daoine nár thug monarc Sasanach cuairt ar Éirinn le céad bliain, agus bhí a fhios acu cén fáth: cogadh na saoirse, an cogadh eacnamaíoch, diúltú DeValera páirt a ghlacadh sa dara cogadh Domhanda (cé gur chuidigh sé leis na Sasanaigh ó thaobh na faisnéise de), agus ansin, an choimhlint fhuilteach i dTuaisceart Éireann. Is beag duine atá os cionn daichead bliain d’aois nach bhfuil íomhánna gránna ón Tuaisceart greamaithe i gcúl a intinne. Is cuimhin leis an ghlúin chéanna an chaoi ar chlis go hiomlán ar an chaidreamh idir rialtas na hÉireann agus rialtas Shasana i dtús na coimhlinte. Bhain sé tamall fada uathu teacht ar chomhthuiscint ar na cúrsaí seo.
Táimid ag leanstan próiseas na síochána le fada an lá: an Comhaontú Angla-Éireannach 1985; sos-chogadh an IRA 1994; Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta 1998; díchoimisiúnú airm an IRA 2005, Paisley agus McGuinness mar chéad aire agus mar leas-chéad aire 2007. Mar a thug an tUachtarán, Máire Mhic Giolla Íosa, sliocht as saothar Yeats san óráid ag an chóisir in onóir na banríona “is go mall séimh a thagann an tsíocháin”.
Ba dheimhniú do mhuintir na hÉireann í cuairt na banríona go bhfuil deireadh leis an choimhlint agus an síor-achrann. Chuir an chuairt seo ina luí orainn go raibh toradh leis an obair chrua a rinne ceannairí stáit agus ceannairí pobail síos fríd bhlianta deacra na nochaidí.
Is léir, áfach, go raibh ní ba mhó na cúrsaí síochána agus polaitíochta i gceist. Tá stair fhada an dá thír fite fuaite le chéile. Le míle bliain tá daoine ag dul anonn is anall idir an dá thír, agus ag réanna áirithe bhí cuspóirí éagsúla ar intinn acu: an t-ionradh, an coilíneachas, an ghabháil, nó, nuair nach raibh an lámh láidir i gceist, an creideamh, an t-oideachas, an trádáil. Ar an drochuair ba mhinice muintir na hÉireann thíos leis na hidirghabhála seo. Suaitheadh an tír seo ó bhun go barr. D’fhulaing na dúchasaigh dí-shealbhú, dí-láithriú cultúrtha, agus i bhfad ní ba mheasa fós.
Bhí sé de mhí-ádh againn gur tháinig ann don impireacht ba mhó dá raibh ann riamh ar an oileán beag in aice linn. Agus bhain ceannairí na himpireachta sin máistreacht amach ar chuid mhór den domhain ar fad.
Ar ndóigh bhain an tír seo sochar as an impireacht fosta. Ba fríd impireacht Shasana a rinneamar ár mbealach ón mheán-aois go dtí an nua-aois. Ba dhian an turas é, ach bhí sé amhlaidh i mbeagnach gach tír ar domhain. Thug na Sasanaigh innealra an stáit nua-aoisigh dúinn; thug siad an dlí dúinn; thug siad an teicneolaíocht agus an t-eolas dúinn; thug siad córas oideachais dúinn; thug siad bonn-eagar dúinn; agus thug siad an teanga is tábhachtaí ar domhan dúinn.
Ní iontas ar bith é gur fhág an stair sin dearcadh ar leith ag muintir na hÉireann i dtaobh na Sasanach: an ghráin agus an t-éad gan amhras, ach ceann is go raibh an impireacht an-mhór agus go raibh sí fíor-chéimlathach, fágadh coimpléasc na hísleachta orainn mar phobal. Ní iontas ar bith é nach mbíodh fáilte sa tír seo roimh mhonarc Sasanach. Seo é an cúlra stairiúil ar ndóigh, agus ní féidir a rá go mothaíonn pobal na hÉireann gráin do phobal Shasana sa lá atá inniu ann, nó le fada an lá. Ach bhí iarsmaí de na sean-mhothúcháin fós ann.
Daichead bliain i ndiaidh chogadh na saoirse bhí an tír seo fós ag brath go mór ar Shasana ó thaobh cúrsaí geilleagair de. Mar thír bheag ní raibh dlúth-chaidreamh againn le haon tír mhór eile. Sin é an fáth gur chuireamar a oiread suime sa Phobal Eorpach i dtús báire. Cheapamar go gcuideodh ballraíocht sa PE linn éalú sa deireadh as bheith ag brath ar an tsean-namhad. D’éirigh thar cionn leis sin mar straitéis: ba fríd an aontas Eorpach a thángamar in aibíocht mar thír. Thosaíomar ag brath orainn féin mar phobal nua-aoiseach eile, amhail gach pobal eile ar fud na hEorpa.
Má bhí Éire ag athrú le tríocha bliain anuas – go cultúrtha agus go sóisialta go háirithe – cuireadh malairt crutha ar an Ríocht Aontaithe fosta. Tháinig deireadh le hiarsmaí na himpireachta. Chuir na pobail cheilteacha eile – in Albain agus sa Bhreatain Bheag – a gcuid féiniúlachta chun cinn. Tá ar a laghad seans ann go bhfágfadh Albain an Ríocht Aontaithe. Tá scothaicme Shasana ag teacht isteach ar an stádas nua atá ag an Ríocht Aontaithe, is ea nach bhfuil anois inti ach scoth-thír atá ag streachailt leis na hathruithe móra cumhachta atá ar bun ar fud an domhain.
Is tráthúil a tháinig an Bhanríon. D’fhág an ghéarchéim eacnamaíoch in ísle brí sinn. Tá deacrachtaí móra againn leis na tíortha móra Eorpacha. Agus arís eile tá aos óg na tíre seo ag dul thar lear ina mílte – cuid mhór acu go Sasana. Chuir cuairt na Banríona ina luí orainn gur tír neamhspleách í Éire fós, bíodh is go bhfuil dualgais ar leith uirthi. Táimid báite i bhfiacha, ach nílimid faoi chois.
Is dócha go bhfuil rian an dearcaidh a bhain leis an impireacht fós le mothú i measc scoláirí Eton nó i gcoláistí Oxford. Agus is cinnte go bhfuil corr-dhuine i Whitehall agus i Westminster a bhfuil gothaí na huaisleachta fós air. Má fuair Sasana ísliú céime le glúin anuas, tá sí fós i bhfad níos cumhachtaí na an tír seo. Ní bheidh an tír seo ar chomh-chéim le Sasana choíche agus beidh caidreamh aon-taobhach idir an dá thír.
Ach thug cuairt na banríona le fios go bhfuil meas ag an dá thír ar a chéile ag leibhéal oifigiúil. “A Uachtaráin agus a chairde” – níor labhraíodh cúig fhocal Gaeilge riamh a raibh a oiread tábhach ag baint leo. In aon abairtín amháin, d’aithin Banríon Shasana go bhfuil a mbunreacht féin agus a gcultúr féin ag muintir na hÉireann. Murar féidir cairdeas bheith ann idir dhá thír, is féidir cairdeas, nó gean éigean, bheith idir dhá phobal. Agus d’fhéadfadh sé tarlú fós go mbeadh ár sean-namhad ar an chara ba dílse againn.
Friday 27 May 2011
Thursday 9 September 2010
Why the left hates Blair
Someone in prospect magazine wonders why the left hates blair more than some of his conservative predecessors. My thoughts are roughly:
Blair’s achievements are enormous: the huge improvement in the NHS and the funding and performance of schools to name just two. His constitutional changes (though conceived before he became PM) were also very significant. So too with peace in NI.
I think the virulent opposition to Blair from the left – more instense than against conservative leaders – owes something to a sense of betrayal. From the day of his controversial court backed electoral victory, Bush was loathed on the left. For Blair to align himself so closely with Bush, after 9/11 but even before the Iraq war, was always going to alienate Blair from large sections of left opinion. Blair allowed no distance between himself and Bush, not even a shade that might have made independence of mind and policy seem credible.
On Iraq, where Blair constructed a casus belli from intelligence that was plainly insufficient, if not patently exaggerated, he was always going to destroy his image on the left. In arguments about justifying Iraq, Blair keeps on saying that after 9/11 he knew islamic fundamentalism had to be confronted, yet everyone knows now, as they did then, that Al Queda and the 9/11 bombers were not spawned in Iraq but elsewhere. So despite Blair’s insistence that Saddam’s regime posed a threat, we know that it didn’t really, not after 1991 and all the years of sanctions. Saddam was a murderous dictator, but the time to intervene to save his victims was long past (incidentally the West backed him while he was at his most brutal).
On top of Iraq, there is Blair’s rightward lurch in matters concerning law and order, and issues like Freedom of Information (which he now says makes government impossible).
Blair was an immense politician, and I believe did have a genuine progressive intent, at least in the beginning. But more clearly than any prime minister in recent times, he let power go to his head. He became a megalomaniac, even evangelical in his zeal. He seemed not to have a healthy sceptism towards power itself. The way he deployed his power, and how he altered the office of prime minister, are troubling.
For Blair there was no such thing as a cabinet. He was right and his person decision was a diktat. It is probably on balance a good thing that there was another powerful figure next door whose presence was the ultimate limit on how far Blair wanted to stretch his office.
Blair’s term exposed how little real counterweight exists in the British system for a PM with a large majority and who is in command of the senior figures in his own party. In the end, he is hated on the left as much for how he deployed power as he is for any single policy (aside from Iraq).
Blair’s achievements are enormous: the huge improvement in the NHS and the funding and performance of schools to name just two. His constitutional changes (though conceived before he became PM) were also very significant. So too with peace in NI.
I think the virulent opposition to Blair from the left – more instense than against conservative leaders – owes something to a sense of betrayal. From the day of his controversial court backed electoral victory, Bush was loathed on the left. For Blair to align himself so closely with Bush, after 9/11 but even before the Iraq war, was always going to alienate Blair from large sections of left opinion. Blair allowed no distance between himself and Bush, not even a shade that might have made independence of mind and policy seem credible.
On Iraq, where Blair constructed a casus belli from intelligence that was plainly insufficient, if not patently exaggerated, he was always going to destroy his image on the left. In arguments about justifying Iraq, Blair keeps on saying that after 9/11 he knew islamic fundamentalism had to be confronted, yet everyone knows now, as they did then, that Al Queda and the 9/11 bombers were not spawned in Iraq but elsewhere. So despite Blair’s insistence that Saddam’s regime posed a threat, we know that it didn’t really, not after 1991 and all the years of sanctions. Saddam was a murderous dictator, but the time to intervene to save his victims was long past (incidentally the West backed him while he was at his most brutal).
On top of Iraq, there is Blair’s rightward lurch in matters concerning law and order, and issues like Freedom of Information (which he now says makes government impossible).
Blair was an immense politician, and I believe did have a genuine progressive intent, at least in the beginning. But more clearly than any prime minister in recent times, he let power go to his head. He became a megalomaniac, even evangelical in his zeal. He seemed not to have a healthy sceptism towards power itself. The way he deployed his power, and how he altered the office of prime minister, are troubling.
For Blair there was no such thing as a cabinet. He was right and his person decision was a diktat. It is probably on balance a good thing that there was another powerful figure next door whose presence was the ultimate limit on how far Blair wanted to stretch his office.
Blair’s term exposed how little real counterweight exists in the British system for a PM with a large majority and who is in command of the senior figures in his own party. In the end, he is hated on the left as much for how he deployed power as he is for any single policy (aside from Iraq).
Friday 3 September 2010
Subjects I hated in School (Or did I)
I attended a terrible primary school : apart from the teacher in the infants’ class, the other three varied between hopelessly incompetent and simply deranged. All my teachers at primary school were middle aged women. Two of the four were so bad that they spent a good deal of their time either crying, pleading with the class, or exploding in fits of violence. It was a disaster for them and us, but that was how it was. Parents complained to the board of management – but the main voice there was the parish priest and he supported his teachers to the last. And anyway, even if he hadn’t there probably wasn’t much he could do. This was the late 70s, but even now it is almost impossible to have incompetence teachers removed. The only thing I would hope is that they are rare and that on average most children get decent, capable teachers.
It is secondary that I wanted to talk about, but primary has a huge bearing on how a child fares in secondary. Those who say primary is a crucial foundation are right. When I arrived in secondary I felt that I was far behind the other students. In everything from history, to maths, to Irish, they were years ahead of me.
At our school we did exams every Christmas and I recall that the message from my first set of exams was that I had a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully I developed an appetite for study and over the course of the junior cycle I made up the lost ground. But I was probably lucky. I could easily have become disheartened or found that I couldn’t bridge the gap, in which case I would have joined that quarter of the class or so who never returned for the senior cycle.
The truth is that I didn’t really hate any subjects, but my interest was usually a direct function of the effectiveness of the teacher. I was unlucky again in Irish, English, and French, finding myself with two of the schools weakest teachers. (I had the same one for French as English).
I dropped classical studies (my year was the first where this was offered in place of Latin) after first year, and also dropped Commerce, choosing instead to stick with woodwork and technical drawing. I excelled at all the technical subjects and in the end got very high results in subjects like drawing, maths, and the sciences. But my progress in the languages had stalled.
I had a moderate interest in Irish but the teacher hadn’t. His passion was Gaelic football and he spent large parts of the class talking to the footballers about results or forecasts (I had no interest in sport of any kind and used this time to scribble or write obscenities into the margins of my textbooks). English and French were even worse. The teacher had no command of the class – or her subject matter. I never really read any of the texts. In the end, for my intercert (now the called the junior cert) I scraped a C in English and French and a D in Irish.
I remember well the day the results came out. I walked into the principal’s office to see how it went. He was beaming. I had done very well overall. He said I had 8 honours, among them five As. I was ecstatic. I hadn’t expected to do half as well. Standing beside the principal was the Irish teacher, a dour look on his face, and as I took the slip with the results he said ungraciously, “obviously languages aren’t your strong point”.
It hit a nerve, for I can still feel the way his comment deflated my sense of joy in my achievement.
For the senior cycle I was again unfortunate with teachers. Apart from one year I had the same dreadful Irish teacher, and again the same teacher for English. Thankfully I had a much better French teacher. I made up ground in French, getting a B in the end. But I only scraped a C in English and Irish.
I know now that there was nothing at all wrong with my ability to learn languages. During my first year in college I took up evening classes in Irish. It became a passion and I read voraciously in Irish throughout college and spend several summers in the Gaeltacht. Years later I was to spend three years in France and made very good headway with the language. In English too I developed a taste for literature – and even writing.
My experience has taught me this much about education. One, the competence of the teacher is vital. A capable teacher can be inspiring and can draw students toward their subject. Two, students should never give up. Learning is indeed lifelong, and with a bit of dedication you can amaze yourself at how well you can learn even a subject you might not terribly like. Better still you might discover a way in to a subject that makes you realize you kind of like it after all. Three, never allow yourself to be categorised. I believe that the boxing of people into learner types is artificial. So and so is great at maths and so and so is great at language. True, different subjects require different skills and abilities, but after all, even at the end of the senior cycle the goal is not mastery or deep learning, but to get a very solid foundation, and that can be achieved by any student in any subject.
It is secondary that I wanted to talk about, but primary has a huge bearing on how a child fares in secondary. Those who say primary is a crucial foundation are right. When I arrived in secondary I felt that I was far behind the other students. In everything from history, to maths, to Irish, they were years ahead of me.
At our school we did exams every Christmas and I recall that the message from my first set of exams was that I had a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully I developed an appetite for study and over the course of the junior cycle I made up the lost ground. But I was probably lucky. I could easily have become disheartened or found that I couldn’t bridge the gap, in which case I would have joined that quarter of the class or so who never returned for the senior cycle.
The truth is that I didn’t really hate any subjects, but my interest was usually a direct function of the effectiveness of the teacher. I was unlucky again in Irish, English, and French, finding myself with two of the schools weakest teachers. (I had the same one for French as English).
I dropped classical studies (my year was the first where this was offered in place of Latin) after first year, and also dropped Commerce, choosing instead to stick with woodwork and technical drawing. I excelled at all the technical subjects and in the end got very high results in subjects like drawing, maths, and the sciences. But my progress in the languages had stalled.
I had a moderate interest in Irish but the teacher hadn’t. His passion was Gaelic football and he spent large parts of the class talking to the footballers about results or forecasts (I had no interest in sport of any kind and used this time to scribble or write obscenities into the margins of my textbooks). English and French were even worse. The teacher had no command of the class – or her subject matter. I never really read any of the texts. In the end, for my intercert (now the called the junior cert) I scraped a C in English and French and a D in Irish.
I remember well the day the results came out. I walked into the principal’s office to see how it went. He was beaming. I had done very well overall. He said I had 8 honours, among them five As. I was ecstatic. I hadn’t expected to do half as well. Standing beside the principal was the Irish teacher, a dour look on his face, and as I took the slip with the results he said ungraciously, “obviously languages aren’t your strong point”.
It hit a nerve, for I can still feel the way his comment deflated my sense of joy in my achievement.
For the senior cycle I was again unfortunate with teachers. Apart from one year I had the same dreadful Irish teacher, and again the same teacher for English. Thankfully I had a much better French teacher. I made up ground in French, getting a B in the end. But I only scraped a C in English and Irish.
I know now that there was nothing at all wrong with my ability to learn languages. During my first year in college I took up evening classes in Irish. It became a passion and I read voraciously in Irish throughout college and spend several summers in the Gaeltacht. Years later I was to spend three years in France and made very good headway with the language. In English too I developed a taste for literature – and even writing.
My experience has taught me this much about education. One, the competence of the teacher is vital. A capable teacher can be inspiring and can draw students toward their subject. Two, students should never give up. Learning is indeed lifelong, and with a bit of dedication you can amaze yourself at how well you can learn even a subject you might not terribly like. Better still you might discover a way in to a subject that makes you realize you kind of like it after all. Three, never allow yourself to be categorised. I believe that the boxing of people into learner types is artificial. So and so is great at maths and so and so is great at language. True, different subjects require different skills and abilities, but after all, even at the end of the senior cycle the goal is not mastery or deep learning, but to get a very solid foundation, and that can be achieved by any student in any subject.
Wednesday 30 June 2010
The Words We Use
For a long time now each generation which has reached middle age has lamented the decline in intellectual ability and civility of the one coming after. Yet civilisation hasn't collapsed. In many ways it is now a better time to grow up than at any time in the past. But the changes over the last half century aren't a mere linear evolution in manners - there seems to be a substantial rupture with the past.
The way in which post-60s generations have kicked off respect for authority has in many ways been liberating. But the reaction or rejection has gone too far and has been far to unselective. This, in my opinion, is one reason why teaching in school is now a barely tolerable task. And it may also explain the explosion in petty, mindless crime. It certainly explains the evaporation of civility from most public spaces.
It seems that we have been gripped by an agressive (and agressively hedonistic) cult of the individual. All of this was underway before the late, great, acceleration of technology into the realm of the personal (where the bywords of marketeers have been 'personalisation', 'customisation', 'unique user experience' - all short hand for individualsim). The twin phenomena of rejection of authority and tradition, and the rapid rise of email, text and other casual forms of communication have cut away the formality - and the discipline - that was once associated with the written word.
Indeed, to mention just one consequence, isn't the demise of letter writing one of the more lamentable side effects of our great leap forward into the age of electronic communication. What a joy for ordinary citizens to have records from their ancestors. But more important, for posterity, what a jewel to have such things as say, the letters of Abraham Lincoln, or those of other eminent persons in the history of any nation.
I cannot claim any great knowledge of the link between proficiency with language and intellectual ability. I would hazard that informality and (what we call) debasement probably have no bearing whatever on the agility of a mind. Even the most slovenly language will be capable of conveying all that is required to run a laboratory - or a country. The great fear would be if the collapse of language were to make its way into literature. There are few greater pleasures than reading a paragraph of prose which shines in impossible beauty. When we reach a stage where literary language has been thus devalued, we should know that we have indeed reached the end of civilisation.
The way in which post-60s generations have kicked off respect for authority has in many ways been liberating. But the reaction or rejection has gone too far and has been far to unselective. This, in my opinion, is one reason why teaching in school is now a barely tolerable task. And it may also explain the explosion in petty, mindless crime. It certainly explains the evaporation of civility from most public spaces.
It seems that we have been gripped by an agressive (and agressively hedonistic) cult of the individual. All of this was underway before the late, great, acceleration of technology into the realm of the personal (where the bywords of marketeers have been 'personalisation', 'customisation', 'unique user experience' - all short hand for individualsim). The twin phenomena of rejection of authority and tradition, and the rapid rise of email, text and other casual forms of communication have cut away the formality - and the discipline - that was once associated with the written word.
Indeed, to mention just one consequence, isn't the demise of letter writing one of the more lamentable side effects of our great leap forward into the age of electronic communication. What a joy for ordinary citizens to have records from their ancestors. But more important, for posterity, what a jewel to have such things as say, the letters of Abraham Lincoln, or those of other eminent persons in the history of any nation.
I cannot claim any great knowledge of the link between proficiency with language and intellectual ability. I would hazard that informality and (what we call) debasement probably have no bearing whatever on the agility of a mind. Even the most slovenly language will be capable of conveying all that is required to run a laboratory - or a country. The great fear would be if the collapse of language were to make its way into literature. There are few greater pleasures than reading a paragraph of prose which shines in impossible beauty. When we reach a stage where literary language has been thus devalued, we should know that we have indeed reached the end of civilisation.
Tuesday 29 June 2010
Watching England Lose
This little post came to mind in response to a piece by Roddy Doyle in the New Yorker. Doyle wrote that he was going to bet for England but when he went to the bookies he couldn't bring himself to back the old enemy..
Doyle's remarks ring true: here in Dublin I could hear my neighbours cheer each time Germany scored. Typically punters in Irish pubs shake the rafters when someone, anyone, scores against England. These are usually the same people, like Mr. Doyle, who support English soccer clubs! Nothing illustrates our relationship with England better than the soccer paradox.
We built our argument for independence on the twin beliefs that a) we are not English, and b) they, the English, were responsible for all the wrongs of our history and our current state of misery. For this much blood was spilled (and great national myths were necessary to justify each separate horror). None of this, of course, makes us Irish unique. We made our myths, our wars, and our nation. Our trouble with the English, however, is that while we broke the political ties, we failed to break the cultural ones.
We failed to rehabilitate our national language and we remained under their cultural and (for most of the 20th century) economic shadow. Language is important. Nothing facilitates the cultural dominance of a great power over a small one more than a shared language. In terms of forging an independent culture (though I stress, not in any other way), it was to our misfortune that the power which stepped into the role of global empire after Britain was also English speaking. This cemented the position of the English language in Ireland (as elsewhere) thereby preserving a direct channel for English cultural produce into Ireland. All of this was happening at a time when communication, television, and later the internet was connecting Irish homes into the English cultural scene.
During our (ill-fated) economic boom of the 90s and naughties, Irish town and city cetres grew more and more like those in England. This is more to do with capital flow than culture, but it merely set in concrete what was happneing in parallel in cultural terms. In Ireland we consume vast quantities of British celeb culture; far from being force-fed British media, the fact is, English titles sell here because we Irish are prepared to pay to read about Victoria Beckham or Elton John.
We even follow the British Royalty, another topic which bubbles the paradox to the surface. Despite following the tribulations and foibles of prince Harry with great interest, there is something of a minor backlash on Irish airwaves at the announcement that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, is going to visit Ireland next year - the first visit by a British Monarch since Irish Independence.
In Ireland we are happy to adore and support anything English as long as it has no national symbolism attached. This is surely a sign that despite our political independence, our success at building a functioning nation, and our increasing confidence as a member of the European Union, an ache of self doubt lingers in the heart of our project to creating a unique national identity, one that need not be defined by what it is not: English.
Doyle's remarks ring true: here in Dublin I could hear my neighbours cheer each time Germany scored. Typically punters in Irish pubs shake the rafters when someone, anyone, scores against England. These are usually the same people, like Mr. Doyle, who support English soccer clubs! Nothing illustrates our relationship with England better than the soccer paradox.
We built our argument for independence on the twin beliefs that a) we are not English, and b) they, the English, were responsible for all the wrongs of our history and our current state of misery. For this much blood was spilled (and great national myths were necessary to justify each separate horror). None of this, of course, makes us Irish unique. We made our myths, our wars, and our nation. Our trouble with the English, however, is that while we broke the political ties, we failed to break the cultural ones.
We failed to rehabilitate our national language and we remained under their cultural and (for most of the 20th century) economic shadow. Language is important. Nothing facilitates the cultural dominance of a great power over a small one more than a shared language. In terms of forging an independent culture (though I stress, not in any other way), it was to our misfortune that the power which stepped into the role of global empire after Britain was also English speaking. This cemented the position of the English language in Ireland (as elsewhere) thereby preserving a direct channel for English cultural produce into Ireland. All of this was happening at a time when communication, television, and later the internet was connecting Irish homes into the English cultural scene.
During our (ill-fated) economic boom of the 90s and naughties, Irish town and city cetres grew more and more like those in England. This is more to do with capital flow than culture, but it merely set in concrete what was happneing in parallel in cultural terms. In Ireland we consume vast quantities of British celeb culture; far from being force-fed British media, the fact is, English titles sell here because we Irish are prepared to pay to read about Victoria Beckham or Elton John.
We even follow the British Royalty, another topic which bubbles the paradox to the surface. Despite following the tribulations and foibles of prince Harry with great interest, there is something of a minor backlash on Irish airwaves at the announcement that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, is going to visit Ireland next year - the first visit by a British Monarch since Irish Independence.
In Ireland we are happy to adore and support anything English as long as it has no national symbolism attached. This is surely a sign that despite our political independence, our success at building a functioning nation, and our increasing confidence as a member of the European Union, an ache of self doubt lingers in the heart of our project to creating a unique national identity, one that need not be defined by what it is not: English.
Monday 14 June 2010
FG wrong on Leaving Cert Irish
The position of Irish in the school curriculum is central to the larger question of whether the state - and by extension this nation - ought to preserve or promote the first official tongue. The cause of the language is very dear to my own heart, and therefore I feel very strongly that this is an important issue.
Everyone knows that Irish language policy has been very flawed down the years - though some remarkable changes have taken place over the last 15 years or so. We know too that there have been chronic failures in how the language has been taught. I recall studying 16th century poetry in a class where no student had the ability to order a train ticket in Irish. Some of these failures have been corrected in part in recent years; for example, by making the curriculum more relevant and emphasizing communication over literature.
Given the known and perceived failures it is tempting to reject current policy in its entirety. This would be a mistake. If the Irish language - still declining in the Gaeltacht - has any hope of survival as a spoken tongue, it is by virtue of the latent but widespread support that it enjoys among the general population.
It is true that among those who look favourably upon the language, most never succeed in mustering the effort required to learn to speak it. The reasons for that are complex, but the fact remains that passive support among the public is a crucial buttress without which the whole edifice of recent language policy would collapse.
Compulsory Irish, I believe, has been a key factor in maintaining a thin but very widespread knowledge of the language among the general population. It makes the vast bulk of the population at least moderately familiar with the language. People may not have enjoyed their experience with Irish in the classroom (one hopes that this can be continuously improved upon for future generations), but, more often than not, they come away wishing the system had served them better and that they had learned more not less of the native tongue.
When people who struggle with the language are given the option, they will opt out, and the result will be an evaporation of the crucial familiarity with Irish. The result will be alienation from the language. It is easy to see how, over a period of time, this would lead to a drastic drop in support for government sponsored revival efforts.
That people retain a mere 'cúpla focal' after years of schooling is an indictment that the system has failed to create competent speakers. Yet dispensing with this thin base entirely would be devastating.
The Fine Gael attempt to make Irish optional is a political ploy - designed to portray a party ready to take radical steps to inject impetus into fresh policies. In reality their proposal is a populist proposal, designed to capitalise on the widespread negative view, not of the language itself, but of how it was taught in school.
I would urge those who support the goal of preserving Irish not to fall for this ploy.
It is worth noting the Welsh have increased their compulsory requirement. From the early 90s it was compulsory to study Welsh to age 14 and in 1999 that was increased to 16. Welsh preservation and even revival efforts have been seen as more successful than ours. We should certainly keep an eye on developments there, though I would accept that each situation is different.
One thing is to be welcomed. Over recent years the debate on the Irish language has been increasingly informed by expert opinion in the field of socio-linguistics. Indeed this has brought a dose of reality to the question of Irish survival prospects that was previously absent. It has also highlighted with greater accuracy than before, that the language is indeed in a very perilous position. The state of the language is now so fragile - despite popular views to the contrary - that a major step in the wrong direction could wipe it out quickly and everywhere as a community tongue.
So the status of Irish in school should not be an object of experiment or political gaming. Instead it should be seen as an essential component of a survival strategy for a language which now needs very careful nurturing if it is to survive.
Everyone knows that Irish language policy has been very flawed down the years - though some remarkable changes have taken place over the last 15 years or so. We know too that there have been chronic failures in how the language has been taught. I recall studying 16th century poetry in a class where no student had the ability to order a train ticket in Irish. Some of these failures have been corrected in part in recent years; for example, by making the curriculum more relevant and emphasizing communication over literature.
Given the known and perceived failures it is tempting to reject current policy in its entirety. This would be a mistake. If the Irish language - still declining in the Gaeltacht - has any hope of survival as a spoken tongue, it is by virtue of the latent but widespread support that it enjoys among the general population.
It is true that among those who look favourably upon the language, most never succeed in mustering the effort required to learn to speak it. The reasons for that are complex, but the fact remains that passive support among the public is a crucial buttress without which the whole edifice of recent language policy would collapse.
Compulsory Irish, I believe, has been a key factor in maintaining a thin but very widespread knowledge of the language among the general population. It makes the vast bulk of the population at least moderately familiar with the language. People may not have enjoyed their experience with Irish in the classroom (one hopes that this can be continuously improved upon for future generations), but, more often than not, they come away wishing the system had served them better and that they had learned more not less of the native tongue.
When people who struggle with the language are given the option, they will opt out, and the result will be an evaporation of the crucial familiarity with Irish. The result will be alienation from the language. It is easy to see how, over a period of time, this would lead to a drastic drop in support for government sponsored revival efforts.
That people retain a mere 'cúpla focal' after years of schooling is an indictment that the system has failed to create competent speakers. Yet dispensing with this thin base entirely would be devastating.
The Fine Gael attempt to make Irish optional is a political ploy - designed to portray a party ready to take radical steps to inject impetus into fresh policies. In reality their proposal is a populist proposal, designed to capitalise on the widespread negative view, not of the language itself, but of how it was taught in school.
I would urge those who support the goal of preserving Irish not to fall for this ploy.
It is worth noting the Welsh have increased their compulsory requirement. From the early 90s it was compulsory to study Welsh to age 14 and in 1999 that was increased to 16. Welsh preservation and even revival efforts have been seen as more successful than ours. We should certainly keep an eye on developments there, though I would accept that each situation is different.
One thing is to be welcomed. Over recent years the debate on the Irish language has been increasingly informed by expert opinion in the field of socio-linguistics. Indeed this has brought a dose of reality to the question of Irish survival prospects that was previously absent. It has also highlighted with greater accuracy than before, that the language is indeed in a very perilous position. The state of the language is now so fragile - despite popular views to the contrary - that a major step in the wrong direction could wipe it out quickly and everywhere as a community tongue.
So the status of Irish in school should not be an object of experiment or political gaming. Instead it should be seen as an essential component of a survival strategy for a language which now needs very careful nurturing if it is to survive.
Wednesday 26 May 2010
Bord Gáis Taking the Piss
All I needed was to have my gas metre moved by a couple of yards. There was nothing complicated - just a trench and a short pipe. So I phoned Bord Gáis. I gasped when the agent told me how much it would cost: a thousand euro!
I thought I had misheard and asked again. Yes, a thousand euro, said the agent.
I took a minute to recompose myself, took a deep breath, then, knowing I had no choice if I wanted my porch built, I begrudgingly agreed.
Ok, I asked, so will the Bord Gáis people have my gas working again when they leave? Oh no, the voice said, in a tone somewhere between surprise and contempt, you will have to call a registered gas fitter to reconnect you.
Why, that is absurd, I protested, I'm paying you, the gas company, a thousand euro, to move a box two yards, and you wont even connect me? No, that is not our responsibility.
But a thousand euro, I cried, this is obscene. Well, in any case, the voice said wryly, we need to have your gas installer certify it for safety. Wait a minute, I said angrily, are you telling me that the only major gas company in the country cannot move a pipe by two yards and verify that it's safe? That's ridiculous, I said.
My protestation was to no avail of course. This is what monopolies do: rip people off. What I had experienced was a taste of say, 1986. Back then most of the big service and utility providers were monopolies. It could take months to get a phone installed and when you did the costs of using it were astronomical. But Telecom Eireann didn't care - the last thing that mattered to them was happy customers.
So far, however, Bord Gáis has managed to maintain its monopoly over gas supply. They can defend their position under the pretense that there is competition by virtue of the fact that people can choose coal or oil. But this falls apart simply because coal and oil aren't gas. Bord Gáis and BP and Topaz and Bord na Móna now call themselves 'energy providers' as if a customer rings up an asks for three thousand kilojoules. It's absurd. For a start, coal and oil are far dirtier than gas. Plus Bord Gáis has an installed base of pipelines to houses in cities. And finally, the raw materials are priced differently. So Bord Gáis saying that users have choice is patently false. It would be like Telecom Éireann saying in 1986 that as an alternative users can choose carrier pigeons.
But anyway on the appointed morning my Bord Gáis team turned up to move the metre. (And nice chaps they were too). I asked one of them if they would be finished that day. Today, he laughed, I expect to be out of here in an hour. I have seven of these jobs to do today.
So there we are. Bord Gáis charged me a thousand euros for what it took these two men to do in an hour. Now I don't know what those men were paid, but I would presume it falls considerably short of 500 euro an hour.
To finish the job, I had to pay a gas installer a further three hundred euro to reconnect my metre to my house - along the path which Bord Gáis had just dug up.
Overall 1300 euro to move a pipe by two yards. The Celtic Tiger might be gone, but Rip Off Ireland is alive and well.
I thought I had misheard and asked again. Yes, a thousand euro, said the agent.
I took a minute to recompose myself, took a deep breath, then, knowing I had no choice if I wanted my porch built, I begrudgingly agreed.
Ok, I asked, so will the Bord Gáis people have my gas working again when they leave? Oh no, the voice said, in a tone somewhere between surprise and contempt, you will have to call a registered gas fitter to reconnect you.
Why, that is absurd, I protested, I'm paying you, the gas company, a thousand euro, to move a box two yards, and you wont even connect me? No, that is not our responsibility.
But a thousand euro, I cried, this is obscene. Well, in any case, the voice said wryly, we need to have your gas installer certify it for safety. Wait a minute, I said angrily, are you telling me that the only major gas company in the country cannot move a pipe by two yards and verify that it's safe? That's ridiculous, I said.
My protestation was to no avail of course. This is what monopolies do: rip people off. What I had experienced was a taste of say, 1986. Back then most of the big service and utility providers were monopolies. It could take months to get a phone installed and when you did the costs of using it were astronomical. But Telecom Eireann didn't care - the last thing that mattered to them was happy customers.
So far, however, Bord Gáis has managed to maintain its monopoly over gas supply. They can defend their position under the pretense that there is competition by virtue of the fact that people can choose coal or oil. But this falls apart simply because coal and oil aren't gas. Bord Gáis and BP and Topaz and Bord na Móna now call themselves 'energy providers' as if a customer rings up an asks for three thousand kilojoules. It's absurd. For a start, coal and oil are far dirtier than gas. Plus Bord Gáis has an installed base of pipelines to houses in cities. And finally, the raw materials are priced differently. So Bord Gáis saying that users have choice is patently false. It would be like Telecom Éireann saying in 1986 that as an alternative users can choose carrier pigeons.
But anyway on the appointed morning my Bord Gáis team turned up to move the metre. (And nice chaps they were too). I asked one of them if they would be finished that day. Today, he laughed, I expect to be out of here in an hour. I have seven of these jobs to do today.
So there we are. Bord Gáis charged me a thousand euros for what it took these two men to do in an hour. Now I don't know what those men were paid, but I would presume it falls considerably short of 500 euro an hour.
To finish the job, I had to pay a gas installer a further three hundred euro to reconnect my metre to my house - along the path which Bord Gáis had just dug up.
Overall 1300 euro to move a pipe by two yards. The Celtic Tiger might be gone, but Rip Off Ireland is alive and well.
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