A Moment Of National Crisis March 27, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Ireland, Latest News, Politics.Tags: Brian Cowen, Bull Island, Cathal Goan, Conor Casby, Gardaí, Hall's Pictorial Weekly, Irish Government, John O'Donohue, Michael Kennedy, National Gallery Of Irish, Newstalk 106, Nude Portraits, Pearse Street, Ray Darcy, RHA, RTE, Scrap Saturday, Taoiseach, The Dáil, The Emergency, Today FM, Victoria's Secret, Wonderbra
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http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=61052337940
The above is the link to one of at least 3 Facebook groups calling for the Gardaí and Irish Government to leave Conor Casby alone. Casby is the guerilla artist who, last week, placed unofficial nude caricatures of the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen on the walls of the National Gallery of Ireland and the RHA. The goverment forced RTE to apologise for their coverage of the story – and the opposition parties were then prevented from raising the issue in the Dáil - while the Gardaí were directed to find the artist responsible, leading them to demand his contact details from Today FM’s Ray Darcy Show – he had been in contact with the show and Gardaí questioned the station over its coverage of the issue. Casby presented himself voluntarily to Pearse Street Garda Station and, it seems, he is unlikely to be charged. His alleged crimes, apparently, the source of all this furore, are criminal damage, indecency and incitement to hatred.
Criminal Damage?! Hammering a nail into a wall?! Indecency?! In an art gallery chock full of nudes, in a modern world where Victoria’s Secret and Wonderbra can advertise freely?! Incitement to hatred?! In the name of all that is sacred, what the shitting bollocks tit is that supposed to mean?!?! Apologies for the profanity, but this story has really made me very angry (Oh really Barry? says you). One of the great gifts Irish people have is a great sense of humour and the country has a fine tradition of political satire. From Hall’s Pictorial Weekly to Scrap Saturday, Bull Island to Newstalk’s The Emergency, Irish people have laughed at our politicians for decades. I imagine Mr. Cowen would raise a belly-laugh rather than a witch-hunt were he in opposition and Enda Kenny was the focus of ridicule. What is more, Martyn Turner daily publishes caricatures poking fun at the political life of this country, yet there is no sign of a police investigation. If Conor Casby’s actions are incitement to hatred, then Martyn Turner has been getting away with it for years.
The world economy is in a slump, Irish people are losing their jobs at a level not seen for a long time, the outlook for the next twelve months is grim and the upcoming emergency budget is set to be a harsh one. The government are bound to be unpopular, sorry, but it’s a reality you face in times like these. What could have been a funny footnote in our Sunday papers has been allowed to snowball. When it would have been best – and, perhaps, most endearing - of Fianna Fáil and Brian Cowen to laugh along with the joke (you know, some witty joke about it being the only time he would be caught with his pants down), they flew off the handle. Michael Kennedy called upon Cathal Goan, Director General of RTE, to consider his position. Fianna Fáil ordered an apology. John O’Donohue, the Ceann Comhairle (speaker of the house), refused to let the issue be discussed when the opposition wanted to raise it. The Gardaí raided an independent radio station. Honestly, as someone pointed out on Facebook, if they had been this swift to knock on the doors of the banks, perhaps we would be in a better mood as a country. As it is, this is a funny story and the government has really had a sense of humour failure. If they can’t laugh at themselves, I can only imagine how frowny they get when they look at our national finances.
For God’s sake, lighten up. Even I find this particular piece of toilet humour funny.
PS: The Times Online tells me no nails were used. So, one less crime committed. They might commute his sentence from the death penalty to life in prison so.
A Long Time Coming January 21, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Arts, College, Football, Ireland, Latest News, Personal Favourites, Politics.Tags: Anfield, Barack Obama, Comedy Store Players, Dell, DU Players, Improv She Wrote, Little Shop Of Horrors, Liverpool FC, Newcastle United, Pope Benedict XVI, The 44th President Of The United States Of America, Trinity College Dublin, Washington, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Yes We Can
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-The Inauguration of an African-American as President of the United States.
-The mid-season slump for Liverpool in the race for the Premiership.
Three events of varying importance, all a long time coming. I’ve been temporarily cut off from the rest of civilisation due to the untimely demise of my Dell’s battery, hence the delay in the latest post. I’m sure you were all desperately waiting for it. In between the death of the battery and now, I’ve been rehearsing for “Little Shop Of Horrors”, which I’m co-directing and which will be taking to the stage in the Players Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, from 17th to 21st February. Do come. And if you can’t, send money. Or flowers. Or both.
On top of that, I’ve also been onstage myself as part of Trinity College’s brand new improv comedy troupe, half-wittily named “Improv, She Wrote”. Comprising eleven members, we had our first live show ever in front of a packed house in the Players Theatre last night and, if the audience reaction was anything to go by, things went rather ok. Improv comedy is a really great form of entertainment, cheap to produce, fun, and great to watch when done well. It is a massive part of college life in America and, to a lesser extent, Britain, but has very few devotees in Ireland. But anyone has watched “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” or seen the Comedy Store Players in action will know how great good improv can be. We can only strive to be better. Thanks to those who came last night and do come again – after all, every show is different!
Liverpool, I’m afraid to say, have hit an icy patch this winter – as per usual. 6 draws in 9 games, if my count is correct. This habit we had of drawing games we should have won was one I thought we had kicked this year but sadly the addiction to mediocrity seems to be resurfacing. The goals need to start flowing at Anfield – the 5-1 rout of Newcastle seems to have been a flash in a very cold pan.
Finally, the tears were brimming again today. The sense of occasion was very obvious, even in a simple sitting room in campus rooms in Trinity College. I watched the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as America’s 44th President with a group of my friends. We clapped loudly when he was sworn in, felt for him as he stumbled nervously, and the silence was deafening as we hung on every word of his inaugural address.
I was aware of how unique a situation this really was. There are few moments in our lives when we experience a true moment of hope, an uplifting feeling of the world being, for a moment, good again, and say to ourselves “In the future, I will remember this moment. I will point to this instant and say, I was there, I saw this”. Some are personal, others very public affairs. One of these moments came when I watched the new pope, Benedict XVI, presented to the world – this was my faith remaking itself, renewing a sacred covenant.
Another of those moments occurred today. There was utter hope and faith in that room today as we watched the coverage from Washington. Today the world is good and right. Today America is better then it has been, thanks to one man and the millions who believed in his message, a message so simple and positive: Yes We Can. So, along with the country he now leads, let’s heed Obama’s call: Lift ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and begin to remake the world.
What Tommy Tiernan has to offer Post-Colonial Studies October 20, 2008
Posted by bazmcstay in Arts, Ireland, Politics.Tags: Ciaran Carson, Croke Park, de Valera, Derek Mahon, England, Literature, Michael Longley, Nation, Northern Ireland, Paul Durcan, Post-Colonialism, Seamus Heaney, Synge, The K-Club, The Troubles, Tommy Tiernan, Yeats
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One of my English Literature courses this year is entitled “Post-Colonialism and Irish Studies”. For anyone who has ever studied English Literature, and particularly Literary Criticism, you will know what Post-Colonialism means. Or rather, you will know that you’re not supposed to know what Post-Colonialism means. The argument rages - admittedly, with all the violence of a damp tissue – in the critical sphere about the word Post-Colonialism: what it means, whether it can mean anything, whether it means several things or nothing, whether it’s a valid term in the first place, when exactly the ”Post” describes, even whether it should be hyphenated or not. So, riveting stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.
For the non-English nerds, let me enlighten you. I’m could receive a flood of angry comments for the following, but I’m going to give you what I understand as “Post-Colonialism” in as straightforward a way as possible – and this isn’t a straightforward subject. Basically, Post-Colonial studies deals with the literature of nations which have experienced colonial rule - especially, it seems, members of the former British Empire – and explores the factors at play within that literature. Or something.
At a basic level, it looks at how culture - literature, in this case - of occupied countries evolves under colonial rule. Frantz Fanon describes three stages of literature under colonial rule: the first, when the literature is a mirror-image of the colonial culture’s literature and caters solely for that audience; second, after an awakening, begins to question the imperial rule, often looking to the past and seeking to establish a new sense of nation and a history and culture which may or may not have existed (in an Irish context, the literary revival, Yeats, Synge et al.) – that still may not cater to the entire “nation” but only to the intellectual and upper classes; thirdly, once that literature opens out and a wider national consciousness is established, there is outright literary war waged upon the occupying country.
There are loads and loads of terms and nuances and arguments which attend the discourse of post-colonialism. At the heart of post-colonial literature, however, there lies a constant search to establish the nation, to define what it is to be Indian or Nigerian or Irish. Some authors reject the former colonial literary influences entirely, others adopt and adapt them to their own hybridic ends.
And that leads me to my curious title. Ireland was occupied and ruled, in various guises and forms, by England for nearly 800 years. Tommy Tiernan’s joke in his first DVD runs as follows: “What does it mean to be Irish? It means your not fuckin’ English.” And that, it seems, was basically it. For 800 years. Ireland defined itself largely on the basis that we were a small nation being “supressed” by a bigger one. Heroes rose and fell, a history and folk tradition was created around Irishness as a romantic and sorrowful ideal. Ireland’s culture of suffering was a defining feature of our literature and, indeed, our politics. We were Irish – and everything that went with that term: repressed, downtrodden but merry, artful, sorrowful, sufferers – because the English were in our country and we were not English.
That’s Irish history in as crude, nationalistic and blatant a form as possible. But now? Can the same be said? What does it mean to be Irish now? Now that Ireland (or most of it, anyway) is independent, now the English are gone, now we are prosperous thanks to the legendary Celtic Tiger, who are we? We can’t continue to be Irish by our non-Englishness. The mythic Ireland, de Valera’s Ireland, Synge’s Ireland, Ireland of the sorrows is an underlying thread in Irish culture even now, an endemic part of us, but it is no longer our be-all and end-all.
Paul Durcan, the poet, in one of his recent collections, scrabbles around on golf courses looking for Ireland – are the golf courses the new English, do we define ourselves by them? I think it is unsurprising that the renowned Irish poets of today, those who are most widely read and who are, perhaps, most successful, are the Ulster Poets: Heaney, Mahon, Longley, Carson and others. Their most important work, their best work, the stuff we are all beaten over the head with at Leaving Cert level, was written at the height of the Troubles. The Ulster Poets were writing in a Northern Ireland gripped by violence, where the culture was one of opposition: You were Irish or English, Catholic or Protestant, Green or Orange. The nation - or non-nation is perhaps more accurate – was defined by its very indefinition, by its war, by its relationship with England and with its own history. The Northern Poets had a meaning, a focal point. Durcan has golf courses.
Down south, we are blessed in our stability but we are also wracked by something of an identity crisis. We are richer materially but poorer spiritually. We are independent Ireland but Ireland is now a multicultural melting-pot. We have a past which was a march focused on what is now our present, but we don’t know where our present is now leading. We are building a nation but destroying the countryside which made the Emerald Isle so emerald. We thought the English government was corrupt but now can’t trust our own politicians. We are great singers, artists, writers and sportsmen but we can’t bear to look at ourselves without seeing something to be cynical about.
I’m “very Irish”, as one of my English friends has pointed out. I love so much about Ireland and I would find it very difficult to leave – if only for the fact that I’d miss the rain, Barry’s Tea, All-Ireland Final day and me mammy, like any other Irish male. And yet I wonder about what it really is to be Irish. I believe that an intense awareness of our past, our suffering, our heroes and, yes, our language and legends is what makes up much of the Irish person – maybe even a bit of “not being English” when there’s a sport’s match against the old enemy! But that isn’t enough anymore. It isn’t enough to be a colonised people anymore, because that colonial enemy isn’t there – dammit man, some of my best friends are English! And I can’t bludgeon them with a shillelagh and luascadh around their dead bodies, throwing shamrocks into the air and singing “A Nation Once Again”, like in the good ol’ days. Nor do I want to – because we’re all grown up after all. As I say somewhere else in this blog, the English have played rugby in Croke Park, our colonial past has been left behind.
And where does that leave us? Turning off The Corrs CD in the Merc as we pull up at the K-Club for a quick round with Fintan and Ruairí, before a quick bite at Guilbaud’s and a few cocktails in Krystle with the Leinster rugby team? Call me flippant, but you have to wonder: Is this it? And it’s not it, of course – it’s the life of a lucky few but it seems like it’s the new dream to which the country must aspire, like independence once was. Certainly, the question remains relevant. What exactly does being Irish mean anymore? What do we want to do with ourselves? Answers please on a postcard.
