Ireland ain't what it used to be

Walt is sad to report tha' the Auld Sod doesn't feel very Irish any more. A few years back the plain people o' Ireland (pace Myles na gCopaleen), overwhelmed perhaps by immigrants from the rest of the European Union, elected a prime minister who was not only not Irish but not white, and as gay as 18 balloons to boot.

The Church did not preach against him, because the Church has itself become a nest of homosexuals and male feminists, just like the Church in America. And the plain people have reacted accordingly, turning away from the Church of Francis in a reversal not seen since Québec's "quiet revolution" of 1960.

In a word, the Ireland of today is not the Ireland you see portrayed in the Family Guy episode where Peter Griffin goes to Eire to find his father. It's nuttin' like that, nuttin' at all. It's a shame, so it is. All the same, those of us with a pint or so of Irish blood in us can still celebrate the land of our ancestors.

 

Walt, Ed. and Poor Len -- all of us Irish today -- wish all of yez

 Happy Saint Paddy's Day!

Further reading: "Ireland’s Gay St. Patrick’s Day: A State’s Quest for Transgenderism", by Peter Caddle, Breitbart News, 17/3/23. Lede: For Ireland’s progressive government, transgenderism and other “LGBTQ+” talking points have become central elements within modern St Patrick’s day celebrations.

And now for something completely Irish...

Myles na gCopaleen was the nom de plume of Flann O'Brien, a columnist for the Irish Times before and during World War II. That's a bit like saying that Walter Cronkite was a reporter for CBS News. Many Irishmen [and Irishwomen! Ed.] bought the paper for no other reason than to see whose ox was the latest to be gored by Mr O'Brien's alter ego.

Myles na gCopaleen sometimes wrote in Irish, at a time when doing so was neither popular nor profitable. He held that the Irish language had far more colour and richness than the language imposed on the Emerald Isle by the English occupiers. He supported with a heart-and-a-half the movement to revive the language. Here is an excerpt from the section of The Best of Myles entitled "Irish and Related Matters".

Irish...provides through its literature and dialects a great field for the pursuit of problems philological, historical and ethnological, an activity agreeable to all men of education and good-will. Moreover, the language itself is ingratiating by reason of its remotesness from European tongues and moulds of thought, its precision, elegance and capacity for the subtler literary nuances...

True Irish prose has a steely latinistic line that does not exist in the fragmented English patois. Here is a literal translation of a letter addressed by Hugh O'Neill to a hostile captain:-

'Our blessing to ye, O Mac Coghlin: we received your letter and what we understand from her is that what you are at the doing of is but sweetness of word and spinning out of time. For our part of the subject, whatever peson is not with us and will not wear himself out in the interest of justice, that person we understand to be a person against us. For that reason, in each place in which ye do your own good, pray do also our ill to the fullest extent ye can and we will do your ill to the absolute utmost of our ability, with God's will. We being at Knockdoney Hill, 6 februarii, 1600.'

That seems to me to be an exceptional achievement in the sphere of written nastiness and the original exudes the charm attaching to all instances of complete precision in the use of words....

It is...dangerous to discourage the use of Irish because the revival movement...is a valuable preservative of certain native virtues and it is worth remembering that if Irish were to die completely, the standard of English here, both in the spoken and written word, would sink to a level probably as low as that obtaining in England, and it would stop there only because it could go no lower.

Further reading: "Clichés for the age of the coronavirus" (click on the sidebar at right), and "Two Irishmen discuss the coming election", WWW 29/7/20.

Two Irishmen discuss the coming election

We are just over three months away from the 2020 elections for the Presidensity of the Excited States of America and other positions. Walt has not yet officially endorsed any candidates for anything but assiduous readers will understand that I would vote for Sleepy Joe Biden only if there were reliable reports of the temperature in Hell having plummeted to 0. 

So I am encouraged by the daily release by the (((controlled media))) or new polls showing that Still-President Trump is way behind Creepy Joe and certain to lose bigly come November. We heard the same thing, from the same people, four years ago. Remember?

The American elections are much discussed elsewhere in the world, including the Auld Sod. What follows purports to be a conversation between two men in an Irish pub....

Who is going to win beyond? Which of the pair would you back?
I do not know.

The brother says your man is going to win. But begob I don't know. It'll be a long time before your other man hands in his gun.
That is true.

Your man is smart, I'll agree with the brother there. And he doesn't take a jar, that's another thing that stands to him. And of course he bars the fags as well. But does that mean your other man is a buff?
Scarcely.

Oh indeed begob it doesn't. It certainly does not. Because your other man gets up very early too. It wasn't yesterday or the day before your other man came up.
He has undoubtedly certain qualities of adroitness.

Of cousre the brother looks at it the other way. He is all for your man and never had any time for your other man. Says no good could ever come out of the class of carry-on your other man has been at for the last ten years. There's a lot in that, of course. The brother certainly put his finger on it there. But it's not all on the wan side. Your man was up to some hooky work in his time too.
No doubt.

There's a pair of crows in it. And I t hink your other man is six to four on. Do you know why?
I do not.
Because he knows the place backwards, every lane and backyard in it. Lived there all his life, why wouldn't he. And of course your man doesn't know where the hell he is. And do you know why I wouldn't be sorry to see your other man coming in first?
No.

Because it would be great gas to prove the brother wrong for once. And you'll live to see it too. Because do you know what I'm going to tell you?
What?
Your man is using the whip. Do you know that? Your man is using the whip!
Is that a fact?
I'm telling you now. Begob here's me bus. Cheers!
Byebye.

It's possible they may not have been discussing the 2020 election or any American election, but you can read the conversation any way you like, depending on who your man is, of course.

This piece was actually written some time ago by Flann O'Brien, aka Brian Ó Nuallain -- O'Nolan, for Americans -- born 5 October 1911 at Strabane, County Tyrone, died 1 April 1966 (!) in Dublin. Mr O'Brien was an Irish novelist, dramatist, and, as Myles na gCopaleen, a columnist for the Irish Times newspaper for 26 years. That's him on the right in the photo above.

I've excerpted it from The Best of Myles, Picador 1977, which I recommend highly, if only (but not only) for witticisms like this one.