“Sadly, they deserve it. They worshipped mammon and here’s their just reward, reconquest.”
So comments Sean Scallon on my PostRight piece about George Osborne and Ireland. Thus speaks Irish America.
Of course, Ireland was never "conquered" at all. That was not how it happened, at least any more than Scotland, or Wales, or Northumbria, or Mercia, or Wessex was "conquered". In these changed times, who knows what might suddenly start to be taught in schools and shown on television, on both sides of the Irish Sea? The condition of the rural poor in England, Scotland and Wales in the 1840s? The fact that more people from the Free State than from Northern Ireland, where there was no conscription, joined the British Armed Forces during the Second World War? The potential list is a very long one, because there is an awful lot of damage to be repaired.
But Sean's comment calls to mind the Burj Dubai, renamed the Burj Khalifah after the Emir of Islamically more observant Abu Dhabi, which had bailed out its decadent neighbour and required this renaming as one of its terms. All sorts of things in Dublin and elsewhere were renamed pursuant to the wannabe-Irish fantasies of a New York Hispanic, although several of those official redesignations have never entered popular usage. It is not really our style publicly to require this sort of thing. But, as an expression of gratitude, which names from before "independence" should be formally resumed, and why? Or should something more recent be renamed after, say, the Queen, or George Osborne? If so, then what, and why?
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I think you are getting ahead of yourself. There is a huge amount of inertia in these arrangements. And there is a long list of countries that have gotten into financial trouble, essentially had outsiders take care of their finances, had corrupt governments (when is the earliest the Irish can get rid of Fianna Fail?) and survived.
ReplyDeleteI've come to the conclusion that now there is powersharing between the Catholics and Protestants in the North, and Protestants have had ninety years to become familiar with Catholic rule in the South, a deal between the North and South involving reunification, restoration of the monarchy, and rejoining the Commonwealth makes sense. I think the English would go along with that. But it won't happen due to inertia. The current set-up is partially accidental, but people will try to make it work as long as they can make it work.
Still obsessed. You are even more right-wing on this matter than Kelvin MacKenzie.
ReplyDeleteOk, let the AIB, Bank of Ireland and Anglo-Irish bank go bust - and see the chaos in Northern Ireland where these three banks produce the bulk of the notes. Let them see those editions of the pound sterling become worthless and chaos reign in the liquid economy of Northern Ireland for 2 days whilst the notes are replaced with Bank of England ones.
Technically the Irish government - through its bank ownership - owns a large amount of sterling going around in circulation. Who owns who you obsessed English snobby neo-colonialist.
And of course if the Brits were so great, why did they lend so much money to our banks. Who of course produce editions of currency for the UK.
Anyhow, you do not know which countries are putting how much in. It could be the Germans who make the largest donation. Or even France! Hail the land of Marshall MacMahon, first President of the Third Republic and true republican!
Marshall MacMahon was a Legitimist. His ancestors had feld to France because of their Jacobitism, and he was as staunch in such views as they were, although it was his wife who was the real fanatic. And believe in a German, French or any other bailout when you see it. Apart from the bailout by your family, of course. Britain.
ReplyDeleteEd, that is the old politics, and it ignores one vital fact: in the Republic, no one (certainly of any political importance, probably at all) wants Northern Ireland. Nationalists in the North would only want unification if they could keep the British Welfare State, which they know that they couldn't. And who on earth would want to join the Irish Republic now?
David- I've been reading your blog for over a year and usually don't have cause to disagree with any of what you say, but I've noticed, especially this week, that you seem to suspend your principles and go all sentimental, and strangely tolerant of the worst of contemporary Britain, when it comes to any discussion of Ireland.
ReplyDeleteI would hope, on the basis of what you've said in the past, that you still believe that a) George Osborne is a neo-liberal profanity and b) membership of the Euro is an undesirable thing for any country. Yet suddenly because he has indicated that, at a time when he is committed to drastically cutting back public services in the UK, he might be prepared to waste British tax payers money to enable the Dublin establishment to continue to avoid facing up to the fact that their country should not be in, and should never have been in the Euro, George Osborne becomes a hero in your eyes. (For all its numerous faults the Republic of Ireland does still have publically owned public transport, water and electricity- you would suppose that George Osborne would fancy that conditions putting an end to this situation would be attached to any such loan/bail out).
Also, I hope you would still think that the aimless, pointless, directionless war in Afghanistan is a neo-conservative abomination in which the UK's involvement should be ended immediately. Yet whenever there is talk of young men from the R of I misguidedly signing up to go there with the UK's armed forces you seem to forget your anti-war principles and instead go all dewy eyed about it.
I would also hope that you view the X Factor as a prime example of the tradition undermining, morally relativist, anti-society vacuousness which has ruined contemporary UK popular culture. Yet whenever Louis Walsh or some Irish boy band non-entity wears a poppy on it, the programme, and the fact that people in Dublin watch this trash as well, becomes something to crow about.
Just so you know where I'm coming from here, I am a traditionalist, Old Labour Ulster Unionist. But if you believe that the R of I is, as you put it, "family", as well, then you should start applying the same political principles to it that you do to the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Oh, absolutely, yes. Over on PostRight, I introduced Osborne to American readers as "a dreadful socially liberal capitalist and neocon", but also as an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, which is what is of present consequence.
ReplyDelete