More English than the English themselves?...

DublinWriter

I was following the recent threads about all the pro and anti feeling regarding the hosting of Rugby matches at Croker, when a few issues bothering recently came together and congealed themselves into the following question

Are we, or have we been always more English than the English themselves? Consider the following...

The Flag:
I started a thread eons ago about our national flag being a bit out of kilter with who we are. The Orange in the flag is a sop to a people who don't want to have anything to do with us and confuses politics with religion. Better would be the old Fenian flag consisting of a green background with a gold harp. The harp representing our love of arts (and artist tax breaks!) and the gold of the harp representing our recent prosperity.

The Anthem:
If you don't know all the words os gaeilge to Amhrán na bhFiann, don't feel too guilty. The Anthem was originally with English lyrics. That in itself doesn't bother me, just the militaristic overtones of the thing.

The President:
The current office of Irish President was conceived by DeValera in 1919/1920 as a counter-weight to the office of the King of England for the purpose of treaty negotiations. The office of President was designed to mirror to role of the King of England during treaty negotiations and be a non-executive, final-sign off, ceremonial-esque type role.

Since then the role of the President has almost been exactly like that of the old English Viceroy...they even use the same residence. Unlike most modern democratic Republics, we don't actually have a functioning presidency. It's more a 'Vice-Regal' ceremonial role, and arguably, a prized political junket.

The Republic as we know it today was only brought about in 1949, yet, are we a Republic in the true sense of the word?

The Culture:
Fish and chips, Sky Sports, interest in the English FA, obesity problems, soaps and a common language and now coming soon to a Dublin suburb near you - ASBOs. I'm at pains to thing of anything that differentiates Irish modern culture from that of the UK - and note I say modern.

The other side of the question I’m asking is what defines us as a nation and our culture as of today?

Answers os bèarla, ma se do thoil e.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

DublinWriter wrote:

The Anthem:
If you don't know all the words os gaeilge to Amhrán na bhFiann, don't feel too guilty. The Anthem was originally with English lyrics. That in itself doesn't bother me, just the militaristic overtones of the thing.

Whether we like it or not, war is very much part of our history and something which has been pivotal in the formation of our culture. To me a country's national anthem should celerate both of these things.

DublinWriter wrote:

The President:
The current office of Irish President was conceived by DeValera in 1919/1920 as a counter-weight to the office of the King of England for the purpose of treaty negotiations. The office of President was designed to mirror to role of the King of England during treaty negotiations and be a non-executive, final-sign off, ceremonial-esque type role.

Since then the role of the President has almost been exactly like that of the old English Viceroy...they even use the same residence. Unlike most modern democratic Republics, we don't actually have a functioning presidency. It's more a 'Vice-Regal' ceremonial role, and arguably, a prized political junket.

I would disagree. The president has extremely important powers relating to the control of renegade governments. Thankfully these have only been partially invoked in the past in relation to different Bills being passed through government which were deemed unconstitutional.

While the office may have been set up to mirror the role of monarch, that is largely irrelevant. One could equally say that we adopted a democratic governmental system to mirror those of other countries. All newly forming countries will base to a certain extent their constitution on other countries,so that they don't have to learn from mistakes as such

DublinWriter wrote:

The Republic as we know it today was only brought about in 1949, yet, are we a Republic in the true sense of the word?

Very much so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/republic

DublinWriter wrote:

The Culture:
Fish and chips, Sky Sports, interest in the English FA, obesity problems, soaps and a common language and now coming soon to a Dublin suburb near you - ASBOs. I'm at pains to thing of anything that differentiates Irish modern culture from that of the UK - and note I say modern.

Ireland has adopted elements of English culture just like England has adopted elements of American culture just like America has adopted elements of Irish culture. All over the world cultures develop and mix. As two countries in such close proximity with the same languages, there are bound to be a lot of similarities,but look at the differences in say our drinking habits. The english staple beer is bitter ale, while for Ireland it is lager. One also see's differences in the way we speak, act, our attitudes to different things, there's simply too many differences to mention.

csk

DublinWriter wrote:

The Flag:
I started a thread eons ago about our national flag being a bit out of kilter with who we are. The Orange in the flag is a sop to a people who don't want to have anything to do with us and confuses politics with religion. Better would be the old Fenian flag consisting of a green background with a gold harp. The harp representing our love of arts (and artist tax breaks!) and the gold of the harp representing our recent prosperity.

I strongly disagree with that. Surely the Tricolour has never been more relevant, considering we have endorsed the Good Friday Agreement and the prinicple of unity by consent. It would seem, to me anyway, that a flag representing peace between both "sides" of the divide could not be more apt at the present time.

The Anthem:
If you don't know all the words os gaeilge to Amhrán na bhFiann, don't feel too guilty. The Anthem was originally with English lyrics. That in itself doesn't bother me, just the militaristic overtones of the thing.

I don't get this point really. So what if it was written in English ? Personally I like Amhrán na bhFiann and think it can be a very stirring, witness any All-Ireland Final or even last Saturday at Croke Park.

The President:
The current office of Irish President was conceived by DeValera in 1919/1920 as a counter-weight to the office of the King of England for the purpose of treaty negotiations. The office of President was designed to mirror to role of the King of England during treaty negotiations and be a non-executive, final-sign off, ceremonial-esque type role.

Since then the role of the President has almost been exactly like that of the old English Viceroy...they even use the same residence. Unlike most modern democratic Republics, we don't actually have a functioning presidency. It's more a 'Vice-Regal' ceremonial role, and arguably, a prized political junket.

The President has an important role in our democracy. What do you suggest we replace it with ? Should we not have got rid of the King, is that what you are trying to get at ?

The Culture:
Fish and chips, Sky Sports, interest in the English FA, obesity problems, soaps and a common language and now coming soon to a Dublin suburb near you - ASBOs. I'm at pains to thing of anything that differentiates Irish modern culture from that of the UK - and note I say modern.

I suppose this ties into your original question are we more English that the English themselves, to which I would say no. Are the English more American than the Americans ? What differeniates the UK from western culture ?

You see this is the problem, we are moving toward a more monotone Western Culture not english culture. The main cultural mediums today are T.V and the internet. Both of and which are dominated by the English Language (at least for us) and because of the power of T.V. we take most of our cultural frames of reference from the U.S and to a lesser extent from British T.V.

The real question is not are we as a Nation more Engish than the English themselves but are we as a Nation becoming too Western ? Why are we seemingly incapable (I don't necessarily believe we are incapable) of creating indigenous cultural frames of reference in say the same way as a Simpsons or in the same way as we did in the past ?

Aedh Baclamh

Someone said here before that the green flag with the harp was introduced by an English king? Anyone able to shed some light on this?

DublinWriter

csk wrote:

I strongly disagree with that. Surely the Tricolour has never been more relevant, considering we have endorsed the Good Friday Agreement and the prinicple of unity by consent. It would seem, to me anyway, that a flag representing peace between both "sides" of the divide could not be more apt at the present time.

True, but what is our national flag doing representing a portion of society that wants nothing to do with our country?

csk wrote:

The President has an important role in our democracy. What do you suggest we replace it with ? Should we not have got rid of the King, is that what you are trying to get at ?

Really? It's a 250K p.a. policital junket I say. Important role? Like what for example? The Taoiseach should have the role of President, the current Presidential role is an emulation of the original British Viceroy role and should be abolished in its entirety.

csk wrote:

The real question is not are we as a Nation more Engish than the English themselves but are we as a Nation becoming too Western ? Why are we seemingly incapable (I don't necessarily believe we are incapable) of creating indigenous cultural frames of reference in say the same way as a Simpsons or in the same way as we did in the past ?

Good point. So you're basically saying we are lost in the mush and mire that is colletively known as Western European culture?

Aedh Baclamh

Dictatorship all the way I say.

csk

DublinWriter wrote:

True, but what is our national flag doing representing a portion of society that wants nothing to do with our country?

Forgive me but I thought there were those from the "orange" (for lack of better term) culture here in the Republic, who are very proud of being Irish.Should the UK get rid of the Union Jack because it contains a symbol that represents a portion of Society that wants nothing to do with their country ?

Somehow though, I don't think it's the fact that it represents Unionists that really bothers you about the flag.

Really? It's a 250K p.a. policital junket I say. Important role? Like what for example? The Taoiseach should have the role of President, the current Presidential role is an emulation of the original British Viceroy role and should be abolished in its entirety.

So what ? As I said what would you replace it with ? The Taoiseach has enough powers as it is. We, in Ireland, have been lucky in that we have not had many renegade Governements so it seems that the President is largely a ceremonial role. However there has been incidents in the past, where Bills have been referred to the Supreme Court etc. Didn't a President refuse to endorse Haughey as Taioseach without a general election or something simialr. I do believe that the office of President may be in need of reform but I don't think we need to abolish it altogether.

Good point. So you're basically saying we are lost in the mush and mire that is colletively known as Western European culture?

Well Yes and No. Television has become the dominant cultural medium. We, in Ireland, have not come to terms with that imo. In the past we were able to distinguish ourselves in the Arts and other cultural mediums, indeed we still do, Seamus Heaney is the perfect example. Yet with T.V. it seems we are content to rely on the U.S. Could you imagine, for example, an Irish centred version of LOST ever being made, a version that reflects Irish traits, Irish problems, Irish culture ? The most recent attempt to do anything remotely Irish and innovative was that Dan and Becs T.V. show, which personally I thought was horribly bad.

This is our problem to me anyway, all our cultural frames of reference are now American/western centered and that there is no attempt imo to adress this. The only sucess I can think of was Fr. Ted, anything else has been crap imo.

Exit

I wouldn't say we're more English than the English themselves, but we're definitely more English in lifestyle than some people would like to admit.

Since I've been in Canada, I've noticed that the things I miss the most about back home happen to be English - fish and chips, football on telly, Coronation Street, British humour/comedy on TV, British music, etc.

brianthebard

DublinWriter wrote:

I was following the recent threads about all the pro and anti feeling regarding the hosting of Rugby matches at Croker, when a few issues bothering recently came together and congealed themselves into the following question

Are we, or have we been always more English than the English themselves? Consider the following...

The Flag:
I started a thread eons ago about our national flag being a bit out of kilter with who we are. The Orange in the flag is a sop to a people who don't want to have anything to do with us and confuses politics with religion. Better would be the old Fenian flag consisting of a green background with a gold harp. The harp representing our love of arts (and artist tax breaks!) and the gold of the harp representing our recent prosperity.

People worship Teh Orange now? The purpose I believe was to attempt to hold out the hand of reconciliation. Don't see that as a bad thing. There are orange lodges in the Republic too you know.

The President:
The current office of Irish President was conceived by DeValera in 1919/1920 as a counter-weight to the office of the King of England for the purpose of treaty negotiations. The office of President was designed to mirror to role of the King of England during treaty negotiations and be a non-executive, final-sign off, ceremonial-esque type role.

Since then the role of the President has almost been exactly like that of the old English Viceroy...they even use the same residence. Unlike most modern democratic Republics, we don't actually have a functioning presidency. It's more a 'Vice-Regal' ceremonial role, and arguably, a prized political junket.

The Republic as we know it today was only brought about in 1949, yet, are we a Republic in the true sense of the word?

Some countries have popular referendum, we don't any more. Things happen the way they happen, given the right president they can have a huge impact on the way politics and social issues in the country are addressed.

The Culture:
Fish and chips, Sky Sports, interest in the English FA, obesity problems, soaps and a common language and now coming soon to a Dublin suburb near you - ASBOs. I'm at pains to thing of anything that differentiates Irish modern culture from that of the UK - and note I say modern.

The other side of the question I’m asking is what defines us as a nation and our culture as of today?

Answers os bèarla, ma se do thoil e.

Two words for you- Global isation.

I can't help thinking the OP is pulling the piss with this thread. The idea that because this country has common links with another it makes us one? We share a history of course there are similarities.

InFront

The first three things you mention: The Flag, the President and The Anthem seem to have little to no relevance to people in their day-to-day lives and I don't really think they can define or alter 'Irishness'.

What does effect people most is culture. And yes, Ireland is a western culture and people in Ireland would seem to be quite at home in an English or American city. As the above poster said, that's globalisation for you.

Capt'n Midnight

Culture
How many Irish / Scottish / Welsh football fans get arrested abroad, compared to English ones ?
The work ethic of "ah feck it, it'll do"

Presidency - this still has a role in Irish politics despite FF's attempt to treat it as golden handshake. Even if it's only a veto that gets used once, the threat is needed to keep the politicians in place. (Having a written constitiution also helps ) Compare this to the UK where ANY act can be passed by the house of commons, and the monarchy only exists because parliament allows it.

Do we want a president who can start a war illegally, like Regan did to Grenada without getting the approval of congress ?

As for Fish and Chips - are these northern Italian in origin or at least run by them ? The national dish in the UK is an indian.

The famous Beshoffs fish and chip restaurant was founded by Ivan Iylanovich Beshoff a seaman in the navy of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II.

He fled Russia after he took part in an ill-fated mutiny on the battleship Potemkin at Odessa in 1905 and arrived in Ireland in 1912 with the intention of travelling on to Canada. He missed his boat connection and decided to stay.

And there are other strange stories about Mr Beshoff too.

mike65

The idea that the Irish are more English than the English is laughable. All thats happened is that the Irish have become less obviously parochical though it does'nt take too long to see that the 'tight little island' mentality is still alive and well among a large % of the population.

Mike.

Jackie laughlin

I don't recognise the Ireland that some contributors above describe. I find the culture strong and thriving. There was a change sometime about the 80s/90s when "official" Ireland surrendered to "real" Ireland's culture. Out went teachers behaving as if they were on the foreign missions trying to convince Irish people that we were merely Gaelic, Catholic and anti-English. In came at last official acceptance that we were Gaelic but also spoke Hiberno English, that we played international sports, that we were quite fond of our nearest neighbours, that many Irish lived abroad. The list goes on and on but i ndeireadh na dala it means that we have a solid, vibrant, attractive culture which is not under threat. On the contrary we still absorb; "more Irish than the Irish themselves" was never more true.

Not only was the anthem written in English but it replaced "God Save Ireland" and it wasn't much of an improvement on, "whether on the scaffold high or the battlefield we die, sure what matters when for Ireland dear we fall". Let's get rid of "The Soldiers Song" as well. It was imposed by sectarian nutters out of touch with real Ireland, who tried to "come and teach us their ways" but failed.

The President is a building block in a stable constitution. Be careful about change.

man1

sean_keevey wrote:

Ireland has adopted elements of English culture just like England has adopted elements of American culture just like America has adopted elements of Irish culture. All over the world cultures develop and mix. As two countries in such close proximity with the same languages, there are bound to be a lot of similarities,but look at the differences in say our drinking habits. The english staple beer is bitter ale, while for Ireland it is lager. One also see's differences in the way we speak, act, our attitudes to different things, there's simply too many differences to mention.

Is this the only difference that you can find which by the way is untrue as lager is the top selling beer in the uk. Ale sales have been declining for years and are concentrated in rural areas.

I agree that we are very similar in culture to the uk, I cant think of any differences. We are after all from the same group of people historically arent we??? celts, vikings, normans, picts etc and even saxon. Or am I mistaken, someone might have a better idea than me.

mike65

Lager is a foreign import, a pint of plain is the Irish drink!

Mike.

Dontico

one huge difference betwwen us and england is that we have never invaded anyone. they have tried to conqour the world at different points in time.

mike65

Like a few million people with no inclination towards industry/commerce were ever going to manage!

Mike.

Capt'n Midnight

mike65 wrote:

Lager is a foreign import, a pint of plain is the Irish drink!

Mike.

Lets not forget that a certain black drink was founded by someone who hailed from over there.

We should just stick to drinking whiskey, except they closed down most of the traditional stills and mostly moved to that one size fits all factory down in Middleton.

purple'n'gold

It amuses me when I hear Irish people go on about being uncomfortable with things militaristic. When we were part of the United Kingdom, (and I stress that, we were not a colony as some like to think), Irish men made up a disproportionate percentage of the armed forces. I suspect some of us are anti military now because we are completely ineffective military speaking. A tiny army, no air force and a small fishery protection fleet instead of a navy. I suspect, if we had a properly resourced and effective military we would be far more gung ho.

brianthebard

purplengold wrote:

It amuses me when I hear Irish people go on about being uncomfortable with things militaristic. When we were part of the United Kingdom, (and I stress that, we were not a colony as some like to think), Irish men made up a disproportionate percentage of the armed forces. I suspect some of us are anti military now because we are completely ineffective military speaking. A tiny army, no air force and a small fishery protection fleet instead of a navy. I suspect, if we had a properly resourced and effective military we would be far more gung ho.

What do you base the part in bold on? I disagree entirely with your point btw, just thought you'd like to know. There is a lot more to being aggressively militaristic than the size of one's army.

purple'n'gold

brianthebard wrote:

What do you base the part in bold on? I disagree entirely with your point btw, just thought you'd like to know. There is a lot more to being aggressively militaristic than the size of one's army.

I base that on the act of union, 1800

mike65

(there is a thread about this somewhere.) Act of Union meant something called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" was created.

Mike.

purple'n'gold

There is a lot more to being aggressively militaristic than the size of one's army.

There is absolutely no point in being aggressively militaristic if you don’t have the armed forces to back up your aggressive tendencies.

Exit

This thread has taken a turn for the silly. Instead of people tackling the fact that our culture is hugely influenced by English culture, you've got people pointing out the most minute, ridiculous differences.

We drink lager, they drink ale.
Fish and chips wasn't originally English.
We haven't invaded anybody, they did.

Jesus, what next? "They've got a guy called Tony as prime minister, we don't. See, we're different!"

purple'n'gold

Exit wrote:

This thread has taken a turn for the silly. Instead of people tackling the fact that our culture is hugely influenced by English culture, you've got people pointing out the most minute, ridiculous differences.

We drink lager, they drink ale.
Fish and chips wasn't originally English.
We haven't invaded anybody, they did.

Jesus, what next? "They've got a guy called Tony as prime minister, we don't. See, we're different!"

They also have a Bertie, just like us, except their Bertie has a butler called Jeeves.

DublinWriter

Dontico wrote:

one huge difference betwwen us and england is that we have never invaded anyone.

How do you think we got St.Patrick? The irony!
Not only did we regularly invade Cumbria during this time, we took people back as slaves way before the British Empire ever thought of that cunning wheeze.

Capt'n Midnight

Exit wrote:

"They've got a guy called Tony as prime minister"

Here he'd be called Anto.

Mark

DublinWriter wrote:

The Flag:

Conflict between native Irish and the Protestant settlers has been so central to Irish history that it's not unreasonable to expect the issue to be constitutionally noted in flag form. One day it'll hopefully be irrelevant but like it or not, Northern Ireland can't be ignored.

The Anthem:

Plenty of national anthems in Europe are militaristic, reflecting the amount of violence the continent has experienced. Ireland of all places was hardly going to ignore that. La Marseillaise is a particularly extreme example.

The President:

Ireland chose to have a powerful parliament and Taoiseach rather than a strong President. Different strokes. Who's the German President?

brianthebard

DublinWriter wrote:

How do you think we got St.Patrick? The irony!
Not only did we regularly invade Cumbria during this time, we took people back as slaves way before the British Empire ever thought of that cunning wheeze.

Just to add to that, Scotland gets its name from the Irish invaders who settled there.

walrusgumble

hurling? only similar sport to that is shinty.
gaelic football? " " aussie rules

the fact that there are some people on our island who speak irish.

the way we complain about things but never really make our complaints heard. eg when waiter is rubbish or train/bus is late. our attitudes are a small bit diferent to theirs. anyone notice how a samll island like ourselves could manage to have so many different accents.

our love for bacon cabbage and spuds.(that might be dying out thou)

how some say rasher instead of bacon for their breakkie roll

on a legal point (and to some a boring point) some of our laws are different (i know sorry a bit obvious) eg our land laws are a small bit different to the english, legislative attitude towards abortion and same sex marriage.

Exit

Jesus! :rolleyes: