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Irish cultural cringe??

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Comments

  • #62
    takamichinoku
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,110 ✭✭✭takamichinoku


    I can never really gauge where I lie with a lot of this, being raised in the whole celtic tiger era while going to school in a disadvantaged area didn't exactly help.

    Irish is basically totally dead back home and taught pretty badly, why should I give a **** about it? Outside of gaelscoils, it seems like it's pretty much a waste of time for primary school with the way it's taught. Along with other stuff like that absolutely horrid straight backed Irish dancing crap, I totally get why there'd be some resentment toward it all, you're forcing things onto people that are completely dead.
    GAA seems to be absolutely chock-a-block with utter ***** and was forced down my throat for the entirety of school. I'd've hated whatever sport was forced on me like that in the school I went to, mind. Never sure if this is just me trying to find more things to hate, but gaelic football has nothing special about it that's worth preserving, at least hurling is a bit fascinating.
    Ireland's past being so heavily steeped in Catholicism is a bit of an issue for many, I assume, what with so many of them being wretched people who got away with loads. The fact they've still got the schools and some hold on the law is a big issue too.
    The way Ireland seems to lap up those Bertie types is always gonna make anyone who's a bit discerning feel pretty bloody disconnected too, like.

    Since completely abandoning tv and radio I've never had to deal with RTE and that's made me appreciate Irish culture a lot more. With such a major role in Irish media, they do a ****ing awful job for the most part. Sure as hell had me cringing about a lot of Irish culture.



    I'm pretty f*cking Irish, like; there's aspects of it all that I really dislike but there's a lot of things which I feel have rubbed off on me that I'm very glad for and I love the Irish people I like.

    ...and while I'd prefer to deal with people who can see both the good and bad, I'd rather a bunch of cynical pricks than a bunch of patriotic lunatics.


  • #63
    user2012
    Closed Accounts Posts: 70 ✭✭user2012


    Remember when Donald Trump stepped off the plane in Shannon to be met by a group of traditional musicians/ singers? Never cringed as much in my life.
    The one who was singing sounded like she was being interfered with, the wind was howling around a handful of politicians in badly fitting suits & there was Donald with what looked like a dead squirrel attached to his head looking completely confused.

    By all means promote traditional music & culture. But they could have let the man get off the runway & into the airport or be brought to a hotel for a proper looking reception. Instead he got to freeze his stones off while the Irish lads rubbed their hands & clapped each other on the back at a job well done when nothing could have been further from the truth.


  • #64
    takamichinoku
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,110 ✭✭✭takamichinoku


    Grayson wrote: »
    Irish language is taught horribly. It may be that I might have liked it if it was taught differently, but honestly I was sick of it by the time I left school.
    It's a complete waste of time in primary school, you're just memorising mantras and playing word association games. I'm fairly convinced you'd get better results if you just started in secondary with only mild changes to the curriculum.


  • #65
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,442 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    takamichinoku wrote: »
    It's a complete waste of time in primary school, you're just memorising mantras and playing word association games. I'm fairly convinced you'd get better results if you just started in secondary with only mild changes to the curriculum.

    People may argue about whether or not learning irish is a waste of time, but i think it's more relevant to point out that an Irish class where no-one learns Irish is a waste of everyone's time.


  • #66
    partyguinness
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    It's also closely associated with the term West Brits.

    More prevalent among the middle aged middle class of the Blue Shirt variety i.e. self hating and wannabe Brits. Prominent examples include- 'Sir' Terry Wogan, Gay Byrne and 'Sir' Bob Geldof


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  • #67
    Reekwind
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,126 ✭✭✭Reekwind


    Grayson wrote: »
    I think expecting someone to like a type of music because of where they're from is stupid.
    It's extremely stupid. Which is probably why no one has suggested it.

    The point of cultural cringe is not that people are expected to like their national culture, it's the active contempt for it on the basis of supposed inferiority. Not being a fan of traditional music does not make you inherently un-Irish; no more than not liking country music automatically makes you anti-American.

    But believing traditional music to be inherently backwards or shuddering when it's displayed before foreign guests is a manifestation of cultural cringe. In both cases the person in question is ashamed when this expression of Irish culture has been unfavourably compared to supposedly superior foreign benchmarks. It's that automatic assumption that the foreign culture is superior, with the corresponding contempt for the native culture, that marks out cultural cringe.

    (It's a post on institutions rather than culture but Sound of Silence made a really good point in the Commonwealth thread on the automatic assumption that the barometer of Ireland's maturity as a nation is how closely it conforms to British traditions and norms.)

    The problem with this thread, and AH in general, is that grey area when someone attempts to justify their own personal dislikes by reaching back to cringe arguments. I'm sure that some people genuinely don't like Irish or the GAA. Fine. But trying to explain away that dislike (which really requires no explanation) in terms of inferiority (ie, Irish is backwards or there's nothign special about Gaelic football) is just cultural cringe.


  • #68
    partyguinness
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    TBH....I can't stand St Patrick's Day. I find it utterly contrived, pointless and downright embarrassing. I especially hate it when people call it 'Paddy's Day'. Living in the UK, I have no qualms in telling people I think it's for tourists and plastic paddies.

    Does this make me anti Irish or do I have an inferior complex? No, I am green to the core but that doesnt mean I like everything.


  • #69
    osarusan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,059 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Reekwind wrote: »
    But trying to explain away that dislike (which really requires no explanation) in terms of inferiority (ie, Irish is backwards or there's nothign special about Gaelic football) is just cultural cringe.

    Saying there's nothing special about Gaelic Football is cultural cringe?


  • #70
    Reekwind
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,126 ✭✭✭Reekwind


    osarusan wrote: »
    Saying there's nothing special about Gaelic Football is cultural cringe?
    Reference to a dismissal in an above post. The full quote is "gaelic football has nothing special about it that's worth preserving". Note how the dig is framed: it's a matter of justifying conservation against encroaching modern competitors. This reduces the cultural element (in this case football) to an obsolete shadow of the superior foreign competitor, thus ignoring any value that the sport might have in its own right.


  • #71
    osarusan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,059 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Reekwind wrote: »
    Reference to a dismissal in an above post. The full quote is "gaelic football has nothing special about it that's worth preserving". Note how the dig is framed: it's a matter of justifying conservation against encroaching modern competitors. This reduces the cultural element (in this case football) to an obsolete shadow of the superior foreign competitor, thus ignoring any value that the sport might have in its own right.
    I think you're reading too much into it and seeing something that isn't there.


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  • #72
    takamichinoku
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,110 ✭✭✭takamichinoku


    Reekwind wrote: »
    Reference to a dismissal in an above post. The full quote is "gaelic football has nothing special about it that's worth preserving". Note how the dig is framed: it's a matter of justifying conservation against encroaching modern competitors. This reduces the cultural element (in this case football) to an obsolete shadow of the superior foreign competitor, thus ignoring any value that the sport might have in its own right.
    Fair point, man. The whole sentence mentioned I've a gigantic reservoir of bitterness toward the whole thing so I pretty much know I talk some amount of ****e about it!
    osarusan wrote: »
    I think you're reading too much into it and seeing something that isn't there.
    Nah, there's definitely a good bit of "this has no international marketability and we could be wasting our time on something that'd at least lead to some kind of international competition". There's a whole community and all to gaelic football, I just hate it.


  • #73
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,442 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Reekwind wrote: »
    The problem with this thread, and AH in general, is that grey area when someone attempts to justify their own personal dislikes by reaching back to cringe arguments. I'm sure that some people genuinely don't like Irish or the GAA. Fine. But trying to explain away that dislike (which really requires no explanation) in terms of inferiority (ie, Irish is backwards or there's nothign special about Gaelic football) is just cultural cringe.

    the problem with AH is also that if someone says they don't like the Irish language or Irish music or something like that, they are accused of not liking their country, of being a west brit or of not being as irish as other people.
    This thread has with posts claiming that people who don't like an aspect of irish culture are ashamed of their country and "cringing".

    It's possible to think that something is ****e, just because it's ****e.


  • #74
    Frank Lee Midere
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    WesternZulu wrote: »
    There are a lot of people who have complete contempt for anything remotely Irish, and see it as being inferior to what's in other countries.

    You see all the time, they can't be quick enough to knock the language, the economy, GAA, Irish dancing, league of Ireland soccer, quality of life, the scenery,the people e.t.c.

    I pity them really.

    These guys never leave the country either.


  • #75
    partyguinness
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    Frank Lee Midere wrote: »
    These guys never leave the country either.

    I blame the parents. That's usually where it comes from.


  • #76
    Hotfail.com
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,928 ✭✭✭Hotfail.com


    user2012 wrote: »
    Remember when Donald Trump stepped off the plane in Shannon to be met by a group of traditional musicians/ singers? Never cringed as much in my life.
    The one who was singing sounded like she was being interfered with, the wind was howling around a handful of politicians in badly fitting suits & there was Donald with what looked like a dead squirrel attached to his head looking completely confused. .

    :D:D:D

    There's one part of our culture that I've never been fond of, and it's the literature (mind you, I wouldn't be an expert). Heaney, Yeats, Kinsella.. I just don't like them. And don't even get me started on bloody Ulysses, have a copy my uncle bought me and I just don't get the appeal of it, at all.. :confused:


  • #77
    takamichinoku
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,110 ✭✭✭takamichinoku


    Hotfail.com wrote: »
    And don't even get me started on bloody Ulysses, have a copy my uncle bought me and I just don't get the appeal of it, at all.. :confused:
    Never read it, probably never going to even try (for awful attention span reasons, I loved Dubliners ...which I know isn't really anything like Ulysses but sure Joyce y'know and I'm just rambling here at this stage) but there's something a little bit neat to me about the fact that this big ol' daunting piece of modernist literature is one of the things the country as a whole prides itself on most.


  • #78
    Cee-Jay-Cee
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,234 ✭✭✭✭Cee-Jay-Cee


    My irish cringe only appears when I'm abroad and I see the stupid drunken irish who just can't fcukin help making sure absolutely everyone knows they're irish with their GAA jerseys and singing rebel songs.


  • #79
    Reekwind
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,126 ✭✭✭Reekwind


    Grayson wrote: »
    It's possible to think that something is ****e, just because it's ****e.
    That doesn't make much sense, even if we ignore the tautology. It is very rarely possible to objectively rate elements of a culture. To use an above example, how can anyone claim that Gaelic football is worse (ie more "****e") than ice hockey? You can't seriously make the case for that, it just comes down to personal preferences.

    Which is where the problems start to creep in. If your opinion is informed by your love of ice sports or any other sporting concern then that's fine. some people like X and some people like Y. But if your assessment begins with the assumption that anything foreign is superior (with the automatic corollary that native culture is backwards by comparison) then we're into cringe territory.

    So, no. It's not a matter of something being ****e, full stop. It's how that opinion is formed that's important. Which is what some people here are missing: just because you don't like Irish music/language/sports/whatever doesn't automatically mean you've an inferiority complex.
    CJC999 wrote:
    My irish cringe only appears when I'm abroad and I see the stupid drunken irish who just can't fcukin help making sure absolutely everyone knows they're irish with their GAA jerseys and singing rebel songs.
    Would you have a problem if they were wearing Man Utd or Liverpool shirts and singing American pop songs?


  • #80
    partyguinness
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,202 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    CJC999 wrote: »
    My irish cringe only appears when I'm abroad and I see the stupid drunken irish who just can't fcukin help making sure absolutely everyone knows they're irish with their GAA jerseys and singing rebel songs.

    Oh God yeah that brings back memories of the subway in Boston and some apes in Tipp or Clare GAA jerseys would hop on. I would cringe and wimper into my paper....:(:(

    For the record, I detest all sports gear worn outside the gym or at sporting fixtures..


  • #81
    Vincent Vega
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,735 ✭✭✭Vincent Vega


    Poor oul Irish language.:(

    I think people learned to hate it because of how forcefully and/or unenthusiastically it seems to be have taught by many a teacher.

    Can't say I even enjoyed it myself at the time, but through learning other languages and in turn feeling increasingly immersed in their respective cultures when going abroad, upon visiting the Gaeltacht I began to feel sad I couldn't say the same for Irish.

    Fortunately, over the coming days or weeks, the site Duolingo will release the beta of it's Irish for English speakers course.

    It's a pretty fun, rewarding (and free) site for learning languages with relative ease, and you get to go at your own pace :)


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  • #82
    WesternZulu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,057 ✭✭✭WesternZulu


    CJC999 wrote: »
    My irish cringe only appears when I'm abroad and I see the stupid drunken irish who just can't fcukin help making sure absolutely everyone knows they're irish with their GAA jerseys and singing rebel songs.
    partyguinness wrote: »
    Oh God yeah that brings back memories of the subway in Boston and some apes in Tipp or Clare GAA jerseys would hop on. I would cringe and wimper into my paper....:(:(..


    I would fathom a guess and say that just as many Irish people abroad wear Ireland/Leinster/Munster/Connacht/Ulster/Man U/Liverpool jerseys when on the sauce but people on boards seems to be convinced that they only wear GAA jerseys.

    That's another cultural cringe for me!


  • #83
    Too Tough To Die
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,056 ✭✭✭Too Tough To Die


    Fr Ted references make me cringe.


  • #84
    Too Tough To Die
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,056 ✭✭✭Too Tough To Die


    Too Tough To Die wrote: »
    Fr Ted references make me cringe.

    Careful now.


  • #85
    newmug
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,571 ✭✭✭newmug


    @ all those people bitching about how you were forced to learn Irish - imagine how much your ancestors of only 3 generations ago, hated having English violently imposed on them. Just let that sink in for a few minutes.


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