What would a Gaelic Ireland look like?

like the worst theme pub you ever saw

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I've been reading "A Path to Freedom" by Michael Collins (excellent book by the way) he talks an awful lot about reviving our Gaelic ways and customs and how we were "degraded and feeble imitators of our tyrants which imitated the enemy who despised us".

What if Collins survived the Civil War and managed to implement his dream of a Gaelic Ireland on modern terms, what would that actually entail?

Was he looking to re-introduce the Brehon Laws or what?
He had worked in Britain before the Rising, so had a good understanding of the UK of GB & Ireland.

Never knew Collins had written a book.
Why didn't he wrote it in Irish?

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I've been reading "A Path to Freedom" by Michael Collins (excellent book by the way) he talks an awful lot about reviving our Gaelic ways and customs and how we were "degraded and feeble imitators of our tyrants which imitated the enemy who despised us".

What if Collins survived the Civil War and managed to implement his dream of a Gaelic Ireland on modern terms, what would that actually entail?

We'd speak Irish but it's hard to imagine much else different.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

lol why Danes in particular?

cause they're fine looking men.

And so what would I make of it, being an American wife of an Irishman? Would I stand out like a sore thumb because of my foreign ways and accent, or would I be resented and despised because at the age of nearly 50 I would look like an idiot trying to learn the language and customs of the land?

Well, I already know that, thanks. I get laughed at by the locals when I say I want to learn Irish, and they ask why, and I look around theatrically and say, "Oh, I thought this was Ireland". I'm a classical musician and I had to leave my bloody piano behind in America a couple years ago when I moved here and I'm miserable and I want to learn to play a traditional instrument or three and participate in gigs... if I see you at bodhran school this summer and you make an unkind comment about me, I can give as good as I get, Paddy. I plan to apply for citizenship at the first opportunity, because that is what you should do when you intend to make a new country your permanent home.

Teach me what you love best about the country and what you would like to see former outsiders love. That includes the Gaelic and the non-Gaelic parts, the historic and the modern, the country and the city. Use your words and explain what they mean and how to pronounce them. Please.

@ OP Have you seen the 3 part program Wrecking the Rising that TG4 had on. Its highly recommended. I think you would find the ending very interesting. I really enjoyed all 3 parts and it is funny too Its also really well done and acted too.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Ahh the old country, where the songs would melt your face.

I'll never forget an American comedian writing many years ago about the time he played some old traditional songs to a group of drunk American Irish at a party on St Patrick's Day night. "Ah, that's the beautiful Gaelic", they wept. Turned out the wag was playing melancholy old Yiddish tunes, sung in Yiddish.

I can't even untangle all the threads of that one, but I often used it as a music teacher (and an American Jew) to poke gentle fun at people who thought music wasn't a universal human thing.

Arsemageddon wrote: »

You're probably right. Collins might have removed a few more of the trappings and symbols of British rule and may have been more forceful in dealing with the boundary commission, but there was no way we were going to go back living in crannogs.

Nor should you have. Ireland isn't a theme park reservation full of primitives at an arrested state of cultural and economic development.

Notwithstanding, am I correct in assuming that a lot of cultural damage had been done by that point anyway, and that you would have had to reach even farther back to pull out a characteristically Irish national identity? Educate me, I'm a clueless Yank and my husband hates answering questions of this sort. Nor do I blame him, really. Nor do I mean to imply that Ireland does not have a characteristically Irish identity; it's just not the same as it might have been if things had been different.

Bambi wrote: »

The Handy thing about phrases like "comely maidens" and "dancing at the crossroads" is that they give you an easy way to spot people who dont have the first clue about the history of that era and are just spouting second hand cliches

"Are you coming into the field?"

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Time to invoke the Godwin cliche? :eek:

Arsemageddon wrote: »

There is great line at the start of the novel the The Go-Between - 'The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there'.

I love that. And so true.

For better or worse Ireland was tied with Britain for centuries and there is no way that can now be changed. Even before then we were always influenced by people and events outside of Ireland -agriculture was brought here from Europe during the Neolithic (4000 BC), then there was metal-working (2500 BC), then there was Christianity (300-400 AD) and so on.

We do have our own identity, culture and traditions, but they clearly been influenced by the wider world. In that regard we are no different to anyone else.

Good point. I think I had in the back of my mind the efforts of the US government to forcibly "assimilate" the American Indian people.