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What would a Gaelic Ireland look like?

[Deleted User]

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?

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Speedwell

Arsemageddon wrote: »

There is definitely a bit of truth to that - it always crops up in the Irish is Rubbish threads. That said, the way it is taught in school is just appalling .

There's Duolingo, though I have not actually started trying to learn Irish there yet. And there's Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months. I think I need a native speaker to correct my pronunciation and I'm not that picky which dialect I learn so long as it's consistent. But I'd be interested in hearing what informed people think of the online resources.

Esel

Smaller fields; bigger potatoes; more bacon and cabbage. A better class of gombeen. More cattle raids. More ghosts, less (or no) ghost estates. Life: lower expectancy, but more quality. Saltier butter, more fish in the diet. Better hedges, smaller schools in same.

Níos mó misneach ag an gnáth duine.

Your Face

I don't know.
Same-ish?

CrabRevolution

Permabear wrote: »

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If that's the best evidence you have for our resemblance to the third Reich, it's fair to say we were never close to being like Nazi Germany whatsoever.

Permabear

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Eugene Norman

Permabear wrote: »

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Three distortions there.

1) you've moved from the war (where you claimed we pretty much supported Nazzism) to the post war era. I'm not aware of Nazis sheltered post war in Ireland. I am aware of Nazis and rocket scientists sheltered by the US. Of course not all soldiers working for or fighting for the Reich were war criminals.
2) you've conflated this with banning Jewish immigration pre war. The US and the U.K. banned Jewish immigration pre war. It wasn't a time of open borders
3) you've conflated an illegal (and during the war interned) organisation with the state.

Almost every post out of you is intellectually dishonest. Not just wrong but deliberately dishonest.

Banned.

Arsemageddon

Permabear wrote: »

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More than 8,000,000 people joined the Nazi party. A handful of former Nazis settled in Ireland after the war. Former Nazis settled in countries all across the world. Not all Nazis were war criminals, therefore your claim that the state gave them shelter is incorrect.

History isn't black and white. There has been a former Nazi head of the UN (Kurt Waldheim) and a pope who was a member of the Hitler Youth. Even the most famous of the Nazis who lived in Ireland - Otto Skorzeny later worked as an assassin for Mossad
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.711115

The truth of the matter is it was impossible to lock up all former Nazis from public life

Ireland did give asylum to a small number of Jews in the 1930s, but this was nowhere near enough, especially when compared with the numbers taken in by neutral Portugal and Sweden.

It is well-known that IRA collaborated with and shared intelligence with Nazi Germany. But modern-day Sinn Féin, now the third largest party in the state, has not backed away from this noxious history. In 2003, Mary Lou McDonald unveiled a statue of Nazi collaborator Sean Russell, and made a long glowing speech in his honor.

Russell's goal was to overthrow the Irish Free State - he was not acting on behalf of the state. Large numbers of people (and indeed, entire countries) collaborated with Nazi Germany, it is facile to condemn the entire country because of the actions of a small handful of individuals. Russell wasn't a Nazi, but he was a collaborator.

However, ML McDonald should never have given that speech.

FTA69

There were definitely Nazis who found their way to Ireland and sheltered there, Albert Folens of schoolbook fame was one notable example with serious questions over his head and he wasn't the only lad. That having been said, you'll find Nazis and their collaborators in wide swathes of the world. Most of them went to South America via the rat lines but plenty stayed in places like Hungary etc. As a poster correctly notes above, there were loads in the USA and some who were even co-opted by the US government so trying to portray Ireland as some sort of special, shameful case in this particular regard is total and utter b*llocks.

Dyr

I imagine we'd have wound up a bit like Finland

Although Collins had a bit of a touch of the dictator about him

irishguitarlad

Permabear wrote: »

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Fine Gael aren't so clean either, their history includes going off to fight on the side of Franco during the Spanish civil war. All partys have history, but hey lets just forget about all that and keep the rose tinted glasses on.

whisky_galore

Permabear wrote: »

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This old chestnut, probably more to do with annoying Churchill than genuine sorrow for Hitler's demise.

Douglas Hyde did the same thing as President only no-one makes a song-and-dance about that.

At the same time, a significant number of the 'plain people' of Ireland were well disposed to Germany, the WOI and the Tans being in living memory after all. No doubt rooting for a German victory and ignorant of what Nazism really was all about. Enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

Permabear

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Speedwell

Permabear wrote: »

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See, this makes me squirm. Yes, Ireland needed to embrace globalism (in the early form of adopting English as a second language and the cultural habits of its nearest powerful neighbor) to get by. But "a bland and depressing reality"? Scuse me? That's like saying the culture of Mexico is bland and depressing because they failed to turn into a majority-English-speaking, majority-American-culture country. Sure, Mexico has a long way to go economically, and the summer and fall hurricanes don't help any. But WHY WHY WHY do I constantly see Irish people deny that there is an Irish culture worth revivifying and preserving?

Permabear

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Iwasfrozen

Speedwell wrote: »

See, this makes me squirm. Yes, Ireland needed to embrace globalism (in the early form of adopting English as a second language and the cultural habits of its nearest powerful neighbor) to get by. But "a bland and depressing reality"? Scuse me? That's like saying the culture of Mexico is bland and depressing because they failed to turn into a majority-English-speaking, majority-American-culture country. Sure, Mexico has a long way to go economically, and the summer and fall hurricanes don't help any. But WHY WHY WHY do I constantly see Irish people deny that there is an Irish culture worth revivifying and preserving?

That's more like asking the Mexicans WHY they don't think Aztec culture is worth reviving and preserving.

What do you even think a Gaelic Ireland would look like, in your view?

Speedwell

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's more like asking the Mexicans WHY they don't think Aztec culture is worth reviving and preserving.

Fair point, and in my experience, quite a few Mexicans do think Aztec and Toltec culture should be better represented in Mexican culture more generally.

What do you even think a Gaelic Ireland would look like, in your view?

Eh I suppose that's a legitimate question, but in truth I don't have even one hair of a dog in that fight, being an immigrant American who didn't get here until I was in my late 40s. Anything I said would be wrong by definition. I'm just trying to understand what Irish people think so I don't have to wait out Irish political discussions uncomfortably looking like I need to use the bathroom.

PopePalpatine

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The agenda to push Gaelic Ways and Customs probably would have ended up becoming radicalised, with Germany being the benchmark of promoting nationalism. We probably would have become a friend of Mr Hitler.

I think that's a little extreme, an Irish state committed to returning us to an idealised Gaelic country would probably be more like the regimes of Franco & Salazar.

whisky_galore

Speedwell wrote: »

But WHY WHY WHY do I constantly see Irish people deny that there is an Irish culture worth revivifying and preserving?

People though the ages, and the Irish are no different, pick and choose unconsciously what aspects of the pre-existing culture most appeal to them and keep them going and the rest end up in the collective cultural dustbin or as museum pieces.
Some aspects of past Irish culture have been superceded by technology and outside factors and I think we'll find in 10-15 years time there will be a discarding of a lot of Catholic religious influenced culture as the older generation dies off and the decline in the organised religion in this generation.

Carlos Orange

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Yes. It was a necessity for Israel to have a common language while we already had one in use for most, English.

Even now Hebrew is the native language of only a minority of Israelis. It is just that when the other 51% is split between 6+ languages it is easy to dominate as a practical choice.

topper75

Deleted User wrote: »

I've been reading "A Path to Freedom"

There is a book to go with the series?

I don't know really. I suppose the best stab I could make at answering your question is that we would all have Dublin accents and haircuts like Rats.

whisky_galore

Don't forget, during the Gaelic Revival....there was a fair bit of 'inventing tradition' going on.

Revivalists were scrambling around, looking for something, anything overtly non-Anglo Saxon to fill in the missing gaps in games, music and dance and borrowed from the Scots and others.

topper75

One interesting thing is that nobody knows how the Irish harp was played. It's lost in the mists of time.

I mean it truly is an ancient instrument here - that is not in doubt. There is an extant example in Trinity College in Dublin.

But when the craft of harp-playing was revived here - they simply adopted the Welsh style and took it from there.

What was played for Gaelic chieftains is unknown.

snotball

A grassy Mordor.

Ush1

Like Ireland but more diddly idle...

LordSutch

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?

Tailteann Games > http://imma.gallery-access.com/files/stills/independent_ex_2010_3_325.jpg

CrabRevolution

whisky_galore wrote: »

Don't forget, during the Gaelic Revival....there was a fair bit of 'inventing tradition' going on.

Revivalists were scrambling around, looking for something, anything overtly non-Anglo Saxon to fill in the missing gaps in games, music and dance and borrowed from the Scots and others.

If we invented cultural aspects by borrowing from the Scots, we were learning from the masters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invented_tradition

Speedwell

CrabRevolution wrote: »

If we invented cultural aspects by borrowing from the Scots, we were learning from the masters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invented_tradition

The link on that page leading to the article on "Pizza Effect" is very relevant. However, instead of the cross-culturalization being between countries as from Americans' perception of Italian food and back, the way it would be likely to take place in Ireland in modern times, I suspect, is from the Internet and the media creating a common construct of Irishness.

[Deleted User]

It wouldn't be this warm.

whisky_galore

CrabRevolution wrote: »

If we invented cultural aspects by borrowing from the Scots, we were learning from the masters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invented_tradition

Yup, pretty much.

An earlier revival, much of it down to Sir Walter Scott's imagining of an idealised Scotland, but one tied with Britain as opposed to being independent.

I think you'd be struggling to find something truly Gaelic Irish existing today that wasn't influenced, has not got an equivalent or wasn't an import from somewhere else.

Arsemageddon

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's more like asking the Mexicans WHY they don't think Aztec culture is worth reviving and preserving.

What do you even think a Gaelic Ireland would look like, in your view?

I don't think their would be many Mexicans who would advocate a revival of Aztec (or other indigenous Mesoamerican cultures) but they certainly do preserve what they have and are justifiably very proud of it