From Culture to Aesthetic: The Irish Revival and the Impulse to Protect It
by Caitlin Small
With Saint Patrick’s Day recently passing, I had been considering my own Irishness (which is controversial on a good day when being from Northern Ireland), but also the Irishness of others.
What it means to be “Irish” has undergone something of a facelift in the past few years. To be Irish now is to be cool, cultured, and in the know. We are special; we have charismatic celebrities, good humour, incredible musicians, and the list goes on. The claddagh, once unknown, now marks a stamp of approval.
And whilst many of us can agree that we love taking part in Irish culture, the communities within, dancing and sporting with one another, it is entirely valid to think: “Why?” Why now? What has changed?
Ireland has certainly climbed its way up the national social ladder. Not long ago, it was hard to find a house or job abroad as an Irishman; we have all heard the phrase, “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish”. Violent and alcoholics were we, at the bottom of the evolutionary food chain, nothing but “Rome’s Irish Scum”. Deprived of food, population, language, religion and happiness.
In today’s social climate, though, we offer our condolences to the nations that have fallen victim to imperialism. It’s just not cool anymore, out of date. So, we lift their cultures up to the Lord; it is right and just.
Now we have Irish culture in a strange limbo… somewhat commercialised. And it has led to even stronger feelings of disdain for those who try to buy into it.
What comes to mind for me when I think of such disdain is the British children of Irish immigrants. Those who grew up away and came “home” to Ireland for university or work. It is easy to brush off their Irishness. To some, it is, unfortunately, like nails on a chalkboard upon hearing English phonetics clash with Irish names or places, even when both individuals are well-intentioned. But then again, is it that surprising when the same terms werecontinuously mocked growing up? Gregory Campbell’s delightful phrase “Curry my yoghurt” rings true for me.
The same goes for the never-ending debate on Irish hatred for Americans reclaiming their Irishness, just because their great-grandfather was from Tipp. Is it wrongly dismissive to disregard such a claim to heritage? Or is the caricaturised persona validly hated as they fly “home” for “St Pattys”, adorning green Aran jumpers and spending 10 million euros in the Temple Bar? Who knows.
There is perhaps an irony to it all, as we hate yet simultaneously laugh and welcome the ideas of a large Irish diaspora across the world. Wherever you go, you will find an Irish pub, see a street name with an Irish politician on it, and hear an Irish voice. So why is it that when the descendants of that same diaspora come back, we are hurt?
Perhaps it is because leaving Ireland is such a normal course of action to take, to escape a country that cannot provide us with a job, house or social life. Seeing others desperate to land in is often a tell-tale sign of a naiveperspective (to no fault of their own). Trying on a culture for fun that once nearly disappeared.
The guarding of Irish culture is not pretty, and oftentimes not fair, but it does, in a way, make sense. It is a reactionary process. I can remember, at a young age, dressed in green and being screamed at on the street for my display of celebration, and I know I am not a unique case. At the end of the day, you do tend to hold on tightly to the things that were almost taken from you.
Had such a culture not been mocked, belittled and stripped away, perhaps we would not cringe so hard when we see it draped lightly across others. If the language hadn’t been criminalised, or the accent mocked so fiercely, then maybe donning a Guinness hat on the streets of New York would land differently. More digestible.
But that is not the history Ireland has. The cultural confidence that is now so socially attractive was rebuilt slowly and quietly. In living rooms, on GAA pitches, at the Gaeltacht or during a céilí, especially when it was something to be embarrassed about, or not spoken of in front of “the wrong person”.
When Irishness is then picked up and performed, with no awareness or acknowledgement of such a weighty history behind it, the reaction to that (however unsavoury it may appear from the outside) is not really directed at the individual doing it. But rather, everything that had come before them.
This is not an argument that gatekeeping is a good thing, or that every expression of warmth to Irishness is wrong. It is only to say that some level of wariness or hostility is expected. If Ireland is treated like a fashion trend, it is no surprise that those who live it every day are worried when it will become outdated. When appreciation tips once again into the realm of parody and the accents are brutally mocked, and we, as a group of people, are reduced to props.
