More English than the English themselves ?

thejollyrodger

Just reading this article here, do you think we have become more english than the english themselves?

Whatever happened to Irish Ireland?
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A new survey shows that a growing number of British tourists are reluctant to come here because we have become too like them...

Well, ye see, there were these three men - Paddy the Irishman, Paddy the Englishman and Paddy the Scotsman. Then, out of the blue, one of the Paddies rolled over and disappeared. He was Paddy the Irishman, the mad, drink-sopping cartoon character beloved of all the world for his dexterity with words and knuckles and his pyrotechnic psychosis. He had lived on the edge of self-destruction for so long, it seemed he would surely live for ever. Until suddenly - puff! - he was gone. Now, the joke is, there are only two Paddies left, and neither of them comes from Ireland. Rumours of Paddy the Irishman's demise had been whispered in his native land, escaping between railings of brilliant-white teeth in down-turned mouths. "Have we lost our Character do you think?" they fretted, while queuing for endangered-animal handbags in smoke-free shopping malls or sipping cocktails in child-free cafe bars. They searched for him high and low but all they found were loads and loads of private planes, cranes, and topless automobiles. In the end, just when it looked as if the national Character had only popped over to Manhattan for a weekend's retail therapy, the bells tolling Paddy's departure rang out from - of all places - Perfidious Albion. 'Ireland not exotic enough for the Brits,' knelled the announcement. Paddy the Irishman was dead all right. What's more, he'd come back to life - reincarnated as Paddy the Englishman. Now he's every bit as sophisticated, successful, focussed, devoid of eccentric charm and as yawn-inducingly anodyne as his next-door neighbour. A survey by Tourism Ireland has found that British tourists are reluctant to come here on their holidays because we're no longer foreign enough. We speak the same language and get drenched by the same rain clouds. We've lost our curiosity value. So they're high-tailing it to Dubrovnik for their culture fix. If you are in any doubt, read Paddy's obituary in the current edition of The Dubliner magazine where writer Constantin Gurdgiev bids him a caustic goodbye, along with his "mirages of past destitution", "ritualistic drink-induced bonding", "banal stories of druids and bog fairies", "moral duplicity" and sentimentality, "to paraphrase Oscar Wilde... the bank holiday of complacency." In the coming week of St Patrick, as the gardai brace themselves for an orgy of public boozing and native shamrock-growers bewail the decline in demand for the three-lobed emblem, will there be any people less Irish than the Irish themselves? From Chicago to Shanghai, the rivers will run green alongside revellers in T-shirts saying 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' and the din of accordion bands squeezing out jigs and reels. Back in Dublin, the capital city of Paddy's Day on Planet Earth, the most radical change to the festivities is that, er, the parade will go in the opposite direction to last year's, because fair's fair. You only need to watch the Rose of Tralee to see that the Irish lassies have all swiped their career-mapped CVs from their American sisters while the Roses from London and Lancashire are wearing the born-to-please smiles and hand-me-down frocks once worn by Paddy the Irishman's granny. These shifts have not gone unnoticed. Though the British holiday-makers surveyed by Tourism Ireland did not mention the pimpling of Irish cityscapes with high street stalwarts such as M&S, Debenhams, Tesco and Waterstones as proof of Ireland's anglicisation, they have turned this country into an ancillary nation of (English) shopkeepers. It is not only Ireland that has changed. The kinship of Anglo-Irish relations has undergone a transformation too. The volatile oppressor/slave dynamic is finally losing its fizz and the over-riding post-Independence impulse to demonstrate that we are most definitely anything but English has relinquished its urgency. Garrulity, pugnaciousness and religious piety served as the antithesis of Englishness. They have been made redundant. At one stage, British goods accounted for 90% of everything Ireland imported. Now it's 22%. Instead of depending on their neighbour, Irish investors are buying up the bricks-and-mortar trophies of the Empire, in the exercise of levelling the playing field, and are being toadied to in marble-vowelled boardrooms. Paddy the Irishman, and his first cousin Mick, have given up talking the talk to walk the walk. Once upon a time, they bragged they were as good as any Englishman. Now they believe it. "Be careful not to patronise the Irish; Good grief, you'll cry, that's hardly my intent, Nevertheless, when he's inclined, Paddy's mind is so designed, He'll go and find offence where none was meant." In the crucible of Irish nationalist art, the Abbey Theatre, a moment-defining show opened last Monday night to an audience that laughed as if they had mistaken the itching powder for talc before leaving home. Improbable Frequency is a musical comedy set in Dublin during the Second World War and featuring a cast of characters led by Myles na gCopaleen and Sir John Betjeman. It is an hilarious, satirical and unmistakably fond exploration of the relationship between the English and the Irish. "No matter how one tries to get along, Unselfishly proclaiming Eire's undisputed charms, A simple mention en passant Of drinking, fighting and maudlin song - Suddenly one is in the wrong And Paddy's up in arms." Whither Irishness? is the question of the moment. If the wisha-'n'-begoorah bogtrotter has been laid to rest, how are we going to redefine ourselves? Tourism Ireland has been working on our USPs (Unique Selling Points) and, bless my soul, the Ring of Kerry has slipped off the map. Henceforth, the south-west will be promoted as the "gourmet capital", the south-east as, well, "the sunny south-east" and, God help us, the

Justine McCarthy

I dont know if this is the right place to post this

I think we have been very anglisised: ( and lost so much of our culture

PHB

You can't lose culture, its fluidic.
The culture of ireland is the culture we have right now, you can't put somethign in a box and say, that's culture.

Culture is what irish people are, and we no longer dance at the crossroads

thejollyrodger

but havent we become over anglisised , were pratically english

mike65

You're most like the USA then England. Chaotic urban development is more like the frontier towns of the late 19th century with cunning property developers and corrupt politicans. A society which is more me me me and less you, you, you. Cash rich and time poor. Obsessed with low grade celebrity and criminal notoriety. Increasingly fat. TV channels which simply relay US comedy and drama. Endless facination with the occupant of the White House.

I could go on!

Mike.

ps I know much of the above also applies to Englerland.

DublinWriter

Interesting. I'm working on an article along these lines at the moment, but it's hard to get a handle on how Ireland has changed exactly.

Firstly, we were ahead of the Swiss on bringing in the Smoking Ban. The SWISS FFS! (Their ban comes in later this year)

Charting why we've changed is easy - the change in the economic fortunes of this country.

I was going to use that tag-line myself - More English than the English themselves, but when you look at the ways we've changed, there are also definite influences from the States. Some of the kids of my D4 colleagues speak like extras from 'Friends' while successive governments have adopted the 'Kill the Poor' model of public healthcare.

Having been born and bred in Dublin, I spend about 30% of my time in the UK now, in particular London, a city notorious for its unfriendliness and fast pace.

To be honest, I feel levels of service in shops/pubs there is far ahead of anything we have here (Dublin in particular). People there are more friendly. When I first realised this I thought I was going insane, but it's sadly true. Maybe it's the fact I'm Irish and we hold a certain curiosity factor for them.

London, and in particular the UK, I feel has a more tolerant 'live and let live' vibe about it than here.

For example, in 1998 I went into the Arndale shopping centre in Manchester. They were having an Irish Cultural Awareness Theme week. There was the usual tat - lots of inflatable shamrocks and kiddies Riverdancing.

I walked around gobsmacked. Why? Because the IRA had practically demolished the Arndale Centre four years earlier in 1994 with one of the biggest car-bombs ever used on the British mainland.

thejollyrodger

very intresting posts mike65 and DublinWriter.... intresting stuff.

jrey1981

Hi, an interesting discussion...I read the article in the Indo myself.

The chaotic urban sprawl is saddening in a way - I went to Longford on Friday and noticed it all along the train route. And yes, there is an American influence as well, the culture, from TV, etc. I feel it is too narrow to say Ireland has become more anglicised. The right word is probably globalised.

And this has been fuelled by economic growth and development.

I travel to the UK regularly and find that there is the 'buzz' of a place of opportunity in Ireland that I had once only felt in cities like London and Manchester. There is more of an openness and willingness to do business in Ireland...as someone who was born in England, went to school here for 9 years then went to uni in the UK for 5 years and came back last June, this is what I notice.

Ireland is going through a similar boom to what the UK and US experienced in the 80s. And something is being lost. Perhaps when things weren't so good we might have had fewer opportunities but maybe thought or felt we were more in control of the social, political and economic direction of the country, whereas now we are more in control of our own individual lives in terms of opportunity whilst having lost this or sacrificed it on a national level to the forces of globalisation.

Increasingly the only thing that determines the difference between countries will be in the geographic sense, I think - the countryside, mountains, scenic areas - this is how I feel about the UK. Ireland and England are great countries for this reason and you have to go to the right places to appreciate it and they are also great for the opportunity and buzz of economic growth in the cities. But at the same time in countries across the world there is a loss of many things because of this - in terms of the environment and culture...

Dublinwriter, I would be very interested to know where your piece might be pubished...?

JC 2K3

Tír gan teanga tír gan anam.

All we need is more people speaking, and less idiots detesting, Irish, we can go on with our normal way of living and have a unique cultural advantage.

simu

We do get a hell of a lot of English TV, chainstores etc over here so there can be a surface impression of similarity. That said, when I go to England/talk to English people, I still find them quite different to Irish people in ways they behave/talk/in their assumptions. But these are subtle differences that you only see if you engage with people rather than just doing touristy things.

PHB

Culture isn't what you say it is, culture is what it is.
If you want a different unique culture fine, but its not Irish culture, its your culture.

Tír gan teanga tír gan anam.
Thats a great phrase, used as a replacement for logic by most Irish speaking advocates who can't think of a decent arguement, it isn't a good phrase to use since everyone speaks english, I guess we have a soul, I guess we're english.

Capt'n Midnight

Reminds me of in a story about people complaining about the younger generation and how their manners and clothes were different , think it was Chaucer..

Until a while back I would post about the 50,000 who went to the football championships in Germany with one Irish arrested and he got rleased without charge when they realised he was not English. Or about how with the exception of the sectarian matches up north or rangers v. celtic that "fans" from Scotland / Ireland / Wales were very different from English ones - yet we all share the same external culture wrt. books / tv / media / products in shops / legal system etc. etc.

elvenscout742

Why should I care if people are becoming more English than the English themselves? I say, let people act as they wish, and those who try to keep others from acting as such should get lives or waste away in Narond :mad: .

mrhankey88

absolutely shocked by this thread and its responses.

do you think we have become more english than the english themselves?

No there isn't, there is a minority who hold this view. I don't like these people.

'Ireland not exotic enough for the Brits,' knelled the announcement.

I'm just making silly points here.

I think we have been very anglisised: ( and lost so much of our culture

I don't like this, and I think we should try to focus on our irish past.

[edit] This post has been significanly toned down for obvious reasons, this is what was said if you ignore the blatent racism[/edit]

Dinner

mrhankey88 wrote:

I don't like this, and I think we should try to focus on our irish past.

Like it or not Ireland would not be the place it is today if the English hadn't here.

And before you start, I am not English nor am I traitor. I'm proud of my country and my culture.

[edit] Not because of this post, but because of the other post and I don't want it referred to[edit]

OfflerCrocGod

Your right mrhankey88, we should go back to being piss poor, drunk, potato farmers. Now that's the life.

DublinWriter

mrhankey88 wrote:

absolutely shocked by this thread and its responses.

You know what? I’m done with this thread.

Not because of the idiocy of mrhandkey88’s post, but because the moderator of this thread chose to arbitrarily censor and re-word it.

I received the original non-censured version of mrhankey88 via email notification and was about to cut it his argument to pieces based on the childish comments he made.

I clicked the link for it and found that the moderator had substituted most of mrhankey88’s original text with his own phrase “I don't like this, and I think we should try to focus on our irish past.” and added:

[edit] This post has been significanly toned down for obvious reasons, this is what was said if you ignore the blatent racism[/edit]

There’s no way you can expect to have a decent conversation, or debate, if self-appointed moral guardians and censors place themselves in positions above you and block and even re-word what you are trying to say, even if it is racist or purile.

It’s a sad indictment of boards.ie.

Dinner

Settle now, you cant have somebody coming on here and spouting off ignorant racist statements. The Mod was well in his rights to edit the posts.

PHB

Well, whether you have the ability not to be offended by the remarks, which I'd imagine is quite a lot easier when they aren't aimed at you, other people do not, and this isn't a pub, its a message forum where everyone, all ages, can read. If you want to make points, you should have the ability to make it without resorting to racist remarks, which is perfectly valid, but if you can't, well thats just tough.

its not just about you DublinWriter, its abotu other people too.

ireland88

Like it or not Ireland would not be the place it is today if the English hadn't here.

Nobody can argue with that.

Your right mrhankey88, we should go back to being piss poor, drunk, potato farmers. Now that's the life.

Nobody said we should.

dahamsta

Whatever happened to Irish Ireland?
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Asked and answered tbh.

pork99

JC 2K3 wrote:

Tír gan teanga tír gan anam.

well the Belgians and the Swiss are f-ed then

Eoghan-psych

thejollyrodger wrote:

but havent we become over anglisised , were pratically english

I think it fairer to say the English have become more like *us*. Our culture is much more infectious than theirs.

Eoghan-psych

simu wrote:

We do get a hell of a lot of English TV, chainstores etc over here so there can be a surface impression of similarity. That said, when I go to England/talk to English people, I still find them quite different to Irish people in ways they behave/talk/in their assumptions. But these are subtle differences that you only see if you engage with people rather than just doing touristy things.

Absolutely. Having moved to England last year I can safely say that we have not, as a nation, become English. Not even close.

Not to play on a stereotyp, but take for example going to the pub. Stick a pile of Irish people in a pub on a Friday night and the craic is just mighty - no hassle, no effort, just craic and lots of it. Generally, the conversation will get *very* involved, yes? And generally that conversation can get quite heated, quite loud, and seem on the verge of turning violent - but 2 minutes later, the conversation has taken an about face and is back to the bloody weather and how shocking it is [aside - why the hell are we ever shocked by the weather?]. Whatever animosity developed is gone, just like that.

The English seem to be different - a lot more...eh...polite? Reserved? Quiet? I don't have a word to hand. A conversation in a pub gets just as involved, but is very different. They tend not to get as 'energetic' shall we say. It's as if they hold back to be nice - if anyone else can put this better, please do.

I'm fightin a losing battle with my point here, so I'll stop for now - if I find a way to make my point I'll come back to it.