Roger Pulvers: What happened to Ireland?
"It happened, I think, some time in the mid-'90s," wrote Irish novelist Roddy Doyle in December, 2006, in a collection of short stories titled "The Deportees."
"I went to bed in one country and woke up in a different one."
One of the stories, "Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner," is about a young woman who brings home a Nigerian friend and her outspoken father who has never shaken hands with a black man before.
When I first visited Ireland in 1970, a story about such an encounter would have been fantasy fiction. But, after an eight-day stay there this month, I realize it is about as close to non-fiction in today's Ireland as you can get.
There is a striking consciousness of change shared by virtually all Irish people today. Yet the coming of hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to Ireland in recent years has not fully impacted on the society in any profound way. The immigrants from Africa and eastern and central Europe certainly stand out: They neither look nor sound Irish. But, unlike in the United States, or Australia, for instance, immigrants have not yet filtered up into prominent positions of authority. Ireland is still in the early "colorful ethnic variety" stages of multiculturalism. And here is where the opportunity lies for the future.
What will come to represent Irishness in the 21st century?
Walk into an Irish home of the past and, it was said, you would find two photographs: JFK on the left, and the Pope on the right; the former, a part of nostalgia; the latter, a parcel of faith.
The past is a place where oppression by British masters over hundreds of years gave the Irish a fierce purpose, and their national reason for being emanated from that purpose. The country's culture — its music, its poetry, its people's sardonic gift of the gab and, above all, its religious fervor ensconced in myriad provincial customs — kept the national spirit alive.
Ireland may have been a backwater of an empire, but the Irish took pride in digging their heels into the native bog and standing their ground in the shadow of their conqueror.
This meant that resistance to modernization (as symbolized by Britain in the 19th century) became a feature of the national ethos. Being Irish meant being against change. Even in modern times, Ireland boasted the most censorship outside of the Iron Curtain. Here are some of the books banned in their day: "The Naked and the Dead" (Norman Mailer; 1948), "Watt" (Samuel Beckett; 1953), "Lucky Jim" (Kingsley Amis; 1954), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (Tennessee Williams; 1955 — in this case a play), "Rabbit, Run" (John Updike; 1960), "Catch-22" (Joseph Heller; 1961).
The Church and their wowser defenders had their way with the country. When RTE, the national broadcaster, began televising on New Year's Eve 1961, President Eamon de Valera warned that this new medium might lead to "decadence and dissolution." Irish Church and Irish State were hand, glove and pocket in defense of the delicate Irish Soul.
From the 1960s, however, the new Ireland of urban and contemporary values began overshadowing the old, the rural and the parochial. Today Ireland is represented by the likes of its rock stars, such as Bono and Bob Geldof, its female former President Mary Robinson, its poets such as Nobel Prize laureate Seamus Heaney, its radical journalists such as the murdered Veronica Guerin (there is a monument to her in the grounds of Dublin Castle), and its brilliant actors — far too many to name.
A country that was once the quaint quintessence of reaction is now proudly displaying its progressive features. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) announced, on Feb. 29, that the annual number of plastic bags had been cut from 13.4 billion to 12.4 billion. I went to shops a number of times in Dublin and had to purchase carry bags at the cash register. Smoking is banned in the secular cathedral of Irish cultural life, the pub.
Ireland has long had the policy of treating the income of its artists and writers as tax free. "We still have that policy in place," Chairperson of the Arts Council Olive Braiden told me, "but now we tax artists' incomes above 250,000 euros."
"I'll settle for that," I said, trying to figure out how I could possibly emigrate to Ireland....
Read entire article at Japan Times
"I went to bed in one country and woke up in a different one."
One of the stories, "Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner," is about a young woman who brings home a Nigerian friend and her outspoken father who has never shaken hands with a black man before.
When I first visited Ireland in 1970, a story about such an encounter would have been fantasy fiction. But, after an eight-day stay there this month, I realize it is about as close to non-fiction in today's Ireland as you can get.
There is a striking consciousness of change shared by virtually all Irish people today. Yet the coming of hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to Ireland in recent years has not fully impacted on the society in any profound way. The immigrants from Africa and eastern and central Europe certainly stand out: They neither look nor sound Irish. But, unlike in the United States, or Australia, for instance, immigrants have not yet filtered up into prominent positions of authority. Ireland is still in the early "colorful ethnic variety" stages of multiculturalism. And here is where the opportunity lies for the future.
What will come to represent Irishness in the 21st century?
Walk into an Irish home of the past and, it was said, you would find two photographs: JFK on the left, and the Pope on the right; the former, a part of nostalgia; the latter, a parcel of faith.
The past is a place where oppression by British masters over hundreds of years gave the Irish a fierce purpose, and their national reason for being emanated from that purpose. The country's culture — its music, its poetry, its people's sardonic gift of the gab and, above all, its religious fervor ensconced in myriad provincial customs — kept the national spirit alive.
Ireland may have been a backwater of an empire, but the Irish took pride in digging their heels into the native bog and standing their ground in the shadow of their conqueror.
This meant that resistance to modernization (as symbolized by Britain in the 19th century) became a feature of the national ethos. Being Irish meant being against change. Even in modern times, Ireland boasted the most censorship outside of the Iron Curtain. Here are some of the books banned in their day: "The Naked and the Dead" (Norman Mailer; 1948), "Watt" (Samuel Beckett; 1953), "Lucky Jim" (Kingsley Amis; 1954), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (Tennessee Williams; 1955 — in this case a play), "Rabbit, Run" (John Updike; 1960), "Catch-22" (Joseph Heller; 1961).
The Church and their wowser defenders had their way with the country. When RTE, the national broadcaster, began televising on New Year's Eve 1961, President Eamon de Valera warned that this new medium might lead to "decadence and dissolution." Irish Church and Irish State were hand, glove and pocket in defense of the delicate Irish Soul.
From the 1960s, however, the new Ireland of urban and contemporary values began overshadowing the old, the rural and the parochial. Today Ireland is represented by the likes of its rock stars, such as Bono and Bob Geldof, its female former President Mary Robinson, its poets such as Nobel Prize laureate Seamus Heaney, its radical journalists such as the murdered Veronica Guerin (there is a monument to her in the grounds of Dublin Castle), and its brilliant actors — far too many to name.
A country that was once the quaint quintessence of reaction is now proudly displaying its progressive features. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) announced, on Feb. 29, that the annual number of plastic bags had been cut from 13.4 billion to 12.4 billion. I went to shops a number of times in Dublin and had to purchase carry bags at the cash register. Smoking is banned in the secular cathedral of Irish cultural life, the pub.
Ireland has long had the policy of treating the income of its artists and writers as tax free. "We still have that policy in place," Chairperson of the Arts Council Olive Braiden told me, "but now we tax artists' incomes above 250,000 euros."
"I'll settle for that," I said, trying to figure out how I could possibly emigrate to Ireland....