Entwined Lives
BBC NI’s Hearts and Minds was packed with good and interesting discussion tonight. Here’s one of the examples. Starting from the Lives Entwined essays the subsequent studio discussion between three contributors to that project, Olivia O’Leary, Susan McKay and Richard English, referred, directly or indirectly, to the need to change our understanding of Britishness and Irishness, the Republic of Ireland’s view of the “mad old uncle” in the [Northern] attic, the effect of amending DeValera’s constitution, and, among other things, the need for a process of civilisation.
“…but yet clear as daylight.”
Only to you, and you seem to be wearing a blindfold.
Many examples to disprove your declaration have been given but you choose to ignore them. Suggests wilful blindness to me and others. The reason for this can only be speculated upon, but unhealthy bias of some sort is at play.
I for one won’t be indulging your bigotry any more.
How are actors not creators of culture? Arrant nonsense. So Oilivier or whoever are mere cyphers for words written by others? The thing about performance art is, a lot of it has to do with the performance.
And as for acknowledging the Irish parts of unionist identity, wasn’t Big Ian doing that this very week?
Horseman,
Your point is correct and has obviously touched a nerve hence the unnecessary needle towards you.
CS Lewis is the only northern writer of a Unionist heritage that is known on the world stage of class A writers of past and present. The rest are barely known in Ireland or Britain.
From the South of Ireland there are numerous Catholic and Protestant Irish writers of world renown. This is a simple fact. What was it Samuel Beckett said about the cream of Northern Unionism when he spent some time teaching them….
Seamus Heaney of course proves that the Northern nationalists could still produce world class poets despite the abnormal nature of the northern statelet. Maybe the loyal folk of Ulster should spend more time reading classic literature than marching in silly parades?
Although Zadie Smith’s husband Nick Laird is supposedly talented, and he’s from a Unionist background. Perhaps he will strike a light for Unionists literature outside of the wee province.
Alan,
… What was it Samuel Beckett said about the cream of Northern Unionism when he spent some time teaching them….
Unfortunately he said that about the pupils in my own alma mater!
Don’t worry, I don’t take Little Eva’s criticism too hard. As I said very early on, some unionists get very touchy on this subject. Most of them just go very silent …
I would be very happy if there were some top bands, writers, film-makers, etc, from the ‘unionist community’. Thing is, there just aren’t. And when someone asks why (as I continue to do), they get accused of all sorts of sins (on this thread alone I’ve been called a racist and a bigot!).
See the problem here is seeing artistic creation as nothing more than indicative of a community.
And besides that we are talking about what, 1 million people? Are people in suburbs of New York or London or Moscow having this type of debate?
And never mind the artificial division of the island’s liteary culture into north and south. After all Yeats, Wilde, Joyce, Beckett, etc come from a time pre-partition. And that is leaving alone the debate of whether they should be seen as Irish writers or not.
But northern protestants produced Francis Hutcheson. Let’s talk about why Irish Catholics are shit at philosophy
Alan, does it matter if Unionism has produced a rich culture or not? They never claimed to an ethnic group that was other than British, so they should be included in that cultural group.
There isn’t any distinct culture of Unionism as an ethnic group that needs to be protected by mandating a state for it, and no one sees Northern Ireland as a proper state – it remains an enclave for those who were ‘settled’ in Ireland during a process of colonisation and who remain loyal to the United Kingdom.
They will never be loyal to the nation state of Ireland, and the current political process does not require them to be. Instead, the political agenda is to undermine the loyalty of Irish people to their own nation state, thereby smoothing its deconstruction and replacement by a bi-national entity should allowed outcome transpire under the GFA.
The contempt for democracy in all of this is staggering, but that’s what happens when agencies of the State gain de facto control the media and use it to proffer a political agenda. It looks like politics but it’s really just brainwashing the people to ‘democratically’ support the agenda.
“And never mind the artificial division of the island’s liteary culture into north and south. After all Yeats, Wilde, Joyce, Beckett, etc come from a time pre-partition. And that is leaving alone the debate of whether they should be seen as Irish writers or not.” – Garibaldy
Really? You didn’t seem to have such doubts about the nationality of ‘Irish’ people when you were branding them as colonizers a few posts back:
“…if you want to see how Irish people might have behaved as the representatives of an imperial power, simply look at the way they behaved for the British Empire – no matter what their religious or political background at home, they were overwhelmingly happy imperialists.” – Garibaldy
Surely there is “debate” about whether or not Irish people are guilty of imperial adventurism at all. Shouldn’t their sins be lumped in with the sins of other British people for the sack of consistency in your derogation, or at least a similar question mark placed over their sins as was placed over their successes?
Here’s a free clue: you don’t demonstrate how wonderfully non-sectarian you are by attacking Catholics. That is still sectarianism irrespective of your own religion. That isn’t to your credit, despite whatever misguided thoughts may motivate the practice.
“But northern protestants produced Francis Hutcheson. Let’s talk about why Irish Catholics are shit at philosophy.” – Garibaldy
Quoted for classic status.
Dave, you’ll agree Shakespeare is synonomous with Elizbethan England when he is spoken about. He isn’t refered to as a British but as English.
The point isn’t made to attack Unionista but merely to highlight perhaps a lack of confidence within Northern Unionists to express themselves and their culture in ways other than flags and marching bands with big drums. They don’t seem to have the confidence to do it through areas of high artisitc merit.
Yes, there are only roughly a million of them. But is it nor strange that Beckett and Wilde were Southern Protestant and not Northern Protestant? Does it not show perhaps that Northern Protestantism is much more insular and closed off and in the process the people are unknowingly denied the spiritual freedom of artistic expression so easily found in the less oppressive South?
Even pre-partition there is only CS Lewis. The nature of Northern Unionism in Ireland is to be always highly strung, defensive and belligerent towards Gaelic Irish. Perhaps this way of life isn’t conducive to artistic creativity.
What I meant by the Irish writers remark was whether they should be seen as distinctively within an Irish tradition of writing, or within broader traditions, be they British or French even. The same applies to people like Burke, Hutcheson, etc etc. I was reading recently that a Moscow newspaper had printed some stuff things to say to the English football fans, which includes references to Shaw and Wilde as British. Clearly in terms of birth they are Irish, but it is not so clear cut about how we should see their writing.
As for the question of the involvement in Irish people in imperialism. That was in response to the suggestion that there was no evidence that Irish people had the capacity to act the way the British had done as an imperial power. The point I was making is that even people who wanted some form of Irish independence had proven themselves perfectly capable of engaging in imperial adventures. And that is beyond debate, because the facts are clear, and easily checked. It peaked and was most vividly demonstrated by the attitude of the electorate in supporting Redmond’s Home Rule imperialism, and following him to war.
And I haven’t attacked Catholics. Perhaps you can point out where I have. The thing was quote on philosophy was (an attempt at being) satirical.
Northern Ireland has Glenn Patterson, Newton Emerson, the guy from Bangor who writes Murphy’s Law…..
Better than that overrated old tosspot Seamus Heaney anyday.
Oh and Martin Lynch, presumably on his perch in the John Hewitt as I type.
“Yes, there are only roughly a million of them. But is it nor strange that Beckett and Wilde were Southern Protestant and not Northern Protestant? Does it not show perhaps that Northern Protestantism is much more insular and closed off and in the process the people are unknowingly denied the spiritual freedom of artistic expression so easily found in the less oppressive South?”
Yet Wilde wrote before partition and Beckett left Ireland because it was oppressive for a writer like him. So I fail to see how they support the argument.
Geribaldy, they were both reared in Dublin and went to University in Trinity College which is where their talente were developed. How many Protestant ex-Queen’s students went on to such acclaim inside or outside of Ireland?
Perhaps the literary tradition has always been much more encouraged in the South and Protestants in the south got that encouragement from an early age which Northern Protestants don’t have.
But Ireland was not partitioned when Wilde wrote. So what is the justification for splitting north from south? It’s a retrospective, anachronistic one. As for Beckett, first published writing in Paris. Where he met Joyce. Who left because Ireland was too repressive. This is simply nonsense, historically speaking.
So what if Ireland wasn’t partitioned? Was Belfast not far more sectarian than Dublin even pre-partition? Of course it was, as was all of Ulster which is why Protestants in the South like Wilde, Yeats, JM Synge and Beckett developed literary talents free of Ulster Unionism’s oppressive sectarian politics. None of the four were in the mind numbing Orange Order I suspect despite their religion!
Yet you would have us believe it isn’t a coincidence that the vast majority of Irish Protestants always lived in Ulster and yet all of the famous Irish Protestant writers bar CS Lewis weren’t of Ulster Protestant background.
No, there’s no coincidence there at all.
“Of course it was, as was all of Ulster which is why Protestants in the South like Wilde, Yeats, JM Synge and Beckett developed literary talents free of Ulster Unionism’s oppressive sectarian politics.”
Most of those, at one time or another, all fled the “oppressive”, as Beckett put it, South. Which kind of undermines your argument.
It doesn’t undermind anything, Little Eva. Because the facts remain they were all born and reared and attented university in the South of Ireland. Upon coming adults they left a very politicised Ireland but they were already writers when they left.
Earlier Garibaldy used the tame excuse there is only 1 million Northern Prods so you can’t expect too many genius writers. And herein lies the blatant denial of reality.
Because the Protestant population of Southern Ireland was far less than 1 million. Yet still it produced the four literary greats I mentioned. So clearly there is a reason Protestants in the South created great writers but in insular orange Ulster, Protestant writers didn’t develop at all.
This sterile argument makes me want to say the “F” word.
Ah to hell with it, in for a penny , in for a pound – this is a fucking stupid argument.
It isn’t an argument.
It’s a simple matter of literary interest. But, of course, mention Ulster Prods in a sentence and the defence barricades come up before they even know what it’s about.
And if anyone wants to criticize my choice of a specific word, I’m sorry. I wanted to be more creative but unfortunately I’m from the North, just a thick Tyrone man.
“Are Van Morrison, James Galway, CS Lewis, James Nesbitt, Stephen Rea, to name but a few, not artists from the Protestant and/or unionist tradition?”
I don’t know much about CS Lewis’ background, but each of the others have been proud to call themselves Irish (not northern Irish either) and George Best as well. Anyway to the British people, the most loyal to the queen Orangeman is still and will always be a Paddy, an Irishman.
Joe,
It is indeed a stupid argument. But a strangely compelling one.
Ireland has a vibrant liteary tradition. And Ireland has produced some great writers. That’s how I look at it. Howevere, when I see people introducing retrospective divisions and making ahistorical arguments, I feel I must protest.
But I think I’ll give up trying to convince those who refused to be convinced that the world, especially when it comes to the flowering of individual creative talents, many of them beyond these shores, can be a lot more complex than the sectarian division that shapes our current reality.
There’s absolutely nothing sectarian about glorifying Ireland’s greatest and glorious Protestant writers.
Nor is ther anything sectarian about wonder why, considering the concentration of Irish Protestants in the North, that all these famous Protestan Irish writers didn’t come from Ulster. Only CS Lewis did.
And no answer can be given to explain this coincidence so the word sectarian must be trumpeted out rather than ask questions that might not give welcome answers about Orange Ulster.
Do folks really need to be told why they should never separate the nation from the state? If they do, then they should take a look at what happened to the nation (i.e. the people) they last time that happened in Ireland. They state introduced a raft of measures aimed at suppressing the nation and its culture with devastating consequences for it. In Northern Ireland, the nation is still separated from the state, and the nation must struggle against those who control the state for support for its culture. Where the nation and the state are one, as in the Republic, the state may promote its culture as the nation sees fit. In Northern Ireland, the nation begs the state to support the Irish language and the state just mocks the request. In the nation state, there are no mutual vetoes.
Those cultures that we celebrate today are the ones that survived and flourished because they were protected by nation states. Aborigines are a nation without a state, being indigenous to Australia for 40,000 years, and their numbers has declined by 80% since British colonisation. Lacking the right to self-determination, they are at the mercy of a government that treats them appallingly. Palestinians are another Nation who separated from a State and are likewise, treated appalling by the Israeli government and by the international community. These affronts to nations are in the here and now, but do we really care? Nope, because it’s not our problem – just like nobody will care about us if we are ever dumb enough to concede our sovereignty, independence, and right to self-determination to an entity other than an Irish nation state.
If folks think that we have moved on to a more enlightened are of universal humanity, then think again. No one gives a rat’s ass about the misery that was inflicted on the Iraqi people in a neo-imperial profiteering or the lies that were told to the people in order to justify the atrocity. They know they were lied to by their own governments in order to facilitate a war that is illegal under international law and that war crimes were committed but they don’t give a rat’s ass about that either. Nations should retain full control of their own affairs, administering the State in accordance with their own culture. Folks are making a fatal mistake if they believe that other nation states, or those who are engaged in engineering an illegitimate super state such as the EU, care about their culture or even about their fundamental human rights. They don’t.
Alan, what conclusions do you draw about my gender, given the paucity of women, Northern or Southern, Catholic or Protestant, republican or unionist, trumpeted on the literary world’s list of “greatest hits”? We’re not all pregnant, all of the time.
For that matter, what conclusions do you draw about my religion, Catholicism, for that matter, given that most on your list of irish literary greats were not Catholic?
i would be truly curious to hear your non-sectarian, non-sexist insights into my own religion or my gender based on the yardstick of sales at amazon or nobel prizes.
My shelves are teeming with novels and collections of poems by Irish women, but none of them could be considered “world famous.” I don’t make or accept generalisations about my gender based on that criteria, why would I accept the definition of another’s identity or community by that standard?
As garibaldy pointed out, genius in the arts tends to say much about the genius, less about the community in which the artist is either nurtured or rebelling against. If I did try to identify a unifying characteristic in authors I find myself revisiting through the years — Joyce, Shakespeare, Yeats, Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Longley and Heaney — perhaps it would be their sense of apartness, or otherness, from the cultures from which they sprang.
That, and quite a few of them drank like fish.
What insightful conclusions do you offer about consumers of alcohol, based on their disproportionate representation amidst those recognised on the world’s stage of literary greats?
This started off as artists. Then when a list was issued it became writers. When a list of those was produced it then became “great” writers.
The whole argument is actually the wrong way around.
Why did the tiny minority Protestant community in the south produce so many great artists?
Most likely, Protestants in the south did what a lot of other repressed minority communities do, and found expression through the arts. That is why, per head of population, Protestant artists punched massively above their weight. While the southern majority community produced artists in no more propensity per head of population than any other such society.
I wonder why the so repressed catholic community in the north hasn’t followed this pattern. Heaney aside, there’s hardly anyone you could consider great.
Problem with that analysis Little Eva is that most of the people mentioned as being from the were members of the elite that governed the whole of the country, nevermind the fact that they identified themselves mainly as Irish. So why did the well-educated, well-off elite of a country which had access to several great literary traditions – Irish, British and European – and was part of the world’s leading empire at the time produce great works might be a better way to phrase the question.
But again, the whole point of genius is that it is not representative.
Little Eva,
The Protestant community in the South is/was a repressed minority?!! You clearly do not have a clue what you are talking about.
Dave (aka the Dubliner)
Northern Ireland is not and never has been a State.
Horseman HAS touched a very raw nerve here. A lot of Ulster Protestants have a kind of settler mentality… they live in Ireland but many do not see themslves as being “of it”. This is unique in these islands, there is no other comparable community of such long standing in a country in the archipelago which has such a view of itself in relation to its surroundings. This was not always the case and i believe that this is now changing. So perhaps we will see more creativity from that community.
Little Eva,
Ever heard of Brian Friel or Brian Moore? 2 more world famous writers from the irish untermenshcen in the North which you so evidently look down upon…
“What insightful conclusions do you offer about consumers of alcohol, based on their disproportionate representation amidst those recognised on the world’s stage of literary greats?”
Well, Ireland is a case apart because its island status means that it could never be fully assimilated into other nations states or its people fully subjugated. This also has the effect that the smell of Guinness can be carried on an east wind from St James’s Gate, chasing the likes of Brendan Behan as he escapes to Wicklow to concentrate on his literacy output as opposed to his drinking. It’s the brewing industry… they put something into their brews that creates with the literary gene. The idea isn’t to profit from selling beers and such to the intelligentsia; it’s to profit from associating their brews with that class. You know… sorta like why sexy blondes are draped over sports cars. Blondes aren’t the target market; they’re just the bait. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Hic.
I’ll drink to that.
dub
If you believe that, then you clearly have no idea about your own city’s history never mind that of the south as a whole. For a recent example, read what Graeme Norton has to say about growing up there as a Prod.
As for the untermenschen jibe from the other clown. Christ that’s rich coming from someone who, along with his little bigot mates, have spent all day claiming that northern Prods have produced no artists of any kind. Straight out of failed writer and former “revolutionary” Danny Morrison’s text book that one.
Enjoying Horseman’s particular line of debate and the reasonably-civilized counterarguments it’s spawning, but I’m afraid Dave (not dave) has hit a particular topical nerve of mine and so I’m going to have to attempt a threadjack.
Dave, I assume I’m not misrepresenting you to say you subscribe to at least a vaguely ethnically-tinged definition of a nation as a socio-cultural construction that exists independently but in parallel with the state (rather than, say, adopting a recursive one which defines any community of people happily interacting within a single soveriegn state entitity as automatically comprising a “nation”).
So long as the definition doesn’t drift mid-argument, I don’t see anything wrong with taking such a viewpoint; my own view isn’t particularly different from yours on that count. It mightn’t make certain kumbaya sectors happy, but nations as you describe them do tend to exist.
And for the great majority of examples, it’s undeniable that the nation and the state match so closely that people quite logically use “nation” as a synonym for “state” and use “national” as an adjectival form because “statey” or “stateish” just don’t seem to cut it (eg, “international relations” is the field that predominantly concerns itself with the relationships between “states”).
So yeah, the Japanese nation and the Japanese state do overlap quite nicely, as does the Icelandic state and the Icelandic nation. Even though the American nation involves peoples of all colours and origins, I, too, think you can make the case it exists, and fills up the United States of America quite handily. Perhaps someday an all-island Irish state will indeed encompass an all-island Irish nation. I don’t doubt a great many people disagree with that.
But this whole “without a nation a state fails” line of argument is sheer bollocks, precisely because there are states–not many, but enough–that function just fine without a unicultural heart.
For instance, could Dave explain who the “Canadian nation” is? Perhaps he could cite some examples of Canadian food, or dance, or costume or something that jibes with that definition.
G8 country. 33 million people. Chugs along quite happily while the economy to its south goes kaput. Even produces some half-decent cultural output. Has occasional ideological crises precisely because it doesn’t have a nation-to-state relationship that matches very well with what seems “normal” elsewhere in the developed world. But, um, it seems to endure.
Tom
As a Canadian I think you slightly misrepresent us. We do not have a clearly defined national character or costume or food but we do share common traits and while us prairie folk dont sound at all like the newfies, the societies we both inhabit differ only slightly. probably the most obvious disparate character is not infact the french but the Albertans, they are far more conservative than the rest of the centre left nation
Susan,
Perhaps we should conclude that the only people rated for their cultural genius by southern irish men are southern irish men.
Horseman.
If you’ve never read John Hewitt you should really read John Hewitt. He may not be as great an international figure as Heaney but the fact that he’s not known to you south of the border begs questions as to the republic’s selection of poets for your english syllabus.
“Why did the tiny minority Protestant community in the south produce so many great artists?”
good schools and a leisured upbringing?
Btw if we really want to get nasty we can take this taxonomy of cultural retardation still further. CS Lewis was, like this anglo southern prods, an anglican so obviously the problem in the black north is the mindset of the Scottish Presbyterian.
“Most likely, Protestants in the south did what a lot of other repressed minority communities do, and found expression through the arts”
If art/culture is concerned with reconciling the personal with the social/trancendent then maybe it takes a certain amount of outsiderness to trigger the creative appetite. Not neccessarily “repression”.
The question is what happens to creativity when the people of a state becomes self-satisfied and everyone agrees on a received national story and pre-digested “national” culture?
Oh yes…..Dustin.
What writers has the Protestant community contributed? Aside form the poets, try the playwrights: Sam Thompson, Stewart Parker, John Boyd, Graham Reid, Gary Mitchell, Christina Reid, Marie Jones…Let me guess you haven’t heard of any of these, of course not.
If you haven’t heard of them you’ll look it up on Amazon and not read it but formulate an opinion based on how much the book has sold. Quite. A very Celtic Tiger trait: patent but highly stupid. Going back to the writers – funnily enough, they put on ‘Spokesong’ and ‘Pentecost’ at the old Northern Bank building in Belfast recently, and anyone who witnessed those shows was pretty blessed. Any single human being who believes that U2 and Enya is superior to the aforementioned plays and playwrights should be clinically certified and locked away for the rest of time. I can only pity the epic stupidity of some of the things said on this thread.