|
|
Post by kj on Aug 19, 2017 10:50:11 GMT
I think you're being kind. O'Toole is a kind of Trotskyist,(he speaks at the Ireland Marxist Conference every year) he wants permanent revolution, nothing is ever enough for him - he is always moaning and complaining, hates the Church, loves the EU and globalism etc. I believe that line you quote is just a sop thrown to critics.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 19, 2017 11:02:33 GMT
Just sent this letter to the IT:
Dear editor
I was surprised to find myself agreeing with much in Fintan O'Toole's article, "Ireland's story doesn't make sense any more." Mr. O'Toole, being rather more reflective and historically-minded than most progressive commentators, understands the need for a national narrative, for a defining sense of "us". He asks "whether there is a story about “us” that comes closer to our economic realities, that takes pride in an active State, that embraces a secular pluralism, that frees up our sense of place and community and that gives some content to our attachment to a republican ideal.
There are two main problems with this aspiration, in my view. The first is that is is so uninspiring. Very few people will get excited by "secular pluralism" or "a republican ideal". These things are abstractions. The other is that people need to feel a sense of continuity, of tradition. Identity can't simply be re-invented, David Bowie-like. Mr. O'Toole makes much of present realities, but present realities are ephemeral things.
Let me propose that no national narrative has come close to galvanizing the Irish people as powerfully as the ideal of Gaelic, Catholic Ireland which pushed us to win independence and to build a new State. True, it had its mythic elements, but Mr. O'Toole is right to insist that these are inevitable in any national narrative. Gaelic, Catholic Ireland is still the vision of Ireland we sell to tourists; it's the vision of Ireland we keep reacting against but that continues to haunt us. Instead of fighting it, why not embrace it again?
I hope they publish it. I've had quite a few letters in the Irish Times, but my favourites usually don't make the cut!
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 19, 2017 11:45:47 GMT
kj, it's not that I disagree with you, it's just that I think Fintan O'Toole is one of these naive people who really think they can have their cake and eat it-- that they can have a liberal, progressive, secular society while still holding onto the good parts (as they see it) of tradition and national character. This conversation between Terry Eagleton and Roger Scruton is an example of this delusion. Eagleton seems to really believe that Marxism will free us up to really pursue the higher things in life. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOdMBDOj4ec |
|
|
|
Post by kj on Aug 19, 2017 15:14:16 GMT
I think he is less naive than you make out. It is clear enough to me from his track record that he has no time for anything Irish pre-70s and 80s when the post-Independence stable society started to receive its first knocks. His ideal is a wishy-washy globalist socialism.
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Aug 21, 2017 18:19:24 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 21, 2017 18:41:56 GMT
That's a really excellent article-- thank you for drawing my attention it. It's almost a bit too clever in some places, but turning Fintan O'Toole narratology against his own narratives is a nice touch. I especially liked this:
O’Toole is apparently someone who cannot bring himself to define the boundaries of an Irish identity or an Irish nation, in any practicable sense. At most he will say that we need a more pluralistic identity. Perhaps this too is a fiction and a construction but at least one certified by Liberal mores. In any case, the Left-Liberal diagnosis since the 1960s has been, “More pluralism” and now “More diversity”. But no Liberal will say “when”. No Liberal will say “The patient has had enough mass-immigration, or globalism, or openness or diversity”. The medicine will keep being administered until the doctor tires or the patient chokes.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 21, 2017 19:42:08 GMT
You know, I enjoyed that article not only for its arguments but for its style. That kind of engagement of serious ideas is the kind of public discourse I find admirable and I wish there was more of it. I've just been reading a set of lectures from a Christians in Broadcasting lecture series in the UK in 1995. I love that sort of reflection, taking a step back from the hurly burly of controversies and headlines.
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Aug 21, 2017 20:02:00 GMT
I just re-read it, and it is a truly superb article: clinical, cool, respectful yet scathing. I've even seen a few American friends share it on FB because they think it captures something relevant to the US also.
Shame is, I doubt O'Toole will ever read it, as he probably wouldn't go near their website 'out of principle'.
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Aug 22, 2017 7:31:33 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 22, 2017 8:16:15 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Aug 22, 2017 9:23:39 GMT
There was actually another installment by Fintan O'Toole prior to the one I posted, but I haven't the will to dig it out. Its on their website. In essence, he bangs on and on about the fact that Ireland has a 17.5% non-national population, and that this therefore renders Irish narratives untenable.
It is clear to me that in spite of the phoney hand-wringing, O'Toole loves this fact. It allows him to see Ireland as a test-laboratory for his kind of global socialism. That is why Irish narratives of nationalism must be declared redundant.
Much like the Pope saying the security of citizens must come second to the priorities of refugees and migrants, for Fintan the 17.5% decide everything; the 82.5% Irish are secondary.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 22, 2017 9:32:37 GMT
Yes, Peter Hitchens is right when he says that leftists WANT mass immigration because they want national cultures to be overthrown.
This is why I don't like to get into discussions about asylum seekers and refugees. Because it's not really about asylum seekers and refugees. That's just a Trojan horse (just like "abortion in the case of rape" is a Trojoan horse). It's about transforming the cuture.
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Aug 22, 2017 9:39:09 GMT
A lovely irony is that fact that Ireland's largest non-national community, the Poles, preserve their own culture and traditions: the language, their food stores, social clubs, and most ironically of all, hugely well-attended Polish masses while the Irish congregations become ever smaller.
I attended a Mass this Christmas day in Galway in what is claimed to be Ireland's smallest church. The priest was Polish and his homily was a hectoring attack on Irish people for surrendering their faith, and warning about the effects of 'another religion' spreading over Europe. I was I had recorded it.
O'Toole gives the game away in the article I posted when he declares it is 'fortunate' English is our first language. Why? Assumedly so the newcomers can fit in. But other European countries have hundreds of thousands of immigrants who learn French, German etc. O'Toole is very transparent to me, in spite of his attempts at camouflage.
|
|
|
|
Post by assisi on Jul 23, 2019 13:21:45 GMT
Una Mullally bemoans in an IT article yesterday the fact that the Dublin Flea Christmas Market was cancelled.
She says that 'It was an exercise in community, creativity, entrepreneurship, friendship and fun' and that 'it has fallen victim to Dublin’s doomed trajectory'.
She goes on to say 'But Dublin is slipping away, trying on someone else’s ill-fitting clothes, looking ridiculous, gravitating towards nonsense, and embarking upon an era of profound regret. And no one seems to be able to get the city to cop on. Why would those in power try to pull it back? Plenty of people are making a lot of money from the blandification of the capital.'
Are individuals like Mullally incapable of seeing their part in all this, their relentless criticism of Ireland's old guard for a shiny globalist future? It seems not.
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Jul 24, 2019 13:58:35 GMT
Really? What a stunning lack of self-awareness from Mullally. Or maybe not so stunning....
|
|
