The "National Soul" of Ireland

Actually, to strike a note of pomposity, I take a median position on this one.

I disagree with Hibernicus and Sheehy Skeffington that Irishness is simply whatever the people on this island get up to. That seems so banal an idea that it's unbearable, and also it seems unrealistic-- some things are much more representative than others. Surely hurling is a much more Irish sport than volleyball, for instance.

On the other hand, I don't go to the other extreme-- I don't believe there is some kind of essential Irishness which transcends our actually practiced traditions, customs and way of life. In all honesty I do think Irishness is partly imaginary, or created, although I actually don't think this is a bad thing. (After all, how much of one's own personality and identity is "imaginary", and how much is not imaginary? Human beings are purposive and intentional by their very nature.) I love a line I came across in a Clive Barker book: "That which is imagined need never be lost".

I think the notion of "essential Irishness" is too comforting because we don't have to do anything to preserve it. We can just go with the globalist, consumerist flow and still have this inner and ineradicable Irishness that makes no claims on us.

I don't believe that. I think the soul of a culture is embodied in its way of life and traditions. Even if it's imagined, it has to be practiced, to be actually given life. I do think we can cease to be Irish in any meaningful sense and we are actually getting close to that-- where Ireland is simply a name on a map.

At the risk of dropping names, I've had much discussion about this with Roger Buck. He thinks my outlook might be Aristotelian as opposed to Platonic, in this regard. I think he says he leans more towards the Platonic although I may be misremembering that.

I 'inherited' Buckley's Memory Ireland from a deceased priest (Tralee born). It's not a large volume. Although it's definitely a good snapshot of the early 80s it should be noted that his views can be rather unconservative- he seemed against the original additional of the 8th Amendment and proud of the fact that he lived in Tallaght, which apparently had the highest anti-8th vote at that time; Catholic Bishops are deemed largely against the pro-life amendment. Ironically, Tallaght residents are simultaneously depicted as backward in some ways; mention is made of a resident who spent summer abroad and left his house alarm buzzing for weeks on end, apparently without the neighbours minding. I can't see them ever having been that laid back, unless it was a very quiet alarm.
His social awareness during the Hunger Strike is in stark contrast, and good for him for his intentions of course,- he greatly castigated the Irish Government for a perceived lukewarm-ness of stance. I remember the mad protests in Dublin well;Buckley's description of the prisoners' body organs breaking down one by one shows it all in a different perspective. Another unusual aspect of the affair was Mr Buckley's accusing the Fleet Street press for it's role in encouraging the British Conservative government. William himself seems to have fallen out with the Church over a mass stipend charge during his daughter's serious illness. Ironic, as religious orders in Dublin had always offered mass enrollments for minimal donations, something you don't have in Australia, albeit that's technically different than offering a mass.
Poetry nights in Irish pubs are portrayed as organisational disasters but, goodness, they did exist after all. A property he ended up renting in Kildare had a sheela-na-gig image embedded somewhere which leads to some interesting, but sometimes dry,remarks about this and other Celtic, Viking and Norman traditions- actually a resurgence of interest in all things Celtic came a decade later, so all's not lost

I wonder could any country, even back in 1985, be declared a nation according to Buckley's comments. Very few countries have homogeneity of ethnicity, religion and language.

I am a little puzzled regarding the comment about Ireland not having 'ethnic' integrity. I would imagine few countries have ethnic integrity if that means the strong predominance of one ethnicity. With Celts and Normans/Vikings making up most of the population (I would assume that many of the Scottish planters in the North will have been of Celtic background) then I would have thought we had a good measure of integrity, particularly compared to other European countries. 

I've been re-scouring him since you mentioned the book. A huge portion deals with the H-Block saga and Buckley shows further respect for possible-extreme republicanism by stating that Sinn Fein was the sole Irish party doing anything about the drug trade, probably the second-main topic he writes about: "I have seen film of Sinn Fein members supporting a group of mothers to force a pusher out of the courtyard.."
As someone with an obviously keen interest sense of culture and history, though, however laconic he might seem,he continuously, either consciously or unconsciously,casts a spotlight on a cultural depth that existed or exists in the everyday:

"His wife Odran,to judge by her name, must have come from a little north of there,for her name was that of a saint who has a largely local cult"

"(a nun/headmistress)was a tiny gentle countrywoman,very outgoing and merry,who had a habit of touching your arm or elbow when she spoke. This is a common practice among Irish women,and so relatively obvious that Patsy Segal commented on it after one day in the country."

"he found in the hall of a ruined house a plaque saying Ordo Hiberniae and other things,a post incised with ogham script (very rare in Leinster)...'all right',he said,'cover it all up'. 'why?',said I. 'He didn't want the quare ones coming in',said Michael. 'You mean the archeologists and so on?', I said,'I'm a bit in favour of the quare ones myself.' 'So am I', said Michael,'but you can see his point.' "

"(some poets from Belfast) sat almost permanently in their own table; they were the 'northern lads',and it was as the 'northern lads' that Gus Martin the organiser always referred to them. But he seemed apprehensive about disturbing them with a question about their intentions as they sat holding court"

(also about poets) "their destiny, their complex fate,is not to become American,but to be Irish in relation to America"

(When trying to erect a psuedo-birthplace sign for 'Leopold Bloom') "the working class women of the street came out to jeer and advise...'there were never Jews here' it's Lower Clanbrassil Street you want' and so on until the leader of the delegation...was irritated into crying out,'O, for goodness sake, he's only a character in a book...' "

"Although (Kavanagh) was then thought of as a countryman,a culchie, hating and resenting Dublin, many Dubliners now see him as a laureate of their Dublin,the sleazy, resonant, attractive, petrol-smelling Dublin of Baggott and Leeson Streets,of the Grand Canal.."

"The 500 acres were distributed among what Mrs M referred to as'Galway farmers' though they in fact came from Mayo"

"If you followed the old Celtic calendar,as the media officially did,you would find Winter starting on November 1,and certainly the air felt dark enough to make that plausible,but,as with so many other things, people accepted both this and the alternative"

Appropriately,the author's surname is one of the few that have been lent to a unique expression among older Australians- Buckley's chance, meaning no chance at all- not sure who that original Mr Buckley was.

At the risk of making a complete fool of myself, I want to pretend I am a philosopher and try to respond to this from Mal philosophically. I will also use a lot of red bold that I think may help clarify things.

Sorry if that seems condescending . . . it helps my poor little brain, anyway.



Ok, fool time. And as I am not philosophically trained, I am going to rely on Wikipedia, which doesn't look too bad -- with some interjections about Irishness.

"The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics which has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes. Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape

[or in this case Irishness]

 be considered to exist beyond those objects?


And if a property exists separately from objects, what is the nature of that existence?

The problem of universals relates to various inquiries closely related to metaphysics, logic, and epistemology, as far back as Plato and Aristotle, in efforts to define the mental connections a human makes when they understand a property such as shape or color to be the same in nonidentical objects.[2]

Universals are qualities or relations found in two or more entities. As an example, if all cup holders are circular in some way, circularity may be considered a universal property of cup holders. Further, if two daughters can be considered female offspring of Frank, the qualities of being female, offspring, and of Frank, are universal properties of the two daughters. Many properties can be universal:- being human, red, male or female, liquid or solid, big or small, etc.

Philosophers agree that human beings can talk and think about universals, but disagree on whether universals exist in reality beyond mere thought and speech.

[snip]

There are many philosophical positions regarding universals.

Platonic realism (also called extreme realism" or exaggerated realism) is the view that universals or forms in this sense, are the causal explanation behind the notion of what things exactly are; (the view that universals are real entities existing independent of particulars).

Aristotelian realism (also called strong realism or moderate realism) is the rejection of extreme realism.

This position establishes the view of a universal as being that of the quality within a thing and every other thing individual to it; (the view that universals are real entities, but their existence is dependent on the particulars that exemplify them).
Anti-realism is the objection to both positions.

Anti-realism is divided into two subcategories; (1) Nominalism and (2) Conceptualism.

Taking "beauty" as example, each of these positions will state the following:

Beauty is a property that exists in an ideal form independently of any mind or description.
Beauty is a property that exists only when beautiful things exist.
Beauty is a property constructed in the mind, so exists only in descriptions of things."

From elsewhere on Wikipedia:

"The problem of universals is the problem of whether and in which way universals exist. Aristotelians and Platonists are in agreement that universals have actual, mind-independent existence.

They therefore oppose the nominalist standpoint.

Aristotelians disagree with Platonists about the mode of existence of universals. Platonists hold that universals exist in some form of "Platonic heaven" and therefore exist independently of their instances in the concrete spatiotemporal world. Aristotelians, on the other hand, deny the existence of universals outside the spatiotemporal world. This view is known as immanent realism.[34] For example, the universal "red" only exist insofar as there are red objects in the concrete world.

There would be no red-universal if there were no red objects."

End of wikipedia.


Now as far as this pretend philosopher (i.e. me!) can see Skeffington (and Hibernicus?) would seem to take the anti-realist position regarding Irishness.

Nominalism obviously refers to names. Irishness is just a name or a concept we have something. The only real thing is the name or concept we give to it.

No other reality exists here.

Whereas the realist tradition - which as far as "pseudo philosopher" here knows is the only one taught by the Church - gives reality to such universals either in a Platonic or Aristotelian sense.

As far as I understand these things, I am definitely a realist when it comes to Irishness.

I think I do lean to Platonism here in the sense that the reality I see in Irishness could conceivably exist in worlds beyond ours in the eyes of God and hierarchies of Angels up to the Seraphim . . .

Plato would say that would be eternal, if I understand correctly. I don't necessarily think that, though.

It COULD be eradicable and yet still not be entirely immanent or capable of sensory perception!

How would I know? 

But yes I CAN imagine that redness and Irishness are not necessarily limited to things perceived by the senses.

There may be a redness that Angels can "see" even if they don't "see" with the senses.

I just think there may be dimensions of Irishness that may transcend the total of what we perceive through our senses.

At any rate, Irishness understood in an Aristotelian sense would be something very, very REAL. Not imaginary.

It would just be immanent and not transcendent.


In any event, I am a realist who believes in Irishness as something real - whether it be in the extreme realist view of Plato or the moderate realist view of Aristotle.

I do not believe that Irishness is merely a name or a concept inside our minds.

What do others think? Are you Platonist, Aristotelian (realist) or Nominalist (anti-realist) on the question of Irishness?



(And if anyone cares to correct my "philosophy" - please do! I'm done embarrassing myself now  )

I'm not committed enough to read Mr. Coulombe's article!

I wonder if it comes down to a question, not between realism and nominalism (I doubt very many people are really nominalists) but whether nations or nationalities can be classed as universals.

I suppose we are faced with the question of how to classify a nation like Yugoslavia (when it existed), or Australia. Did Australia exist in the middle ages? Or did it simply exist potentially?

I don't know enough about universals to decide. But I wonder is it really a metaphysical question, or a metaphor drawn from metaphysics? Is Skeffington really drawn to nominalism, or could he be accepting Irishnesss as a real thing but simply a very insubstantial and thin entity?

For instance, masculinity is presumably a universal, but I suppose it could be understood in the thinnest sense. So Skeffington might accept that Irishnesss is a real property-- that Ballymun and Bono both partake of Irishness, truly and not just nominally-- but "Irishness" simply refers to location or origin here.

I would certainly believe in universals, so I would not be a nominalist.

Plato's realm of 'forms' doesn't feel true in the original Greek sense. But it does make some sense in that I believe that if God created the world then universals have a transcendent origin.