Ireland as the Last Anglo-Saxon Globalist in the EU . . .

Roger, I think Ireland being more informed in the past was due to A) Being a more Catholic country; B) The sense of England as still 'the auld enemy'.

The history of European aid to Catholic Ireland in her struggle for self-assertion, whether via the French or the Spanish is well known. We clung to Europe as a bulwark against London. (incidentally I was introduced to notorious revisionist and Anglophile Ruth Dudley Edwards last year, and even she admitted it was better for Ireland to be part of the EU, as subservience to Brussels was better than subservience to London.)

It's a classic case of having an enemy conferring a sense of purpose and direction. Now that things are less antagonistic, we are left to our own devices, and lacking language and religion have simply become a shapeless consumer blob.

And yes, the self-satisfied insularity of the Anglo countries is depressing. I'm told by those in secondary and tertiary education in England that the numbers of those taking European languages is falling steeply. I've been in a couple of London academic libraries and was struck by how small the European literature sections were. 

Now again, I would say there is a certain inevitability to this given geography. That strip of water between Dover and Calais has played an enormous role in English and European history. Indeed, an English friend who is pro-Europe said to me the other day in exasperation at her country's insularity: "Our problem is that we haven't been invaded enough!" So in one sense if a country has been left to its own devices then it cannot really be blamed for an insular attitude. 

So maybe it comes down to personal preference in the end. I myself like the depths and avenues of European history whose echoes still reverberate today. 

You asked about Spain. Well I guess most know there has been an ongoing battle for decades over the Franco legacy. The Left are determined to erase all vestiges of that period and indeed sadly resemble at times the worst branch of American PC fanaticism. But the traditionalists and the right are awakening, VOX etc.

And Spain has still mighty architectural remains of its glorious past, so a perpetual present of mindless consumerism is less likely. In Spain there are far fewer major chain outlets. Still plenty of small artisanal shops and so on.

Well I had intended to mention in my previous comment that of course a critic could accuse me of a rosy-eyed view, but I am simply giving the best elements of those countries as they strike me.

Needless to say, like any nation in the world they are facing their own unique problems.

On a side note, an online Maltese acquaintance told me that Malta's trajectory is almost exactly like that of Ireland: once hyper-Catholic, but now aggressively anti-so and rushing for consumerism and materialism. Of course, the small size of it makes such a passage more likely and less likely to encounter obstacles.

I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but one thing that impressed me in those countries was the far firmer law and order. Police quite frequently seen on the streets, no hesitation in enforcing the law and so on. I don't know what it's like in Ireland these days, but in London you barely see a policeman.

A few other random thoughts. In Spain I was struck by the fact that Muslim immigration seemed generally less of an issue people were bothered by. I attribute this perhaps to the long history of Islam in the Iberian peninsula.

In Italy there are firmer about such matters. Stall-holders and vendors have been banished from around the Colosseum and I believe there is only one Mosque in all of Rome. 

Again, these are random thoughts thrown out as they occur to me, so I leave them there for what they're worth.

This article seems pretty germane to the conversation.


"Nationalists will no longer be dealing with a few scattered genteel revisionist intellectuals like Conor Cruise O’Brien, but the full tidal ideological force of the American Empire, with its sophisticated cold war psychological warfare tactics, its world dominating oligarchy and every elite institution at home and abroad on its side.

Ireland is uniquely vulnerable to all of this as a nation without a national economic base, wholly reliant on the whim and will of aggressively ideological multinationals temporarily parked there for tax purposes."



Will Ireland survive the Woke Wave?

Again, hurried, initial thoughts to you, kj



!!! - Whoa! That last is very striking indeed!




Yes, indeed.

It is strange: the old Catholic Ireland was less closed-minded, less insular, more global in a good sense: open to - call it "Rome and Paris" - as well as inevitably "London and New York" too. (I tend to see NYC as the de facto capital of America, because of Wall Street and the mighty media trendsetting power there].

Now, though, Ireland may be more insular than ever. Simply dominated by "London and New York". (Also Hollywood.)

To be continued . . .

I would say to that, Maolsheachlann, that it is another instance of fundamental difference between the Anglo world and the European world. Advocates of the EU in Europe have no problem reconciling their own cultures with a Federal European Political sphere. All the European enthusiasts of the EU I met were also very clearly defined Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians etc.

I think our experience of Ireland being swallowed up by the Anglo culture makes us imagine something similar would happen in Europe, but again the existence of very different cultural practices, plus perhaps the key fact of each nation having its separate language ensures that the various continental nations could never be swallowed up into some homogenous "Euro Culture". 

Well I know it's been said a million times here and elsewhere, but as long as our first language is English how is Ireland ever going to be not massively exposed to Anglo-American culture? It's simply impossible to avoid it. Maolsheachlann had a very moving blog entry on the importance of the Irish language recently.

I think and hope that one of the good things about Brexit may be a lessening in the desire of young Europeans to learn English, hence protecting their cultures further.

I've observed that all the young Europeans who love London have been in my experience hedonistic, pleasure-seeking malcontents unhappy with the "conservatism" of their own countries.

Amen to both.

If the Irish can see more of Europe, less of Anglo-America, see ways that continental Europeans protect their cultures, see some alternatives to liberalism, it can only help her to break out of Anglo-American "insularity".



I think both Britain and Ireland are profoundly European countries, sharing at least 1,500 years of common European history, with Ireland profoundly oriented to European Catholic culture until very recently.

Historically, Britain has been kicking against continental Europe for a very long time. One sees that if one goes back to the Holy Alliance from 1818 -1848.

Britain was kicking against that, too. Just like the EU.

But historically Ireland never seems to have kicked against continental Europe like this.

Even now she is far more oriented to the EU than Britain - as if she's exchanged Brussels for Rome.