Anniversaries - reasons to celebrate.

Or to commemorate. 

Or… not.

In Ireland we have important anniversaries every week of the year. Things like the birth or death of Irish martyrs or battles or the first time an abortion will be legally rendered in this country. But, generally, it seems, Irish people don’t like anniversaries. We have far too many – a result of having too much history.

Furthermore, as a whole, the Irish nation does not celebrate its history or identity. (St. Patrick’s Day is the exception, of course, but even on that one day of the year when we openly celebrate our Irishness, I’m sure many Irish people celebrate our thirst instead.)

                         

So, why is this? 

The Irish have an inferiority complex: having been told by the English for so long that our language, customs, dress, law, society, manners were second to theirs, we believed them. And though it seems like the oppression of the English has been gone 81 years, we still have that sense of inferiority, that lack of pride in our nation. It had been inculcated for so long that it still remains for the next generation. Albeit, this sense of inferiority is subconscious, hidden, but, to an outsider, puzzlingly evident in an apathetic form – Irish people don’t know why, but they don’t seem to want to celebrate their Irishness as much as they should.

The Irish language is the best example. Terrible primary school teachers aside, the Irish language should be thriving in Ireland. People don’t want to speak it, not because they can’t or are afraid of making mistakes, but because, deep inside, they’re ashamed of it.

Like the generations before us, speaking Irish was a symptom of your poverty. Those who held onto the language could not represent themselves at court, could not be employed by the landlord, and would die in destitution and starvation. And, in order for the Irish to survive in this English-engineered world, they had to regard their language and culture negatively. It was necessary. We were able to survive, to raise ourselves up by pulling the Irish language down, under us.

Then there’s the whole ‘if you celebrate the Easter Rising with anything more than a nod, I’ll consider you a radical and a Sinn Féiner’ – another consequence of The Troubles. But hopefully this will dissolve when the 100-year anniversary of the 1916 Rising in celebrated.


As for the other anniversaries that should be celebrated, time will tell.

Happy Irish Independence Day, by the way.

Holidays!

Or vacation - whatever you want to call it. I have it. No more working for a while. The tourism season is over. But unlike a teacher on her summer holidays, I don't get paid for those holidays, and my 'summer' is in winter. Still, I took a holiday so to speak and spent a good month in New York. Rather than reflecting on the entire sojourn with you like a September 'what I did on my summer holidays' essay, I'll skip to the end.

The second half of my US trip would bring me to Albany New York. Or so I thought. “It's a good thing you didn't start walking to downtown Albany, Garvan, as we don't live there anymore.” “Great. So where are ye living.”

I've never heard of Troy, New York. At least, I can't recall the city. So, what have you got to offer?

Many notable people were born or resided in Troy. Hermann Melville, Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president and James Connolly. Wait, what? Is this an American James Connolly, you know like that Irish Rebel who went to the moon with Neil Armstrong?

No. The James Connolly lived in Troy from 1903-05. Couldn't believe it when I found out! What chance!

  

Apparently, the Irish martyr lived in Troy from 1903 to 1905. To support his family of six, he worked for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He continue to be active in pursing socialism and advocating the ideals he was to die for in 1916.

His bust is only a few metres away from that of Uncle Sam whose statue is… well, different, shall we say.

Uncle Sam and Connolly, however, aren’t as dissimilar as their tributes may denote. They’re both personifications and heroes for their respective countries.

And just like his statue in Dublin, I cannot pass by Connolly’s bust without placing a respecting palm upon the cold bronze.

Dare cross Joyce?

In ‘Eveline’, a short story in Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’, the protagonist aspiration of  taking a trip to Buenos Aires with her lover is meant as a metaphor for wanting to escape to a different world, a different life.

When Joyce said ‘daulphin’, ‘oldun’, ‘Tumplan’ and ‘Doubtlynn’ in Finnegans Wake, he actually meant the city of Dublin.

And when Joyce set the scene of Ulysses in Dublin, he actually meant Zurich…

Well, there is truth in my reference to Finnegan’s Wake (don’t forget, though, the other 247 or so phrases for Dublin), and my inclusion Eveline is a weak point due to its forgettability , but my Ulysses remark is completely ludicrous. Well, not completely.

Joyce's grave in Fluntern Cemetary

Joyce lived in Zurich in 1904 and then from 1915-19. And it was his first stop on his self-inflicted, or self-endowed, exile. He was supposed to teach English at the Berlitz Language school (I actually saw an ad on tram 6, going back into the city from Joyce’s grave, for Berlitz’s language school!) there, but was sent to Trieste instead. He returned to Zurich in 1915, and wrote ‘Exiles’, quite fittingly.  ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a young Man’ was published, and he began really getting into ‘Ulysses’. It is difficult to consider that his adopted city could not have inspired him in at least small ways during his time writing there.

One piece of quotable Joycean eloquence said of Zurich is along the lines of Bahnhofstrasse is so clean that you can drink minestrone soup off of it. True, the place is ridiculously clean. Admirable, in a way, but this quality deflates in my eyes when I’m reminded of a TripAdvisor reviewer saying ‘Zurich – world’s most boring city?’. Nah, I don’t think so. But I did have a mission, of sorts.

After seeking and finding his grave in a logical and direct manner perhaps typical of Zurich, but definitely not of our Dubliner, I headed to one of his former residences in the city. And I noticed this on the wall.

Granted, he lived here for less than a year (Jan 1918 - 26 Oct 1918), but I’d have to be some mad fan to trace all the residences in Zurich. Joyce’s tendency to not stay put mirrors his writing style well. Notice how in German ‘novel Ulysses’ translates as ‘Roman Ulysses’ – as opposed to ‘Greek Odysseus’? The house is on Universitatsstrasse, just up the road from… yes, the university. I can imagine the number of literature students who gain inspiration from Joyce’s historic presence in their town – well, those who notice the plaque anyway!

But Joyce is not a forgotten ghost of the Irish diaspora. He is regarded as a citizen of the city: there is a James Joyce Foundation in Zurich, I’m happy to say. As the biggest Swiss city, juggling French, German, Italian, and occasionally English, is a daily occurrence – I recall that having resolving an issue with a clerk at the railway station that I had used all four languages in our conversation – so I suppose the Joyce fanatics of Zurich are the best suited to dissecting sections from Finnegans Wake.

Going over my photos from my recent Swiss sojourn, I noticed I had accidentally captured one of Joyce’s favourite restaurants/pubs, Restaurant Augustiner.. You can see the illuminated sign on the right. I’ve put it in B&W so that we can try imagine it being taken ca 1915, and that that’s Joyce standing right outside.

Dublin Castle

An image blurring in its menacing secrecy

Cold stone, dripping fresh rain from above - the castle’s sky

With every wash, more filth surfaces.

Rising in this place, as the ascendency.

For, I have always seen it, through the black and white

Of a past page, two words written with a trembling clasp;

Under, the castle is deluged. Deluged with ‘traitors’.

Men who were made to wear the devil’s mask.

Mocked for the wrongs, they thought rights.

Two colours appear different in diverging eyes

The castle. Dublin. Ireland. Éire. A Kingdom of…

Servants, sinners, stones and our helpful spies.

A place of high standing - It touches the sky.

Not piercingly, but as a plague, an infection.

A knife is easily removed, and replaced.

But it seeps, and all are under our subjection

It owns the sky; sky around it, around this island.

Overcast, stalking closer to those people there.

Storms and tumults to evict their warmth

Rains, winds; a bittering, biting, breaking air.

Torture’s echoes captured in this courtyard

Do chill each footfall that is caste

With the chocked last words of scandal

From martyrs now at last de-masked.

~ Garbhán Ó Ruis

19/9/12

We Saw a Vision

On this day, September 18th, in 1914, the Government of Ireland Act had reached the statute books in Westminster. This act was set to give Ireland Home Rule; something that the Irish politicians and the Irish people had been aiming towards for decades. But, as is natural in Irish history, bad luck has to mock the wishes of the downtrodden Irish (as if Father Time and Mother Éire had had a very difficult divorce. This probably originated in the early Middle Ages when Ireland refused to experience the Dark Ages. )

World War I shook the Home Rule Bill off the table in Westminster. And it would only be back on the table after the conflict had ended.

“Hmmm, lunchtime, maybe? If not, then surely by Christmas?”

Eh, no.

And so, frustrated by this, the IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) met to decide the fate of Irish republicanism. The Easter Rising was the ultimate result of this meeting. In commemoration of the importance of the site (north Parnell Square), the Garden of Remembrance was opened in 1916, on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. 

For those who gave their lives in the fight for Irish freedom…

Incidentally, also on this day, in 1922, another bill rose to attention. This was the Constitution of Saorstát Éireann Bill, which W. T. Cosgrave (the first Taoiseach/Prime Minister/ President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State) introduced to enable the implementation of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland.

And its successor is still on the table.

In Dublin, not Westminster.  

Blogging-silence

Well, it has been the longest time without blogging. Yes, I feel terrible. They say you should blog every day or at least every second day. I feel that such blogging would diminish the quality of my blog posts - though I don't see this one winning any awards.

The life of a tour guide is a very varied and irregular one. Why did I choose it? I like my routines. No, I love my routines; the very few routines that I actually maintain. I have reminders set so that I do my 'daily' to-dos: 'recite poem', 'quotes of the day', 'work, work, work!'.

Truth is, this year has been really good. I mean this work year. I've been relatively busy (is the blog paying off?). I consider myself lucky, even though I did put the work and preparation in. Hey, Napolean used to emphasise the importance of 'mastering luck' in order to achieve his aims. My sister is the lucky one. I stay away from gambling as much as I can, despite my recent success at the dogs at Shelbourne Park. Beginner's luck.

I do, though, find the topic of luck fascinating. So much so that I decided to my philosophy undergraduate thesis on it. Unluckily, (ironically) the topic of 'moral luck' was suggested, and thus the implication that my supervisor would be that most incomprehensible and therefore ridiculously inept professor/teacher/child minder/night light I have ever experienced.

But, hey, if I didn't lose the silicon head of one of my earphones, I wouldn’t be angered enough to feel the need to have a beer at The Gypsy Rose whilst waiting for my bus home. And this blog post would not have existed.

So, thank you bad luck.

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