Irish identity
Friday, December 21st, 2007A recent topic posed the question of Irish identity. I don’t recall the precise wording so for fear of annoying The Mammiban I won’t use an exact quotation but it was something like ‘What does it mean to be Irish?’ It’s not something I think about much. I have regular almost daily contact with old pals in Dublin & neither do they. None of us ever thought of ourselves as football shirts. Lately though it’s become a matter of some urgency. Lately I find I’m the subject of the Hurling Test. The Hurling Test? Norman Tebbit, a non-descript Goebbals lookalike who paraded thuggery like a pet poodle, came up with the concept ‘The Cricket Test’. This was an on-the-spot identity test; who you cheered for in cricket in England determined your identity. It was of course a cheap shot, worthy of Rule 26 at it’s best but when the muck flies some of it always sticks. Lately I’m under scrutiny as to how Irish I am.Mostly it’s about music. Maybe it should be called the Christy Moore Test; if you love Christy you’re Irish & if you don’t you’re a .. a .. a what? I was trying to colour some music & pipes & whistles were the only option. Hi-tec promises much & delivers little .. a case of anything gores & nothing works. Biz as usual. The pipes, the uilleann pipes are not a unique concept in structure but they are a one-off miracle in tone & dynamics. You can’t sample the pipes. Well you can but it sounds like someone set fire to the petshop. So I took a look at ITM in Nederland. For those of you who don’t know ITM is Irish Traditional Music. No ‘Inc.’ Not yet.
The results were startling. It seems ITM is very popular in Nederland. Besides the usual theme pubs, Scarcity O’Pahtayties & such like, many people actually play Irish music. Sorry .. I meant many play ITM. So what, I asked myself, is ITM. There are of course language & cultural anomalies. Or at least you’d think there would be but there is’nt. ITM is a kind of full-blast O’Disneyland version of Darby O’Gill & Deh Littil Peepil. Enter Christy Moore & Co.
I did have some really great recording sessions with a Dutchman who played whistles, accordian & bodhran. His bodhran playing was nothing short of astonishing. I started calling him Ginger Baker. For those of you who don’t know, Ginger Baker was known way back in the 1960’s to bang the odd drum with an ensemble called The Cream. My Dutch bodhran player quickly got over the shock of being likened to a ‘pop group’. Most bodhran players would improve their sound no end if they played the bodhran with a knife. Or a hammer-action drill. Or a bottle of nitric acid. Or suspend disbelief a while, pretend it’s a pittza & eat the bodhran. Anything but play it. This guy was something else entirely. He played with fierce drive & impeccable rhythm. This guys playing was the dogs ballocks. His whistle playing was every bit as good only he did’nt always think so. I wondered why this could be. I found out soon enough. We had a few goofy takes but I just sampled & dropped it back in again. It works. Simple? No. After 10 beers all playing had to stop. This was not because we were unable to play any more. Au contraire, the kitchen was just warming up. The crockery was just starting to rattle but it all stopped dead on it’s arse. I may have heard some mutterings about protestant work-ethos but in all god’s teeth I was too busy looking for the bottle-opener.
It seems the ITM is now an off-shoot of The Legion of Mary. Remember them? The forerunners of The Mammiban .. If you’re not old enough to remember them just think Joni Mitchell. Who? Joni Mitchell [nee Anderson] wrote & continues to write incredibly great songs & music but in the 70’s she was the icon of the Irish Professional Virgins, all sensitive winsome souls who had all had encounters with their very own Uncle Ernie. Maybe this is where Irish Identity begins to make some sense of a sort. Irish women were all had by Uncle Ernie [or Seamas or Conor] whereas Irish men were the exclusive-abuse franchise of our educators, Brothers & Fathers alike. It’s only fair to say all this was before the rise of The Kerry Babies, Ireland’s first go at post-natal contraception. You never heard of The Kerry Babies either?? It’s very simple [again]; you are a sexually active teenage girl in Iteland with no rights to control your own fertility so you get pregnabt, give birth & then throw your new-born off the nearest cliff. See? Simple! Never mind; let’s get on with the gig. Where were we? Oh yeah, pipes & whistles …
I looked about for a piper. I took a name on good advice. The name even had a website!! I looked. It looked good too. They even have c.d. sales. Annaman scian! It looked good ’til I looked at the c.d. samples. It was all Mudder Reilly’s Drainpipes, Johnsons Motorcar, Finnigans Elephant & McBrides Railins .. same old same old ..
All well & good. It takes all sorts. The website had all the usual awful personae pics of people who feel the need to wear hats to play. They should change their heads! But needs must & the divil drives so I drove on. I sent a mail. I got a mail back, a glowing positive mail. I thought. So I sent some mp3 of work-in-progress. In return I got nothing. Cuiness [pro: kew-ness]. Nothing. So I wrote more. You get the ‘come on’, what do you do? Join the Legion of Mary. Alas I am a dozy jackeen for I persisted. Finally I got a vitriolic reply, a nasty piece of pidgin-intelligentia drivil, objecting to my inference of plastic paddy syndrome. Plastic Paddy Syndrome. Never heard of that either? Well now … sez he ….
You think you’re Irish? No you’re not. You are a value-added-acquisition [Celtic]. I found this out by the slow road. My bodhran player brought along a dvd on one session. For those of you who think you know; a session is where/when everyone gets drunk & sings about having no pahtayties. For those of you who do know; a session is where you play & record music. After the obligatory Legion of Mary no-music-after-10-pints edict was reached we watched the dvd. It was The Best Celtic Music From Ireland. ?? It was produced under the moniker Gael Force. Unless my memory fails me Gael Force was the music of Jack MacAuley, except of course Jack played in a ‘pop group’, called Them, whose ranks also included another grumpy Irishman named George Ivan Morrison. This Gael Force was another parcel of spuds. No sign of Sean O’Riada. Of course Sean O’Riada is dead but his music is also dead now, except for when it’s ponced off by the chancers & culture vultures. Still think you’re Irish? This abomination of a dvd featured Mary Black doing her best Shirley Bassey & Christy [praise & blessings be upon him] Moore doing his gold-plated-shovel bits. Still think you’re Irish? Tick the right boxes & you are. The only thing that shone on the entire presentation was Sharon Shannon. Her band rocked & rolled & defied gravity in places. Stunning stuff. That’s Irish; break the rules, push the limits, make wonderstuff straight from the kitchen. Do miracles with a little. I believe the Dutch is ‘We row with the spoons we have’.
I thought the English were the New Irish. Essentially stupid. They, the English, qualify in all the right catagories .. liars as leaders, export the poor, feed the rich, the De Valera Constitution [round up the usual suspects][& shoot them], the Cosgrave dynasty, Garret FitzBallocks, the small farmers & the eternal no pahtayties mentality. The English show no signs of improvement; Soviet Britain is as it does, Blairznev foxtrot-oscars only to be replaced by Broondropov. Plus ca merde plus ca meme merde. Just look at the football team [though on recent shows there maybe Ireland is the New England]. Same old same old. But Dutch ITM [patent pending] shows all the signs of overtaking all possible forecasts. You want to be Irish? Go Dutch. Get a whistle or a bodhran or a fiddle & play Flahertys Jax or Me Mudder Have No Boat It Have Sunk & you’ll do fine. Play your cards right & they’ll give you honorary wooded shoes. If you want to be really rilly rilly good grab a set of pipes & a stupid hat, spend 8 hours a day meditating on your analysis of the infinite .. blaziz jayziz you’re Irish!!!
I’m not. I was only born there. I only lived there. I realise that does’nt qualify me as Irish. I don’t like Christy Moore? .. c’mon! I’m just a weirdo from Finglas. Finglas used to be in Dublin. Dublin Ireland not Idaho. Same difference. Phil Lynott was a nigger in Dublin. Me too. Just a nigger of a different colour.
You be Irish. I’ve had enough of the disease.
Just get your pipes & your hippy hat & blow rasberries. No-one will notice.
Austin Coll
Zwolle
Dec 21
