Thread: I’m not comfortable with bullies who decide who is excluded. For years many were told we weren’t ‘real’ Irish or were exiled or physically attacked.

I’ve noticed this far right behaviour has grown recently, so I want to do an updated exploration of what it is to be Irish

In the 20th C entire categories of people were excluded, or worse, criminalised. Only in 1993 were gay men decriminalised. Unmarried mothers, people of colour, Feminists, Trans people, people of different religions & none etc were either excluded or grudgingly tolerated.

There are lots of definitions of culture, ethnicity & nationality but I think being Irish goes deeper than those ideas. In the early Republic, for instance, it was about the Irish language, rural society & Roman Catholicism. The ‘dancing at the crossroads’ trope.

This early vision gradually eroded under the undeniable fact that Irish people were part Scandinavian, Norman, English, Welsh, Scottish, Spanish & French etc & had different origins & perspectives. Dev’s so-called ‘Comely Maidens’ trope didn’t acknowledge our diversity.

Of course history has shown these ideas to be imperfect indicators like Irish wolf hounds, shamrock & round towers. Symbolic ideas, but they don’t tell you anything about what it is to be Irish or what makes an Irish person Irish, culturally.

These categories don’t get that Irish is an embracing culture. It is open to other cultures & integrates them. Thus Elizabeth’s I despair that her agents became ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’ Think too of global Irish celebrations - St Patrick’s Day & Haloween

There are of course negative stereotypes that have been waged against the Island. The drunken, the fighting & the garrulous Irish etc. There are the positive ones too - the land of saints & scholars. But these only tell you so much if anything at all.

Most would agree that learning to tell a story is a common Irish trait - it led to the finest novelist & poet, in English, of the 20th C, Joyce & Yeats. That story telling is about communication. Story telling has always been exalted in Irish culture, since at least the Celts

From ancient times poetry has been judged the highest form of culture in Ireland. Even today poets are respected more than any other creator in Ireland (with musicians a close second). It’s a fundamental part of our culture, if not a well paid one!

The Filí (Irish bards/poets) had charge of the listing of those entitled to vote in electing a Celtic king. Thus their verse literally gave power & this ancient validation lingers on in respect for books, libraries, learning & words in Ireland. Fascism does not.

And racists seem to forget that Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, is about Leopold Bloom, a Dublin Jew & his wander around the city. There is a constant anxiety (again going back to the Celts) about how others might see us & our need to look after them.

Welcoming of strangers is a big feature. Racists don’t seem to know about that one. Welcoming is because of another Celtic tradition of wanting to be seen as generous & friendly - in Hiberno-Celtic culture, to be seen as mean was the worst reputation you could/can have.

A reputation for meanness was feared by ancient Irish Celtic kings as the powerful nomadic Bardic class (the Filí) might make a poem of your tight pockets & you would end up a universal laughing stock, unable to rule. So generosity of spirit is a fundamental trait.

Unti recently it was considered rude to describe someone as a foreigner or a stranger. There is a truth to the Irish cliche - a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet - in ancient Irish culture. This automatic friendship often puzzles visitors. Our greeting is 100,000 Welcomes!

Stories of inspectors to the shacks of victims of the Great Hunger (1840s Irish Famine when 1-1.5m died) recount the starving trying to offer their visitors the tiny amount of food they had. Racists seem not to know that about Irish history. Or that we were migrants then too!

This Irish cultural trait is hospitality. The famine story tells how deep this is in the Irish psyche. You can’t claim to understand Irish culture if you are rejecting refugees from horrific trauma elsewhere, nowadays. Imagine if Canada or the US had done that in the 1840s!

Yet another cultural trait is a lack of expected formality in dealing with senior figures in society. Slagging is part of that tradition (the more u like someone the ruder u are to them if you are Irish). It’s not unusual to hear ‘How are yeah? Ye aul’ Bollix’ as friends meet!

This informality comes directly from Hiberno-Celtic tradition. Irish kings were elected from a derbfine (4 generations of relatives) within a kingdom of only several thousand people. Thus a ruler could not afford to upset voters or those who might influence them

Thus the far right trope of the distant leader on his (& it is always his) white horse to solve our problems, as only he can, is totally antagonistic to Irish tradition & culture. Fascists please take note. It was tried here in the 30s & was swiftly seen as risible.

Another trait is based on our openness & language. Even where someone doesn’t speak Irish, their Hiberno-English has grammar & ideas based on the ancient tongue. It has also given a psychological bilingualism - a recognition of different ways of seeing. Layers of meaning.

Now all these traits are extremely common & widespread - there are some people who don’t have them, here, though. They’re called the far right & they don’t understand Irish culture. Exclusion is a negation of Hiberno-Celtic tradition. (Thus a boycott is a nuclear action!)

Whilst I’m not saying that other cultures don’t share some of these traits I can confirm that for 30y I’ve asked visitors to Ireland what their experience is & they all touched on these (& also how odd it was that Irish people kept asking them what they thought of the place!)

It’s hard to define what is traditional Irish culture, but I can confirm that racism, hate & ignorance are definitely not, since at least 500BC. I’ve read the manuscripts, asked visitors & consulted experts rather than trotted out half-formed nonsense about what it is to be Irish

Finally I find it extremely offensive when I hear these vice-signalling, yellow-vest wearing, jack-boot stomping, rabble rousing tulips talking about the ‘swamping’ of Ireland. Before the famine there were twice as many living here, as now. Shame on them for insulting our dead

I get attacked a lot for standing up against hate on Twitter. Recently that’s resulted in death threats & demands I shut up. As a riposte I decided to amplify my voice by having a special deal on my work - 3 original drawings for just €149/£136. Please check availability with me https://twitter.com/robertbohan/status/1288040141009846274