Nefarious

As someone who has never been on the receiving end of racism I can only imagine how hurtful it must be. Judging someone by the colour of their skin or their country of origins is the basest form of ignorance and pointless stupidity.

Being Irish, of course I’m sure not all my compatriots can say they’ve never experienced some from of xenophobia, either in relation to the potato eating leprechaun or the car bomb planting terrorist. We have a tendency to laugh it off now, sure we’re great crack, everyone loves us, that’s all in the past. And if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Maybe this is the best way to deal with bigotry although I’m sure Irish people who have suffered abuse and segregation would (understandably) disagree. It’s not so easy to be flippant when you or your family have been degraded or had to endure indignities because of where you are from.

So I can completely understand why there is such an abhorrence of a very certain ‘N-Word’ by the people who it has affected. It is a word that has been used with cruelty to degrade, belittle and alienate entire races.



What needs to be remembered however, that a word can only be as hurtful and offensive as the hate behind it. The problem isn’t the combination of letters that form the word, but the memory of murder, rape, oppression and slavery that it has been based on, sadly even to this day.

It’s this point that highlights the ludicrousness of the decision for future editions of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be published without the ‘N-Word.’ It’s not the fact that the character Jim is referred to as ‘nigger’ that is offensive. It the abuse and intolerance he copes with on a daily basis.

Despite this Jim is possibly the noblest adult character in what is one of the first books to address the subject of an unequal and unjust America. Mark Twain was intelligent and articulate, one of the greatest writers of his generation. A declared liberal and civil rights supporter in a time when such things were not popular in his home state of Missouri, the only group he was attacking in his opus was the ignorant.

One of the main points of this classic work of literature is that the main character, Huck, learns to question the accepted norm, that is racist and exclusionist, and begins to treat people for who they are rather than pigmentation or class.

Censoring a word will not change the fact that racism exists or, that even today, African Americans can probably still consider themselves second class citizens. Nor will its eradication make it easier to forget the past.

Apparently some of the thinking behind it is that people won’t read it because the tome is already assumed to be racist partially due to the 219 times that the offending word is used. But with the word being used in such a way to highlight ignorance of the user, surely explanation and education is better than suppression or restriction.

The only thing that is affected by this is the work of one of the Great American Writers. When the world already suspects that as a nation, America is some what anti intellectual, why perpetuate this by messing with one of their own masterpieces?



Even I can see that it is pointless move with no benefit to anyone. And I’m just a thick Paddy.

Jingoistic

I used to want to be an actor. Actually maybe that’s not necessarily true. I think I just wanted to show off. Acting was something that let me do that but Stand Up Comedy probably suited me better because I was on stage on my own, not sharing the spotlight with anyone. We’ve discussed my enormous ego before I’m sure.

Anyway, between the times I started school and reached the end of my first (and only) year in college I had taken part in an assortment of amateur productions you would expect from institutes relying on funding from Fianna Fail led governments. Production values aside, it was something that gave me a lot of pleasure and to an extent it was something I was good at.

I have played the biggest roles you could imagine a young Irish boy would ever dare dream of. Over the years I have portrayed, with conviction matched only by the greatest student of The Method, three of the biggest characters you can imagine.

My big break came as the saviour of all our souls. Jesus Christ. Not the nativity, I did the gritty one. The Easter play. I was originally cast as St. Peter but I guess the director saw something in me and moved me up to the big role. I was a bit miffed at first because my dad had made me the sword that Peter uses to chop off the roman soldiers ear and everything. I guess when you are good you are good (or perhaps that should be when you’re good you’re God.) I took the lead role and my thirst for fame and adoration began.

From the King of Kings to the King of Rock n Roll. My portrayal of Elvis Aaron Presley was truly a site to behold. With my chubby face with drawn on sideburns (I couldn’t quite grow them thick enough) to my passable (if intermittent) Memphis accent I embodied all that the man stood for. That I didn’t win Best Actor at the M.A.D. festival was an outrage. Ironically I lost to a man playing Jesus.


The third role of a lifetime, and essentially the reason I’m writing this piece was Padraig Pearse. Non Irish readers will probably not recognise. He is a significant figure in Irish History. A leader in the 1916 rising, he read out the Declaration of Independence for the Irish Republic on the steps of the General Post Office. He was executed for his part in the attempted usurping of British Rule. I had to act out all of this in front of all the Mammies and Daddies when I was 11.

The reason I remembered this is because last week I paid a visit to Kilmainham Gaol. I had some visitors from the U. K. and they wanted to do some touristy stuff. I took them to the Guinness Storehouse, Trinity College, the Museum of Modern Art, St Patrick’s Cathedral and various establishments with a licence to sell alcohol.

I wasn’t really planning on taking them to the Gaol for fear it might be a bit anti-British for them. Three of them were English. They suggested it to me in fact and being the good host off we went. They really enjoyed it. It was an excellent tour even if some of it was (to quote our tour guide Ruairi) “grim stuff folks.”

For me it was a refresher course in all the stuff I knew from history class. A reminder of all the cruelty and violence that had gone on along the streets and footpaths of the city I have spent most of my life. I have never been nationalistic in anyway but this tour made me very aware of my Irishness.

Calm down. I’m not about to take up arms and go and ‘fight for the cause.’ That’s not something I’d ever believe in. I’m a man of words not action, a lover not a fighter, a pacifist, a hippy. I am also aware that, while the world would be a better place if everyone saw things my way, not everyone does.

What I mean by being aware of my Irishness is that it awoke something in me that hadn’t been there for a long time. A sense of pride in where I came from. All these people who were willing to risk and sacrifice their life in order to establish the country I call home. That is something to be grateful for.

And if you are going to be grateful for something you need to think about what it is that you appreciate it. Over the years, for such a small country, Ireland has punched well above its weight internationally. Whether in sport, music, film or most famously literature, for a country with a population of around five million, Ireland has consistently shone.

G.B.Shaw, Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney have all won Nobel Prizes for Literature. Synge and O Casey have written some of the most interesting plays of the last 100 years. Oscar Wilde one of the greatest wits of all time, creator of some of the greatest literary pieces and the quickest retorts. James Joyce is universally accepted as one of the greatest and most complex writers of all time.

Bands like U2 and the Corrs aren’t really my cup of tea but there is no doubting their impact on an international stage. Snow Patrol, Bell X1 and Damien Rice have all made inroads in to the U.S. Music scene.

Bands like these and Thin Lizzy led by Crumlin native Phil Lynnott have no doubt encouraged thousands of Irish people to take a chance, pick up a guitar and form a band. Ireland has a successful and thriving live music scene even if it has lost a lot of support from music labels. In a time of myspace and itunes independent music is the way forward for Irish Bands anyway.

And let us not forget that we have won the Eurovision Song contest on a record seven occasions. (Am I the only one proud of that fact?)

Our achievements in sport are not to be scoffed at either. Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly, Barry McGuigan, Sonia O Sullivan, Bernard O’Shea, Eamon Coughlan, Derbhla O’Rourke, our Rugby team and on occasion our soccer team (but always our fans) have been fantastic ambassadors for our country.

I do need to mention something. The one time I felt most proud of an Irish sporting accomplishment was in 1996. The surge of pride I felt as I saw the tricolour raised and ‘Amhran na bhFhiann’ played as an Irish woman accepted the first of her three Olympic Gold medals. That woman was Michelle De Bruin.

The controversy surrounding her amazing performances that summer later tempered my national pride.
I may have been a 20 year old man but I felt like a child who just been told there is no such thing as Santa. De Bruin was later given a 4 year suspension from swimming for providing a tainted urine sample.

There are probably two things I should point out before someone get the wrong idea that i have suddenly become patriotic or jingoistic. I haven't.

Just because of newly discovered national pride that does not mean I will be standing for the national anthem. It is a song. I don’t stand for ‘Saturday Night’ by Whigfield or ‘Billy Don’t Lose My Number’ by Phil Collins either.

The second thing is the political hotbed of Northern Ireland. The six Ulster counties have never been part of my home country in my lifetime. Northern Ireland, United Ireland it makes no difference to me. If the majority of the people that live there ever want to create a united Ireland then great. If not, fine.

There are a lot of reasons to be proud of being Irish. I appreciate the welcome it affords me when I go away. People are always happy to hear you are Irish and are quick to share a joke with you.

I do hate the stereotype of the Guinness and whiskey swilling, cabbage eating, begorrah spouting leprechaun. The portrayal of the thick Irish bog hopper is something that has always gotten on my last nerve and in my desire to see that squashed I have perhaps forgotten all the good things that it is to be Irish.

Eric

Alcohol has played quite the part in my life. Since I turned 18 ( I was only drunk once before then…Honest) I have regularly enjoyed the glorious highs and the tragic lows that come part and parcel of a trip on the booze hound express. For most people, this is not something that will come as a surprise. For others… Really? Have you not met me?

I think everyone I know has seen me at some stage in various states of inebriation. The likelihood is if you met for the first time it was probably in a bar or at a party or over drinks somewhere. People who I have worked with will have had to wait a bit longer but I think in general, I make a drunken impression pretty quickly.

I like to think I am a charming, affable, drunk. Clever and witty, with a unique outlook on the world around. I tell people I love them, (although not you M.B. it never happened,) like to hug and generally don’t want the party to end. For the most part, this is the case.

Occasionally, very occasionally mind, I have gotten a bit cranky when tipsy. If I’m in a bad mood beforehand and things aren’t going my way, I might get annoyed. If I get caught up in a discussion, it could turn into a disagreement. I’m never violent but I have on maybe 3 incidents insulted someone aggressively. Once again I would like to apologise to the “pubic haired headed freak”(you know who you are.)

Other than that I think if more people were the same as me when they were drunk, An Garda Siochanna would have a lot less to do on a Saturday night, taxi drivers would probably be a little more pleasant to deal with and hospital emergency rooms wouldn’t have such a queue.

Although, now that I think about it I have actually been to A&E twice due to drunken escapades. Once from rollerblading at 4 in the morning which resulted in a badly sprained ankle and a bruised coccyx, but it was the next day when I went to St. James‘ Hospital.

The second time was another sprained ankle, but it wasn’t mine and it wasn’t my fault. Honest. She pulled me down and I landed on her ankle. Being the gentleman that I am I escorted her to the Hospital.

There was also the pretend time I went to the hospital. What happened was, a very good drinking ‘butty o mine’ was working a split shift. We had a few afternoon libations and he got what scientists refer to as ’the goo.’

So rather than suppressing this urge and going back to work to fulfil his commitment to his employer, we came up with a rather clever ruse to excuse him of his duties. I rang up his place of work and claimed to be a rather distressed motorist. The reason for my anxiety was that I had just hit their employee with my car whilst he was cycling back to work. I was distraught and the poor cyclist was in a deal of pain.

Off course he had to be taken away in ambulance. I was going to follow him to make sure he was ok. His employer, a publican, was saddened to hear this and hoped his employee would be ok and thanked me for ringing him and letting him know. Result. Back to the bar for a celebratory round or eleven.

The next day when my buddy returned to work with a suitable pain in the head for someone who had been in hospital after a run in with a car he was surprised to find that it wasn’t all rich tea and sympathy. Apparently his boss, knowing that he was living in a strange county, away from home and family, went to the hospital to see if he was ok or needed anything. With no record of any traffic accident or my friend, the boss put two and two together and proved he wasn’t wasting his time learning of his addition tables in school.

Other things on the not so clever but oh so fun when drunk list include:

• Singing Michael Bolton and Whitney Houston songs in public (Hi Lisa!!!)
• Stair Surfing (Sliding down the stairs on a part of your body)
• Losing my virginity to a Leprechaun
• Stair Surfing in front of (as a result of) an ex Girlfriends colleagues
• Wearing Zebra print tights under a black baby doll nightie
• Getting my ear pierced

I will admit to doing lots of stupid stuff whilst under the influence of alcohol. But no one has ever really got hurt and I’m very grateful for that. The latest drink aware advert has got me thinking about it though. That’s the advert where they show supposed cctv footage of people falling down and behaving anti socially whilst drunk. They put a laugh track over it so it is like an episode of You’ve Been Framed, but it is to highlight that what you might think is a great laugh when your drunk isn’t always.

I have to say I resent that a little. Falling down when your dancing because you’ve had a couple of margaritas and you’re dizzy because Kylie Minogue is ‘Spinning Around’ is funny. It being on You’ve Been Framed isn’t.

It seems like its just another example of nanny-ist ‘careful now’ attitude that the policy makers in this country have. The ones which say I can’t buy any alcohol after 10.30pm if I want to drink it in the comfort of my own home. Although I can buy 24 bottles of Stella Artois for 21euro before 10.30 thus ensuring that I drink en masse. Responsibly of course.

Who is the 10.30 law trying to protect. Do they think for the teenagers who are likely to be drinking , that it is past their bedtime? Do they think people who want to drink for the entire night won’t be able to organise themselves enough to get to a shop at 9pm and stock up?

The alcohol and licensing laws in this country are ridiculous. I’m not sure if it’s a throw back to the catholic church influence or just further proof that those ‘in charge’ are inept morons. As a grown up I am able to control and monitor my own drinking thank you very much. Just because ‘Anto Tracksuit-McDutchGold’ wants to get in a fight after a night in the Q bar should not effect me.

Maybe if we didn’t have every bar and night club closing at the same time we wouldn’t have a mass exodus of drunken clowns on to the street at the same time. If anyone has ever been to Waterford City to see the mayhem at the crossroads where the 3 nightclubs and all the fast food take-aways are will know what I’m talking about.

People will get disgustingly drunk and messy and might want to start a fight. I put a lot of this down to the attitude towards drink we have in Ireland. It’s almost a case of which came first the Chicken or the Egg. Do we pile as much booze into us as quickly as possible because we have archaic drinking laws or do we have archaic drinking laws because we pile as much booze into as quickly as possible.

It has been going on for years and the stereo type of the drunkard Irishman did not come out of nowhere. I think sometimes we see that as a charming stereo type as opposed to what it is. The disgusting depiction of abuse and violence caused by alcohol in this country for centuries.

It really is nothing to be proud of when you are in another country and a local turns around to and says “You Irish. You are crazy. Guinness. Whiskey”

When it comes down to it though, everyone is responsible for their own behaviour and I’m a big believer in as long as no one else gets hurt do what ever feels good. So if you want to get drunk and lairy and square up to someone for ‘looking at your bird,’ don’t be a dickhead.

If you want to go get shit-faced, dance like an eejit and spend the next day in bed because of a hang over, I say go for it. I’ll get the lucozade.