I feel kind of duty bound to comment on this day. I'm naturally opinionated and, with Irish 'roots' on both sides of my family, one closer than the other, I'm very much the diasporic demographic today. So, hmm, Saint Paddy's day and all that...
Right, first things first. I'm not Irish. I am English. I was born here, so were my parents and my sisters for that matter. We all speak in a Mary Poppins accent (my Dad in a lower octave of course). So that's that out of the way. I have no illusions about my immediate state. However I cite my Irish grandfather as a powerful influence on me, I cheer for Ireland in the Six Nations (this wasn't an easy spring for me) and have worn a claddagh ring on and off ever since I knew what it was. I have told as many people as would listen about the time at school I was asked if I was in the IRA and being at a loss as to how to reply. I should have just said: 'Yes. Now feck off before I call my contacts. Can't play football without kneecaps, eh champ?' But to my significant regret I kept quiet and wondered why prods were so intense.
Obviously a little Celtic blood was a bit of a novelty in a very old, very C of E public school so as I grew older and became a little more confident I played up to this, wearing something green on St Patrick's day, referring to things or people as 'grand', just little things to remind myself that if I had to be a posh English person at least I had a twist of green in my personality. Looking back it was probably terminally naff, but given my options as a teenager I guess I should be grateful it placed me somewhere in between the hockey players, musos, nerds and the 'Who Crew' (think about it, remember that bunch of kids in school, if someone said their name everyone else looked puzzled and said: 'who?' Yeah, them).
After school I channelled this into a love of stand-up, that most marvellous method of communication, gazing in wonder as a series of Irishmen (nearly always men admittedly, if anyone knows of a good Irish comedienne please, please tell me) hold forth on what it is to be Irish. My heart went out to them. They were funny, articulate, clever, charismatic and if I was going to relate to anything or anyone I wanted to relate to them. They reminded me of my grandfather's ability to make the girls in Morrissons fall over themselves to help him, way he could charm his way into and out of any social situation. In the warmth and laughter I was taken back to a very simple time where the perfect Sunday meant listening to jokes and music, a warm nostalgia that stays with me, and frankly I'm unwilling to let that memory go. It's a very rose tinted view of an extraordinarily complex man whose family history is entwined in the foundation of the Ireland that exists today, but it's the view I choose to remember and I think he'd probably be quite relieved, though he'd struggle to understand how I can draw comparison between him and Dara O'Briain.
None of this, however, has anything to do with wearing Guinness hats, painting Shamrocks on your face and getting sick on a drink you only consume once a year. I've never liked Guinness and I'm fucked if I'm going to be forced to drink the stuff simply because some Roman slave got dragged over to a rainy island and was so shocked by its pagan ways that when he got the chance he came back to civilise it with Christianity. Not really an uplifting tale from my point of view. The shamrock is a pretty enough emblem that links back to the saint demonstrating the Holy Trinity to Irish clan leaders, evidence that good teachers really are timeless, but it doesn't explain why, even after twelve years in practising CofE schools, most of which I sang in the choir, I still trip up over the Anglican Lord's Prayer and forget the funny little extra bit.
The little tugs at the back of your mind bring you back to where and, more significantly, who you came from, and inform the people we have chosen to become since. I learn far more of a personal diaspora from the poetry of Louis MacNiece than from diddle-dee-dee muzak twiddling away in the background of a bar filled with scrap metal. At the right moment a Pogues song can raise the hairs on the back of my neck but it has that effect on many people because the music is so good. If you can understand every word Shane McGowan sings I take my hat off to you, but the passion is unmistakable. A long storytelling tradition is fascinating to a people culturally hamstrung, ironically by the same Cromwell that tore through Ireland in a storm of religious fundamentalism and bigotry. While we lost much of our folklore theirs became a badge of defiance, it is a fine thing to be Irish because it means you are be default not English, and the English may have taken this more to heart than they realise. We struggle without a cultural grounding, and we know there must be more to our history than mead and Morris dancing. Stout, cider and whiskey with songs sounds much more fun.
So I can see what brings people in their hordes to the streets tonight to annoy the bartenders of the nation, blocking the bar with their silly top hats and flags tied round their shoulders, enjoying the green tat begrudgingly strewn about the place and pretending to like the bitter, heavy stuff in the pint glass. But I shall give it a rest. Tomorrow night I shall celebrate my little diaspora in my own way by sitting down to dinner with my family, drinking wine and talking, laughing, and, if we've drunk enough, singing.
So I leave you with the Irishmen that give me joy: Dara O'Briain, Ed Byrne, Dylan Moran, Andrew Maxwell, Jason Byrne, Brendan Grace, and the reigning king of Irish stand-up, Tommy Tiernan Have a great evening and do whatever raises your spirits. But be mindful of the bar staff. It's not an easy night.
No comments:
Post a Comment