Have we forgotten how to be Irish?
Just back in my hotel in London after a great night in The Kingdom Pub in Cricklewood.
We got a pretty ok result from the Italian game and myself and John Peavoy done a little jig when Keane scored.
We fell into company with John of the Spirit of 67 Supporters Club and he introduced us to everyone.
An amazing night was had but myself and John P had a long discussion on the way back, there seem to be an incredible spirit of “Irishness” in the pub.
Everyone stood for the national anthem and everyone wanted to chat/introduce themselves (and no it wasn’t the drink talking)
Its a long long time since both of us have felt that in Ireland and as we chatted on the way back we both put it down to the Celtic Tiger.
We seem to be preoccupied with wealth/debt/helicopters etc and I think it has removed our uniqueness, what we called it tonight was our Cead Mile Failte.
I miss it and I was glad to see it alive in London tonight.
What do you think?
Cead mile failte.. I think not.. You’d be lucky with Aon failte amhain….
i think we are afraid to show our true feelings. We should embrace the fact that we are Irish. We can do local but not national.
Probably.. the ex-pat irish who came to the pubs my parent’s ran from the late 60′s to mid 90′s (when they retired) would shudder in horror at what Ireland was for the past 10 years
When you go “out foreign” you meet the over-the-top Paddys all blindly singing stupid IRA songs, really pushing what they consider their nationality but you also get the Irish who built the world and are still doing it and are far far more proud of their heritage than the folks they left at home, the folks who they yearn to be back with a lot of the time.
I think one of the tests of how well a country and their people can do is when they embed themselves in another country and see how they perform with themselves and the locals. Even in the very western world of San Fran the Irish people I met there made the world a much much smaller place. Open, transparent, getting your back and very importantly believing in you and other Irish people abroad. I’m fairly sure that’s how spud eaters from a rainy rock became so powerful around the planet.
They could teach us a thing or two about what it means to be Irish yet there are loads at home who are doing that now too. This is where I bore people to death about blogs, social networks and so forth but the Irishness on those places is much stronger than in the offline world. But we can influence the offline world. How should we start?
No. We haven’t. I agree with Damien’s comment. Loads of people (yourself quite prominently among them Pat) have been engaged in the lo-fi and under-the-radar business of helping their mates, up-and-coming individuals and companies, for quite a while now. And I mean (in technology) back to the mid nineties at the very least.
The Irish network, at home, between those living on the auld sod, is alive and well and thanks to handy web 2.0-ness and a renewed spirit of engagement, more vibrant than ever.
The helicopters get the media attention. Meanwhile, people are lending each other a hand and figuring out how to make an extra buck, euro, or yen.
i think we did suffer from debt generation but we will see a firmer sense of an older, more community Ireland now with the economic situation.
i think we have so much to be optimistic, i think actually it kinds of suits us as a county to be in a more community orientated postion-that IS ireland..we might return to being a but like AMerica now given the ironic turning of the tables with disappearing wealth…that is why US and irealnd have such a great relationship and history down thru the years
Obviously enough, since I was the other half of this conversation, I would tend to answer in the affirmative to this question…..
While agreeing with a lot of Damien’s sentiments, the people we met last night were “untainted” by the Celtic Tiger’s increased expectations and the strong sense of community was palpable. This was across the generations too, not just within the pensioners in the crowd (not you Pat
).
These were people who don’t expect Spa breaks, Machiattos or designer wellies. They would be happy earning 20 £, € or $ per hour, (ref a recent twitter conversation) and certainly welcomed the 2 strangers in their midst like old friends…..
I’m not saying that we’ve all lost our Irishness, but the sense of community and friendliness is way stronger over there, which in my opinion is a combination of the ethos of Ireland from years ago and the yearning to connect with those from the “auld sod”.
Even in my local in Cork, I can’t imagine that as many people would chat with Pat & I, as did those strangers last night…
With Sean O’S on this – the Irishness I know is a particular one which binds early stage businesses together (and specifically the one around tech).
This was very evident in San Fran this week at Web2 Expo where I got to talk to loads of the guys from the North who were over with the WebMisssion. We were all broadly Irish and all really interested in sharing, supporting and exploring how we can work together.
That is as least as strong in Ireland as it is anywhere.
keith
i love Cricklewood and miss it dearly…. God bless The good old Galteemore dance hall and the Red Cow Boys of the Crown Moran Hotel who always look after me terribly well. For a street that was at one point entirely Irish now undergoing another regeneration….
That said I’ve never met the ‘staunch’ Irish there and I don’t agree with all of the comments – but maybe its just how and where I live… What I had in London was merely just the ‘boys’ having a pint and everyone is welcome… For the non-believers that ‘the internet’/ celtic prrrr/ evolution hasn’t changed us all? take a trip out North Dublin direction. It is a fine pint and a good game of hoops you will get
Funny that when I return to my [now] home town of Ballyboughal, trad music sessions a regular… The country pub for which there are so many… ‘a sense of Irish’ is a 20 minute drive from Dublin city.
Still miss Cricklewood, the Galteemore dance hall and the reminisce that was my home for so much time… Great to see it mentioned again…
Thanks Pat and John for the memory lane – enjoyed the post.
Not forgotten, just pushed into a cupboard whilst Ireland concentrated on being all global and modern like!
This post strikes a chord, I grew up in London and was a fairly frequent visitor to the haunts in Cricklewood. Young and old Irish sharing the same spaces and having a great time.
Now, here i am in Ireland, born in England to Irish parents, and my father in his 80s still going strong in NW London. He and his friends, who came from all parts of Ireland, still meeting up twice a week for the craic and their view on life over a pint. And it aint just a club for the oldies either, its vibrant with 2nd and 3rd generation young Irish who enjoy the atmosphere.
The Irish who left Ireland in the 40s and 50s brought their culture with them, and then made sure it was maintained and protected and the results of that are still apparent today.
Ireland still has it too, Sean O’Sullivan got it right in his comment and its just a case of letting those values rise to the surface again.
I also remember (maybe 6 or 7 years ago) those ‘old fellas’ sipping away and talking about when Ireland might do a belly flop. Funny how some things are more obvious from a distance. They wer’nt talking about a global recession, just a picture of an Ireland gone mad.
Oh how lucky the US made the biggest splash first, otherwise we might have looked REALLY …..?
Lets be positive tho, the next few years will be bumpy but we’ll come out of it stronger and more intact – a nation once again! Something of Irelands old identity will return, and this time we’ll have the strength of humility and the wisdom of hindsight, and we’ll be able to resurrect it in a modern context. Irelands aspirations will find a new route and home grown talent will make new things happen.
Time to start talking to the neighbours again – is’nt it true that the simpler things are often the best?
Like it or not, the differences in culture are obvious and absolute. ,