Anthony McIntyre ✒ The death of the British queen has led to a deluge of genuine grief running parallel to a torrent of opportunistic posturing.

Thrown up by the pot-pourri is a blend of skulking, sulking and sobbing, from the thieving, the seething and the grieving in that order. 

In the midst of the tears shed have been quite a few crocodile ones, and not just from those whom Arlene Foster some time ago typologised as voracious reptiles. Weeping virgin statues are renowned for their tears, but reason needs to be abandoned before we can believe in them.  

The British monarchy has long served its purpose for status quo ideologues as a feedback loop which has helped maintain the social cement securing the ideological anchor that holds in place HMS Mirage with its passengers journeying as a society as one despite being kept on separate decks, upper and lower. 


The monarchy is the ideological foil to Disraeli's two nations. The new head of the monarchy, Charles, said of his mother that hers was a life well lived. No doubt it was: the splendour and vast wealth would have guaranteed a life in the lap of luxury. Those outside of royalty who benefitted from the wealth seem to have done so by threatening to sue the queen's delinquent son, Andrew. Why wasn't he arrested instead of those who hurled invective at him over his behaviour?

My own son asked me this morning if the queen lived a life of sacrifice. He had heard some servile rim licker spout that falsehood on the television. My answer, if not concise, was waspish: 

Did she fuck. Your mother lived a life of sacrifice, holding things together with barely a cent left at the end of the week, while standing her ground in the face of powerful institutions. Vicky Phelan lived a life of sacrifice as did Bobby Sands.

Not once in the queen's life of privilege did she acknowledge the sacrifice made by this brave young Irishman while those who built their careers on that authentic sacrifice have been fawning over both the monarchy and the memory of the queen in recent days.

My republican and secular sentiments allow me to have no respect for the monarchy, and I am not going to feign deference towards it. What I will do is behave with a dignity so often denied me by the queen's regiments, police and jailers. That means acknowledging that there is genuine grief out there which I refuse to piss over with hateful outbursts.

Against that background I think it wholly objectionable for football supporters to be chanting Lizzie's in a box. I fail to see how that can be passed off as something to be expected from a minority of soccer fans while maintaining outrage at the obscenities chanted about the late Michaela McAreavey, 

There is no need to behave respectfully, just respectably.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

Respectably

Anthony McIntyre ✒ The death of the British queen has led to a deluge of genuine grief running parallel to a torrent of opportunistic posturing.

Thrown up by the pot-pourri is a blend of skulking, sulking and sobbing, from the thieving, the seething and the grieving in that order. 

In the midst of the tears shed have been quite a few crocodile ones, and not just from those whom Arlene Foster some time ago typologised as voracious reptiles. Weeping virgin statues are renowned for their tears, but reason needs to be abandoned before we can believe in them.  

The British monarchy has long served its purpose for status quo ideologues as a feedback loop which has helped maintain the social cement securing the ideological anchor that holds in place HMS Mirage with its passengers journeying as a society as one despite being kept on separate decks, upper and lower. 


The monarchy is the ideological foil to Disraeli's two nations. The new head of the monarchy, Charles, said of his mother that hers was a life well lived. No doubt it was: the splendour and vast wealth would have guaranteed a life in the lap of luxury. Those outside of royalty who benefitted from the wealth seem to have done so by threatening to sue the queen's delinquent son, Andrew. Why wasn't he arrested instead of those who hurled invective at him over his behaviour?

My own son asked me this morning if the queen lived a life of sacrifice. He had heard some servile rim licker spout that falsehood on the television. My answer, if not concise, was waspish: 

Did she fuck. Your mother lived a life of sacrifice, holding things together with barely a cent left at the end of the week, while standing her ground in the face of powerful institutions. Vicky Phelan lived a life of sacrifice as did Bobby Sands.

Not once in the queen's life of privilege did she acknowledge the sacrifice made by this brave young Irishman while those who built their careers on that authentic sacrifice have been fawning over both the monarchy and the memory of the queen in recent days.

My republican and secular sentiments allow me to have no respect for the monarchy, and I am not going to feign deference towards it. What I will do is behave with a dignity so often denied me by the queen's regiments, police and jailers. That means acknowledging that there is genuine grief out there which I refuse to piss over with hateful outbursts.

Against that background I think it wholly objectionable for football supporters to be chanting Lizzie's in a box. I fail to see how that can be passed off as something to be expected from a minority of soccer fans while maintaining outrage at the obscenities chanted about the late Michaela McAreavey, 

There is no need to behave respectfully, just respectably.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

8 comments:

  1. Couldn't have put it better. Points of note, while Rugby or Rugor, Cricket and Horseracing continued as usual, perhaps with a minutes silence, the football programme, top to bottom was postponed. It was as if to remind the "lower orders" that they must grieve, or pretend to, while the wealthy enjoy a day out at Twickers or Ascot or a few overs at Lords. Sickening is an understatement, almost a ridiculous as a five mile que to walk past a coffin. How marcarbe!

    This weekend football again will suffer. The Man Utd v Leeds game has been postponed, why? Because a funeral taking place the following day almost 200 miles south demands maybe Mancunian coppers might be needed. The London Metropolitan Police have at their dispossal some 32,000 officers. Surely that should be sufficient to police all the London games, the preceding weekend, and the funeral on Monday.

    Personally I care no more or no less about Elizabeth Windsors death than I would any other 96 year old. I would not be disrespectful, as the establishment showboaters are, but neither would I be disrespectful to anybodys death, Thatcher exempted.

    When my own mam died, I, like most sons when their mother dies, was heartbroken. The British establishment expect everybody to grieve for the late monarch as if she were their own mother. They are not living in the real world.

    Finally, on Monday the entire terestrial British TV is dedicated to the late Queen. It is fucking relentless, no escape, and even 26 county television is covering this, what is becoming a pantomime, so here in a suppossed republic we have to suffer this macabre bizzarre occassion. It is like being in a prison cell played incesant voices on and on, inescapable.

    Oh, just a mention about Celtic fans flying a banner saying "fuck the Crown" at their European Cup game. The establishment are having kittens, as in their opinion the banner is "disrespectful to the Queen". It does not mention either a King or Queen, just the outdated useless office. Yet, UEFA are still going to fine Celtic to appease the British establishment.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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  2. The British establishment expect everybody to grieve for the late monarch as if she were their own mother.

    the ideological mechanism at play Caoimhin - the mother of the nation who loves all her children equally helps cement the nation as one and mask the divisions.

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  3. Humans do so love to belong to a tribe.

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  4. Anthony, your way with words is a true gift,
    I noted your heartfelt tribute To Donnacha Mac Niallais being overshadowed by the news of a Royal death.
    May he RIP.

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  5. Firstly, Anthony, there is no British nation. A number of nationalities, not withstanding the Scottish, Welsh and English, which comprise Britain live on the island. Many cultures and ethnicities are present which when she came to the throne were not resident in Britain. There is not a homogenous nation to cement which may once have been the case. You are spot on when you say "helps cement the nation" except that nation does not exist. It is a mirage.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    Replies
    1. I suppose we could say British society although it doesn't serve the same literary purpose in the piece as nation, given the reference to Disraeli.
      Writer's licence Caoimhin!!

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