I mean they really invaded Ireland, chopping heads off and stuff. It was all down to a boyo called Dermot MacMurragh, who had been the King of Leinster, meaning that he was no longer the King of Leinster and he was far from being pleased about it so he asked the Normans to help him out getting back in to his castle again. They did so and then decided that they might as well help themselves to the rest of Ireland.
Who were the Normans?
The Normans were Viking raiders who invaded (there's that word invaded again) Northern France in the 9th and 10th centuries and settled there. They were known as the Northmen, but because the english wasn't too good in France as they spoke French, they got called the Normans.
Do you see where I'm going here?
Over to England and the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when the Normans, formally known as the Northmen, defeated the Saxons who had come over from Germany and invaded (
) England. The Saxon King, Harold was killed when an arrow struck him in the eye and the rest is history.So the Normans, who were originally Vikings, could well have been related to the Vikings who invaded Ireland in the late 8th century because these Vikings were from Norway and therefore Northmen.
Anyway invaders didn't invade other lands and ask the people could they please have this or that because they really liked these things. They chopped heads off and stuff and burned what they couldn't take with them.
But to give credit where credit's due they established the likes of Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Limerick and gave names to many places across the county which are still in use today.
As for the rest of Ireland, Gaelic life went on as normal with the Gaels traditionally fighting each other instead of the invaders. That was until the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, decided to take on the Vikings at Clontarf in 1014. He defeated them but then he got sucker-punched with a large axe by a Viking called Brodir while saying his prayers and killed stone-dead. Brian's younger brother, a fella called Wolf the Quarrelsome because he probably fell out with everyone, then fell out with Brodir by killing him.
So what happened to the Vikings and why aren't they still going round the likes of Dublin beating local people up, chopping off heads and stuff?
Because they eventually integrated into Irish society through marriage and trade and before you knew it you wouldn't have known that they were ever here.
It was the same with the Normans, who famously became more Irish than the Irish themselves (Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin). This so worried the English that they brought in the Statutes of Kilkenny to prevent the Normans from becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves. As for the Normans, they paid no heed to these laws and battered away becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves.
The fact is that our culture; language, music, mythology, sports; Gaelic Football, Camogie and Hurling - which is the oldest sport in the world - and Irish dancing is still as strong as it ever was. Irish Immigrants have taken our culture to the far corners of the earth with them. In fact Saint Patrick's Day is the most popular cultural holiday in the world.
Despite all this, the racists of the Irish far-right are able to scare people with bullshit about foreigners invading (
) Ireland and a Plantation of Muslims who would impose their religion and laws on us and before you know it we'll be a minority in our own country.They are of course talking about immigrants and refugees fleeing wars not of their making. These people are not the f*cking Vikings nor the Normans yet incredibly people are actually believing them.
Look back at what the Irish people have endured at the hands of real f*cking foreigners and the fact that we are still here with our culture still intact.
Then look in the mirror and take a redder for having believed the utter bullshit of many of the worst cretins in Irish society when you should have known better.
I am confident that the children and grandchildren of those immigrants and refugees who decide to settle here in our beautiful country will in time become more Irish than we the Irish ourselves.
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Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman. Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie |
And before that the Gaels invaded from Galicia in North Western Spain, after the Roman conquest of Britain.
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ReplyDeleteFleeing war in Germany , France , Belgium etc on a multi thousand mile trip to Ireland ? Ireland is a mere suburb of dives such as Manchester , Birmingham , London , Marseille . National identity / culture has been largely lost during the past two decades . Anyone denying it is living in cloud cuckoo land . How many elections has / will the author stood in ? He would finish with nul points . Sacre bleu !
ReplyDeleteIreland a suburb of dives such as London, Birmingham, Manchester (homes to millions of Irish descent) and Marseille.. Exactly what purists such as Karadzic and Mladic thought of Sarajevo a melting pot of difference. Sounds like racism to me.
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DeleteI am not much of a nationalist admittedly and might not notice these things but what evidence are you going to present that national culture or identity has been lost over the past two decades? Is it because a black athlete might represent Ireland in the Olympics?
DeleteRed Ron-----Id be interested in reading an article by you for TPQ on why you have issues with the local Taliban---immigrants (legal or other)....and why they piss you off ....
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the biggest mouth-pieces normally hide behind fake names. What have they got to hide I wonder?
ReplyDeleteThe good people of Carrickmacross & Letterkenny don't concur . How many councillors do woke R S F have in the # 26 counties ? # Out of touch
DeleteDixie - like yourself, I have long been firmly of the view that people should use their own identity in debate and discussion on the blog rather than conceal it behind veils. It is simple human courtesy.
DeleteThe blog while holding to the view that invisible people have invisible rights, permits monikers if they bring ideas rather than insults. I no longer bother discussing matters on the blog with monikers no matter how useful their ideas unless they have been here a while or I know the identity of the person. Life is too short to be arguing with strangers on the net FFS.
However, it is the right of every one of our writers who do not use a veil to insist on a level playing field. In which case, if the veiled want to interact with the unveiled, they have to unveil - simple as. Or they can post their comments on Bates and Wilkes.
People can also find the blog guidelines there.
"I don't want Belfast to become a London or Birmingham. I don't think that makes me Slobodan Milosevic."
ReplyDeleteEh, I think for most of its existence, Belfast was a much, much worse place to be than either London or Birmingham. It's status as a desirable place to live has, and I attribute no correlation here, risen inline with the number of people born elsewhere who have come to live here.
It's also interesting how people point to the most economically and culturally dynamic city in the British Isles, and arguably Europe, as some kind of disaster. And whilst we're at it, why not point to places like LA, Manhattan, or how many other multi-cultural cities in America and claim they're some types of dystopian environments?
Now, I've not lived in Belfast for almost 40 years, but visit often. I still can't get used to the number of non-white faces that I see. I can't say it makes me uncomfortable, but it does do something, and I'm not exactly sure what. It feels a little like they're here but don't really understand the place that they chose to live. That doesn't make me resent them (and I'm aware that I'm speaking in mass generalisations), but it makes me feel like something, and I can't even say what, is being lost. That thing that I feel is being lost, I don't know if I even want it to be kept. But it's something - a shared sense of knowing, of experience, whatever. But then again, I miss Belfast being a city seemingly immune to commercialisation. "Progress" brought identikit culture to Belfast in a way that Christopher Owens could describe better than me.
I'm almost certainly doing recent arrivals a huge disservice. I made it a major point of learning as much about the country I moved to as possible. I was the only one in my class who knew all the verses two songs in the patriotic canon, and I was the only person born outside of the country. I echo Dixie's point that many immigrants will adopt many Irishisms for themselves.
For various reasons, none of which have anything in common with the far-right list of rationales, I think large immigration is *not* a good idea. But attack the policy, not the people. And be rigorously honest about what it is that actually bothers you.
Muhammad Ali and Barrack Obama have Irish blood, and they're proud of it. JD Vance claimed it, but doesn't.
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DeleteChungus, having grown up in a segregated, monochrome society namely NI, one of the things I like about living in England is the daily and normalising sight of black and brown faces. Red Ron takes a Birmingham spot the White man stance.
ReplyDeleteChungus, first of all the Ulster Plantation was forced dispersal of the native population by an invading power. Modern immigration to Ireland is entirely voluntary. Secondly to use the grooming gangs scandal as a weapon against migration a d diversity is a weapon from the Tommy Robinson and Reform playbook. Where did you get the figure of 250,000 from? What ethnicity were all the church, football and scouts Paedos?
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DeleteAlthough I get the point Dixie is making, I can’t help but feel that the conversation around ‘culture’ and ‘invasion’ is superficial and masks some severe fissures within public life and public thinking.
ReplyDeleteThere are people in this conversation who simply do not want a non-white face in Ireland. Obviously deeply racist and stupid, so there’s no point trying to reason or argue with such types. Then there are the majority: people who have no such qualms and are happy to see people from around the world come to Ireland and make a new life for themselves and their families.
However, a combination of factors (unfiltered mass immigration, the refugee crisis brought on by wars in Syria and Ukraine, the housing crisis, stagnant economy, the decline of public life, fraying social bonds, the rise of a narcissistic worldview via social media, a censorious culture) have created a situation where these same people now feel alienated: the country has gone through seismic change in the last number of years at an unprecedented rate.
As I wrote elsewhere “…coming out of Church/State led repression to be a more secular society that has embraced the best and worst excesses of capitalism through the Celtic Tiger, EU meddling and mass immigration (particularly in the last five years). Usually, such changes happen over a longer period of time but all of these have been within people's lifetimes. As a result, a lot of existentialist questions have been asked: what does it mean to be Irish? What was the point of fighting for independence if we've willingly given it away to Brussels? Have we become estranged from our neighbours and communities?”
All of these are tied up with the question of immigration and, for me, commentators not engaging with these trains of thought will never be able to fully grasp the concerns of those who have no problem with different ethnicities making Ireland their home but see the speed of such change as capitalism on steroids.
Another truth is that, for nationalists and mainstream republicans, their pro-EU direction (which acts as a facsimile of a united Ireland) has helped create this problem. Since the likes of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are openly ashamed of Ireland’s recent history, it makes perfect sense for them to align with the EU as it was set up as a post-history project by capitalists who blamed democracy for what happened in Nazi Germany.
Because of this, it allows the political class to fulfil their fantasies of being globe-trotting internationalists, it allows mainstream republicans to consider themselves better and more sophisticated than Britain and it allows nationalists travelling across the border for the day to feel oh so cosmopolitan. All of whom care not one iota for the newly arrived immigrants or the long term residents who are wrestling with the concerns listed above.
Would anyone really care about the ethnicity of recent arrivals if there wasn't an unbearable strain on local public services like housing, health and jobs? I don't think so. I prefer to see the good in people granted but unregulated migration isn't good for anyone...except those who profit from this state of affairs.
ReplyDeleteThe racists would care. These things are not what motivate them. We would still hear from them conspiracy theories about Great Replacement and New Plantation. The people who have genuine concerns about immigration, and there are many, would not care much. I see the difference as: the former are motivated by hatred and the latter by concern.
DeleteBut wouldn't the hatred be nullified by the addressing of the concerns?
DeleteYou’d think so but there doesn’t seem to be any interest or money to be made in addressing people’s concerns , more IPAS centres more EU money , fuck the locals .
DeleteSteve - the white nationalist/far right hatred would still exist. It predates the issue. Are most people who have concerns about immigration driven by racist hatred? Far from it in my view. But grievance can be a combustible mix that hatred always tries to ignite. I talk to people all the time who have serious concerns about immigration policy. They are not driven by hatred.
DeleteYet this is the go to response from the government and more worryingly the so called opposition parties just call everyone racist and far right ( as some on here consistently do ) , a local Sinn Fein rep was booed off stage the other evening at a meeting concerning the latest plans for Citywest hotel for doing this exact thing .
Delete"I talk to people all the time who have serious concerns about immigration policy".
DeleteFair enough but who are they voting for? Who is this cohort likely to vote for next election?
An interesting question HJ. I don't really know the answer to it. None have said they will vote the far right but at the same time haven't said who they will vote. I wasn't curious enough. But we do know that people who are not racists have attended racist rallies. A lot of people opposed to abortion probably still ended up voting the parties who favoured it. I suppose it depends on what they prioritise.
DeleteI’m interested to see what you class as far right in this country and what racist rallies you speak of as I simply don’t believe they exist , yes there maybe far right individuals but I don’t believe there is a far right movement , the last massive anti government rally that took place in Dublin ( which no one wants to talk ) was attended by many of my friends including former volunteers and family none of which are right wing in any shape or form and they all said the only hatred they experienced was from the embarrassing bunch of miscreants that Paul Murphy managed to cobble together .
DeleteThe form book would suggest that most of them will vote as before. Of course there will be some drift to anti-migration candidates but that only becomes problematic once the petit bourgeoisie are on board. In all honesty do you see that happening any time soon?
DeleteAny successful tilt towads Facasism is rarely driven by the proletariat.
I think you are probably right regarding the form book.
DeleteThings can always change - a Savita moment can occur, and then you have a fire spreading that burns down old ways and creates new ones. The old maxim events, dear boy, events.
Agreed, who knows what could turn the form book upside down or inside out.
DeleteIf Trump's hostile intention towards the EU impacted hard enough upon the State and significant job losses in pharma, medical devices, social media companies, and so forth are lost then the chattering classes could/would very much take a hard-right diversion without much cajoling.
If things were to unfold that way, who knows where it might lead. The fire that burns old ideas would indeed be hard contained.
Things might get so bad that a surprisingly large proportion of the electorate would be screaming for rigid immigration and customs enforcement. Events, dear boy, events!
In terms of property rights in terms of freedom of movement of capital and labour we in Ireland probably north and south would be on the limited government interference side. That's not left. Probably not generally meant by right either but the definitions as applied in Ireland appear to be highly subjective.
DeleteWhen plotting forward and talking about fear of shifting right do we just mean on the issue of immigration?
Is it as simple to say that left means pro all immigration and right means anti all immigration. If so what about the spectrum i between
Do we have any taughts on emigration? Were does that fit into the left right paradigm, does it matter. Is pro right wing or left wing, is anti, right wing or left wing.
If there is a want to build a left here then perhaps there needs to be less fear of the people who would be required to build that left. Perhaps a bit more self analysis on the skills set and the scope.
Reading through the thread, the problem with Belfast appears to be to many Belfast people in it, the problem with Ireland, to many Irish people in it, the problem with London, to many English people in it. If only we knew sooner.
ReplyDeleteAren't we all very lucky that in response to the last crash the EU, bank of England and the fed did this thing called quantative easing were they printed aload of cash and released it in to the economy
And aren't we lucky that in response and even anticipation of the inflationry pressures of such a move that we then have quantative easing but with people with the facilitation of huge population movements. The point probably being to focus inflation to the lower sections of the economy through stimulating demand for property but on the plus side, some places are no longer homogonous, if they ever were.
And isn't it great that with all the horribleness and false division in the world that for a brief moment, that both the revolutionaries and finance capital can be in aligment on this and both get a great laugh at Pat and Biddy for getting worked up for noticing their surroundings are shifting.
Everyone has their bundle to carry. Each has their 'circle of concerns'. The more discerning though recognise where and how they may exert influence. They recognise and realistically accept limitations. They direct their focus soley upon their 'circle of influence'. Doing so, they apply their energy and resources to what's realistic and achievable.
ReplyDeleteWe've a sizeable Brazilian population in Gort for close on 30 years. We've Pakistani's in Ballyhaunis for probably longer. The Halal meat workers have their Mosque for decades. There's a large Mosque in Galway City too. We have Philipino nurses propping our hospitals and Indian carers likewise in our nursing homes. We've Polish shops in many larger towns Polish style sections in many of supermarkets. We've become a multicultural society. That's not going to change. The world has become more mobile. The people of war torn regions are of necessity on the move. Access to the Internet makes the West seem attractive to those across the global south.
These challenges aren't going away.
This is much more complex than Dixie seems to understand. Dixie assumes they all come with good intention and to establish new lives and off course they are welcome. Current migrant /asylum seekers can be a mixed bag. Some come with their own racist, political and religious agendas not conducive with our cultural standards and values -just because they are not landing with boots on the ground supported by tanks and guns does not mean they are not invaders.
ReplyDeleteThere is no excuse for racism but often concern about religious/political ideology that are mischaracterized as racism or fascism even though the concern is the affront posed to our own values. FGM is internationally prohibited as a form of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment. There have been cases in the Irish courts under in-camera rules of secrecy involving the practice of FGM. How prevalent it is I do not know but people like Dixie are prepared to embrace or tolerate this sort of thing lest they appear to be 'racist'.
Chungus correctly points out about the ethnicity of organized pedophile rings -in Dixie's simplification, he ignores that under Sharia law, a woman's word is quantified as of half value of a man --and non-Muslims even less. This has led to sexual assaults on non-Muslim young girls and women (especially if they are white) in various countries around the world because they are considered of less or no value.
Since the 1930s, Ireland has legislated for the human slaughter of animals -both Islam and Judaism are opposed to humane slaughter. Jews generally only have as much ritually slaughtered meat as represents their community. Whereas, Muslims make up just over 1% of the Irish population their food outlets often feed unlabeled ritually slaughtered meat to an unsuspecting 98plus% to non-Muslims. This is effectively a hate crime because it disregards our values and human right to freedom of thought and conscience. I have heard the practice described as "cleansing the path for Islam" by feeding it to non-Muslims.
The world's most prolific human rights abusers are often Muslim majority countries. Sharia law and international Human rights law are either incompatible or have a very conflicting coexistence.
If we look at Muslim communities in other EU countries and in England -Muslims create microcosms of the oppressive states they claim to be fleeing - it is common practice for Muslim women to spend their lives being isolated by Muslim men who forbid them from learning the language of their host country --local councils in England and Germany for example spend exorbitant portion of their budgets paying translators. And the last referendum was a failed attempt to legalize polygamy allowing Muslims to have 6 wives and allow existing wives entry into Ireland as a spouse. I suspect once that move has been made to breakdown our values and conventions it is only a matter of time until they become diluted and meaningless.
Christy,
DeleteI don't see anything in Dixie's writings where he assumes all immigrants come with good intentions. He knows the way the world works, and it certainly does not work like that. He is as unlikely to think all immigrants have good intentions as you are to think all 'natives' are upstanding citizens.
Nor do I think it fair to accuse him of agreeing with FGM for fear of being called racist. I imagine he is as opposed to it just as much as you and I. He has never been afraid to express his view regardless of what detractors label him. A bit like yourself in that regard! Neither of you wear a veil to conceal your identity when expressing your views.
My own view is that this society's human rights processes should not be compromised simply to accommodate cultural practices that are not human rights compliant. That means religious and cultural beliefs that prohibit bodily autonomy should be shown the red card, whatever their origins. FGM and abortion denial are no-nos.
Invaders is usually a term applicable to an orchestrated takeover/invasion. Like fascist, used too broadly, it loses any precise meaning. We will invariably get ISIS types in waves of immigration and as abhorrent as they might be it seems ill-fitting to term them invaders. Invader in this type of discussion has a far right inflection. You are anything but far right.
The West has done its fair share of human rights abuses in what are called Muslim countries. Hard to think of abuses worse than genocide. When you talk about our values, it is our values being sacrificed by Western powers in their wars abroad.
I don't think the last referendum was an attempt to legalise polygamy. If I remember that was an offshoot of it that was flagged up as a danger by critics. Maryam Namazie is on the right track with her campaigning for a One Law For All. Whether Mormon or Muslim, ( I think the Mormons have abandoned the practice) the laws of marriage are what they are and until changed by referendum (as they might be) they should be observed.
Surely, more than one wife should be regarded as a punishment rather than a right!
There is a large degree of embelishment in the more Irish than the Irish example of the Normans.
DeleteIt took about 500 years, a reformation in England and Scotland, a few wars in the 17th century and the establishment of a legal frame work that set up an apartheid system here before there was nó ambiguity on the issue.
But then on the flip we have use of the words invasion and plantation which is also embelishment.
What if the problem is the cultural use of embelishment and equivalence to make a point in Hiberno English, or maybe that has its place. It can win harts and minds in a Palestine discussions.
What if the problem is addressing embelishment and equivalence with face value de construction that isn't listening to what is being said.
The Normans became more Irish than the Irish themselves means a synthesis is always arieved at.
Invasion, plantation means that there is an obervable large scale inward people movement. the potential for creative destruction on surroundings is in the possible probable range. Lack of trust leads to suspicion of intent by decision makers on this matter.
Suggest that to move the conversation forward, no one speaking Hiberno English will have a monopoly on embelishment.
That if it's accepted making a point in your favour then it's also fair in your opponents favour.