On June 18th 1994 in the small Irish village of Loughinisland a number of Irish men and women gathered together in their local pub to watch the Irish national soccer team compete in a match against Italy which was being broadcast live from the World Cup in the United States. Encouraged by statements issued by several politicians from the British Unionist community in the North of Ireland condemning ”provocative” public displays of support for the Ireland team by the Irish Nationalist community in the north-east of the country, two gunmen from the British terrorist organisation the Ulster Volunteer Force entered the bar and opened fire with automatic assault rifles. Several people were wounded and six killed outright. They were Adrian Rogan (34), Malcolm Jenkinson (53), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O’Hare (35), Eamon Byrne (39) and Barney Greene (87), the latter the oldest person to die in the northern conflict. Within hours of the attack rumours spread amongst local people, politicians and the press that elements of the then British paramilitary police force in the North, the Royal Ulster Constabulary or RUC, had facilitated the assault by terrorists from their community, allegations which continue to the present day.

Now the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has announced that it has agreed to a request by family members and survivors of what is known as the Loughinisland Massacre to allow members of the Ireland team to wear black armbands at their match against Italy in their scheduled Euro 2012 game in Poznan on June 18th, the 18th anniversary of the atrocity. Niall Murphy, a solicitor for the families of Loughinisland, has expressed the gratefulness of his clients to the FAI:

“The families are touched that this tragic event can be commemorated on such a poignant day, the 18th anniversary of the atrocity. We would like to thank the FAI and UEFA for their assistance in providing a forum to recall the awful event that took place on that fateful day when Ireland played Italy.”

But what has been the reaction of the “Irish” media to this news? How have our “journalistic” classes responded?

Louis Jacob in the Irish Independent:

“It’s taken me a while to get my head around the FAI’s announcement that the Irish team will wear black armbands against Italy next month to commemorate the Loughinisland massacre in 1994, when six people were shot dead in a bar where they were watching the Ireland v Italy US World Cup game on TV.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was taken aback.

But even though I know how popular this gesture will be with a large section of the Irish public, to me it smells like cheap tokenism on the part of the FAI.

But what’s worse is that no matter how much you feel for the families of the victims and no matter which way you look at it, the wearing of the black armband brings with it distinct political undertones… undertones which have no place at a major sporting event.

Anyone who believes otherwise should take a long, hard look at the following statement, released by Niall Murphy, solicitor for relatives of the victims of Loughinisland: “We would like to thank the FAI and Uefa for their assistance in providing a forum to recall the awful event that took place on that fateful day when Ireland played Italy.”

The word that alarms me in that sentence is ‘forum’ because a forum is a place where things are discussed. Surely, if it’s a forum they are looking for, then the nature of this gesture should be considered as entirely political.

On Thursday, FAI chief executive John Delaney stated: “I would like to thank Uefa for assisting us in commemorating this atrocity and take the opportunity to remember all those who lost their lives in the Troubles.” I wonder if the victims of Omagh and London and all the other places where innocent people lost their lives will buy this statement? I seriously doubt it.

The FAI should ask themselves if ‘divisive’ is really the business they want to be in.”

Eoghan Harris in the Sunday Independent:

“The FAI is foolish to back the wearing of a black armband to mark the anniversary of Loughinisland. To single out the suffering of one community in Northern Ireland will inevitably be seen as tribal by the other. Put yourself in the shoes of victims of IRA terror, exercise some empathy and you will find your feelings about the armbands are more complex.

The FAI decision dodges a number of serious questions. Why does the FAI single out Loughinisland, apart from the anniversary? Will the FAI facilitate black armbands on the anniversaries of IRA atrocities like Enniskillen, Omagh and the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe?

As my friend Tom Carew points out, June 18 is also the anniversary of the Provo bomb which murdered a Protestant police officer, John Harrison, while he was checking for bombs. Harrison was only 30 and married. Are his widow, his family and friends any less deserving of being remembered by the FAI?”

Brian O’Connor in the Irish Times:

“The depths of inadequacy that allowed human beings walk into a pub in Loughinisland 18 years ago and shoot dead six people watching the Ireland-Italy World Cup match just because they were Catholic can only be guessed at. Remembering the victims is an entirely good thing. The FAI’s decision to commemorate them by wearing black armbands for the Euro 2012 match against Italy next month isn’t.

Also on June 18th it will be 40 years since the IRA planted a bomb in a derelict house in Lurgan which killed three British soldiers. And since this is Ireland, with our nasty, bitter history of sectarian division, an obvious conclusion for those admittedly aching to arrive at it will be that the FAI views one group of victims as more important than another.

In the circumstances the football link is too tenuous. Yes, it’s Italy, and yes, it’s the same date. But this is Ireland. Politically every move is parsed to within an inch of its life.

It’s hard to credit the FAI hierarchy didn’t think of those wider political implications before going to Uefa with the idea. It’s even harder to believe UEFA didn’t twig the precedent being set.”

There is more like this but I’m sure you get the general point. Yet I wonder, has anyone forgotten Iceland in September 6th 1997 when the Ireland team unexpectedly wore armbands at an international match to mark the accidental death of Princess Diana in France, a member of the British royal family? Have you forgotten the reaction of the Irish press pack? Look it up. To say that they were effusive in their praise is to put it mildly.

It would seem then that in the view of the Irish print media some lives are worth more than others: especially if those lives are Irish ones taken at the hands of British terrorists or British soldiers. Then they are utterly without value.

So… you still want to buy that “Irish” newspaper?

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From the Scotsman:

“SOME of Scotland’s “leading stars” will lend their support to the campaign for Scottish independence when it is officially launched this week.

The campaign, to be titled “Yes Scotland”, will try to appeal to a broad church by reaching out to those beyond the SNP.

Friday’s launch is to be held in Sir Sean Connery’s old stomping ground in Edinburgh, prompting speculation that the star, an SNP supporter, will make an appearance to boost Alex Salmond’s cause.

The “Yes Scotland” campaign will begin on Friday at Edinburgh’s Cineworld complex in Fountainbridge, near where Connery grew up. The launch invitation states that “Scots from all walks of life will join some of our leading stars and community and political figures” to sign a “Yes Declaration” setting out why being independent offers the best future for Scotland.

Yesterday, SNP sources refused to disclose who the “leading stars” were but Fountainbridge was chosen over more obvious symbolic sites such as the Bannockburn battlefield or Arbroath Abbey, where Scots noblemen declared Scottish independence in 1320.

On the invitation, Friday’s launch is described as “the start of the biggest community based campaign in Scotland’s history, designed to build a groundswell of support for an independent Scotland ahead of the 2014 referendum”.

Friday will also bring the unveiling of the campaign’s website and official anthem plus contributions from “some of Scotland’s leading cultural figures”. Other prominent SNP supporters and donors have included Sir Brian Souter of Stagecoach and, from the world of films, Brian Cox and Alan Cumming.”

Hmm…

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A new survey of local secondary students by Derry City Council has found a fair degree of both use and support amongst pupils from both communities for the Irish language while providing scant evidence for the existence of the so-called Scots-Ulster language (the dialect of English invented by certain fringe elements from the British ethnic minority in Ireland which has contributed, amongst other things, this gem as the official term for children with intellectual special needs: “wee daftie weans”).

None of the children surveyed from either community could speak Ulster-Scots and only a handful of respondents said anyone in their family could speak it either. 88% stated that they had not heard or were unaware of hearing Ulster-Scots in relation to music, 62% said they hadn’t seen Ulster-Scots on road signs, 57 % said they hadn’t seen Ulster-Scots in place names and 56% said they hadn’t seen Ulster-Scots in use by politicians or in any publications. The majority, 55%, believed that Ulster-Scots should not be treated as a language in the same way Irish or English is.

In relation to the Irish language 72% of those who spoke and read Irish came from Irish-speaking families. Meanwhile 64% of all students believed the language was relevant for Roman Catholics and Protestants, another 64% had encountered the Irish language in classes, 46% said they had heard Irish in conversational use, 50% had seen it in use in publications and 35% had seen it on the internet. 84% of all pupils were aware of the influence of the Irish language on people’s names and place names.

I’m awaiting the details of the raw data from the survey and will publish them here when I can.

In the meantime a new website, Connect 3, has been launched by the city council in Derry based on the results of the poll to provide further resources for students and teachers engaging in language learning and training in the region.

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I’ve always been a bit of a Sherlock Homes fan (or the much more impressive Irish form, Searbhlach de Hoilm!), especially since he was born of the imagination and pen of an Irish-Scots writer, one Artúr Iognáid Conán Ó Dúill or Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. Doyle’s relationship with his ancestral homeland was problematic, to say the least, and there is a strong argument that he tapped into the anti-Irish prejudices of his day for the Sherlock Home’s stories, most tellingly in the Irish surnames he choose for Holmes’ two chief protagonists: Moran and Moriarty. He himself veered in his politics over the span of a lifetime from un-apologetic British Imperialist and Unionist to possessing somewhat more nuanced and socially liberal views of the world and Ireland in particular (by 1911 Doyle was convinced of the need for Home Rule or limited autonomy for Ireland within the so-called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, though that is as far as he could bring himself to go).

Arthur Conan Doyle’s interests in Irish revolutionary movements and the covert (and at times not so covert) war between them and the British colonial state in Ireland clearly influenced his writing. The Fenians in particular, both the Irish and Irish-American arms of the movement, were a major concern to him and at times he allowed himself caught up in the hysteria of the late Victorian age and its obsession with “Irish secret societies” (the surnames of Moran and Moriarty were identified in the British press with alleged Fenian officers operating in Britain in the late 1800s). In some ways the “Irish question” became central to the Sherlock Holmes canon, always implied though rarely stated.

Scholar Catherine Wynne details the Irish influences in the works of Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes’ tales in particular with her short study Mollies, Fenians, and Arthur Conan Doyle, which I highly recommend for any enquiring Sherlockian – or indeed anyone interested in how British society and culture viewed (and feared) the Irish people in the late 19^th century. You can also read a full account of all this in her excellent book The Colonial Conan Doyle: British Imperialism, Irish Nationalism and the Gothic, especially the section Imperial War and Colonial Sedition (preview via Google Books).

All this has helped me in my own writing (with a nod to Kim Newman), in particular my subversion of the Sherlock Holmes tales by turning them on their head and writing them from the point of view of Professor Moriarty, or rather Séamas Ó Muircheartaigh, 19th century Irish famine-child and exile turned revolutionary (and the efforts of his arch-nemesis to thwart him: the conflicted British Imperial agent Sherlock Holmes, and his baleful older brother Mycroft). Whether those tales of mine will ever see the light of day is of course another matter

But for now, a slight twist, as I turn to the Guardian and an excellent article on the late great Jeremy Brett, the British actor who for many of us was Sherlock Holmes. A true thespian (and a genuinely courageous person who overcame many personal problems and tragedies in his life until his untimely death), he defined what Holmes should look like, sound like and act like for a whole generation of television viewers (and still does). From the retrospective by Natalie Haynes:

“You can keep Basil Rathbone, fond as I am of him. You can keep Robert Downey, Jr, Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Cushing. You can even keep Michael Caine in Without A Clue (my secret favourite portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on the big screen). You know why you can keep them? Because, in exchange, I get Jeremy Brett, the Sherlock for the connoisseurs.

Jeremy Brett is the Sherlock Holmes of my childhood, and perhaps (as with the Doctor or James Bond) we simply attach ourselves to the first one we see. But I don’t think so. In the ITV series which began in 1984, and ran until a year before Brett’s early death in 1995, Sherlock Holmes was as close to his literary roots as he has ever been on screen.

Brett understood completely how mercurial Holmes could be. And he could play every variant of him: loyal friend, relentless pursuer, bored logician, avenging angel and mischievous impersonator. Brett’s performance is an astonishing exercise in dynamics: he murmurs advice, whispers hints, bellows irritation, barks laughter. He is also the master of the subtextual glance. When the King of Bohemia (A Scandal in Bohemia, series 1, episode 1) wishes Irene Adler was his social equal, Brett turns to him with every facial sinew screaming contempt, for just a fraction of a second. Then he agrees, with such seeming politeness that the king is impervious to his real meaning, that Adler was indeed on a very different level. No wonder Adler leaves the country, declaring him too formidable an opponent, even though she knows she has beaten him in this encounter.

Even if Brett had not been so ill when filming the series, his Holmes is intrinsically fragile: he really looks like he forgets to eat for days on end, and that he carries the lead weight of ennui between cases.

In re-watching The Red-Headed League last week, I also detected a disdain for poshness that verges on the revolutionary. He describes John Clay (Tim McInnerny) thus: “His grandfather was a royal duke and he himself was educated at Eton and Oxford. So, Watson, bring the gun.” And because he is Jeremy Brett, he slightly rolls the r of “bring”, just so we know Holmes knows that he is funny.”

This weekend I will be indulging my Brettian-Holmes passion by watching the British television drama The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes back-to-back (thanks to a lovely DVD collection grabbed – quite literally – for a ridiculously cheap 10 euros), but here, for the rest of you, is a mere taster:

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Just a quick post to highlight Protestant Cork 1911-1926, one of the best resources I’ve seen so far on the issue of the alleged decline in the numbers of Protestants living in the region of Cork City and County in the closing years and aftermath of the Irish Revolution. The reason this issue is so important is because of the claims made in relation to it by apologist historians and journalists on behalf of British rule in Ireland (the misnamed “revisionists”). This site is no simple Irish Nationalist or Republican one but follows a neutral line between both sides in order to maintain objectivity and scholarly standing. Meticulously researched, analytical, and with a host of primary sources both old and new, it is essential reading for anyone interested in this artificially contentious subject.

“It has been claimed that the Irish War of Independence from Britain in Cork turned into an ethnic pogrom driven by fear of mostly Protestant outsiders.

This site shows that the story is far more complex and nuanced that this simplistic view.

The Population declined by 14470 in 15 years, but 10,714 non-Irish-born Protestants lived in Cork in 1911.

Most were military, or government. Has this story been told properly?”

The conclusion is fair and balanced – even to a Republican:

“This article aims to correct our understanding of the issue through using new resources online to improve older research. As much written about this topic has either been incompletely researched, unverifiable, or supposition dressed up as fact, it is difficult to winnow out the fact from the fiction. It has often been necessary to return to the original source to examine its accuracy. To their credit those who have followed standard academic referencing to a verifiable source allowed this process to happen; the unverifiable sources should not be treated as being anything other than hearsay.

The War of Independence was driven by nationalism, and as 1921 continued it descended into the mire of a bloody war of reprisals. While this may revolt some people, and others may question the need for it, the people involved at the time had no idea if they were going to win or lose. If they had known the outcome they may have stayed their hand. Equally, if they had not pursued the savage course they took would the British have offered a truce? Was the impetus for truce the fact that the Ulster Unionists had secured partition? These are the questions that need answering.

The Dunmanway killings are different in that they occurred after independence. The Irish State failed to protect its citizens. No evidence has been produced to suggest that the IRA garrison attempted to leave the barracks and take control of the town, and at the very least this was a dereliction of duty. All we do know for certain is that 16 Protestants, and one Catholic, were shot or disappeared in West Cork over a three day period. Others of both main faiths were shot at or targeted for shooting. We know who shot four of them in Macroom, and we can suspect who may have shot the others. However, there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone with the killings. The murders were denounced by both sides of Sinn Féin, and vulnerable citizens were protected by the local Anti-Treaty IRA. Civilians and military were warned they would be shot if they didn’t hand in all guns to the local IRA commanders throughout the area. The killings resulted in the emigration of a small number of native Church of Ireland and other Protestant members from the county, but the contemporary Protestant sources stubbornly refuse to suggest a sectarian pogrom: Bolshevik certainly, agrarian definitely, nationalist undoubtedly but sectarian exceptionally.

There is no justification for the actual Dunmanway killings. Even if each and every one of the men shot were informers they had been granted amnesty by the Truce. If they had breached the Truce then they should have been brought before a court of law and tried. Whatever the reason for their killings, if the IRA were involved then it was a betrayal of their oath to the Republic. However to use this event to argue that there was a sustained campaign against Protestants because of their religion is not supported by any of the evidence from the time: Protestant, Catholic or Dissenter.

It is important neither to understate nor overstate what happened in the revolutionary period. This was a savage period in Irish history. A vicious war, using methods which eschewed the norms of war up to that point, was fought to a draw in July 1921. This was followed by an even more savage Civil War which led to a complete breakdown of law. Those with property, and known Treaty supporters were most at risk, and ex-Unionists fell into both these categories. The new Irish state did its best to protect all of its citizens, and yet there were appalling atrocities committed. The evidence does not support the theory that Protestants were targeted because of their religion. Historians are entitled to speculate, but in this case has the speculation run away with the story? Is it time to stop this pointless debate, and write true history?”

Some more analysis below.

Niall Meehan:

Irish Political Review, Vol. 27, No. 2, February 2012,  ‘The Further One Gets From Belfast’, a second reply to Jeff Dudgeon

Irish Political Review, Vol. 26 No 11, November 2011,  Reply to Jeffrey Dudgeon on Peter Hart

History Ireland, November-December 2011, Vol. 19 No 6 History Ireland letter on second edition of Gerard Murphy’s The Year of Disappearances

Spinwatch 24 May 2011, Distorting Irish History Two, the road from Dunmanway: Peter Hart’s treatment of the 1922 ‘April killings’ in West Cork

FINAL 16 NOV 2010 1 An ‘amazing coincidence’ that ‘could mean anything’: Gerard Murphy’s The Year of Disappearances

Spinwatch November 2010, Distorting Irish History, the stubborn facts of Kilmichael: Peter Hart and Irish Historiography

Irish Times Monday, October 12, 2009, Sectarian gloss on State’s early years is flawed

Dublin Review of Books, Issue Number 11 – Autumn 2009, Frank Gallagher and land agitation – A response to Tom Wall’s ‘Getting Them Out, Southern Loyalists in the War of Independence’ (drb, Issue 9 Spring 2009)

History Ireland, Vol 17 No 4 July August 2009, A response on use (and non-use) of sources to Professor David Fitzpatrick (TCD)

Irish Political Review, Vol 23, No3, March 2008, After the War of Independence, some further questions about West Cork, April 27-29 1922

Counterpunch, November 11/12, 2006, “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” Sends Revisionists Yapping at History’s Heels

Following on from yesterday’s post about the effects of the right-wing policies of Canada’s Tory-led federal government on the separatist-inclined province (or should it now be nation?) of Québec, some more news on recent polls there. With provincial elections in Québec expected before the end of 2013 or earlier, the province’s government, currently in the hands of the federalist (or as we would say, unionist) Liberal Party, may pass into the control of the nationalist Parti Québécois (PQ), albeit with a narrow majority or in coalition with other Francophone groupings in the regional assembly.

However nothing is certain and the turbulence in Québec politics witnessed over the last twelve months has only recently abated. From The Globe and Mail:

““Dogged by student strikes and the looming inquiry into construction-industry corruption, [Liberal Party premier in Québec] Jean Charest is nevertheless in a neck-and-neck battle with the Parti Québécois as the remaining lifespan of his government can be counted in months.

According to ThreeHundredEight.com’s seat and vote projection model, the Parti Québécois currently holds a narrow lead over the Quebec Liberals with 33.1 per cent to 32 per cent support. While this represents a significant gain for both parties since the end of February, with the PQ picking up 3.7 points and the Liberals three, it is a far closer race than was recorded by the polls only a few weeks ago.

Throughout March and the first half of April, the PQ was averaging a lead of almost seven points over the Liberals. A remarkable turnaround after almost a year of being on the brink of catastrophe, the PQ was on track to form the province’s next government with a majority. But with current levels of support, Pauline Marois [PQ leader] would have a tough battle just to land a minority.

François Legault’s Coalition-Avenir-Québec has dropped 6.8 points since the end of February and trails in third with 20.4 per cent support, though some recent polls show that the right-of-centre party might have a little more life left in it.

Québec Solidaire stands at 7.5 per cent while the provincial Greens are projected to have 3.9 per cent support. Other parties, including the hard-line sovereigntist Option Nationale, pull together 3.2 per cent support.

Based on these numbers, the Parti Québécois would likely win 60 seats in the 125-seat National Assembly, putting it three seats short of an outright majority. The Liberals would win 53 seats, down 11 from their current crop of MNAs, while the CAQ would win 10 seats and Québec Solidaire two.

A close result like this has the potential to make for a complicated post-election period. Both the Liberals and PQ could look to the CAQ for support in order to govern, while if the PQ and Québec Solidaire, both left-of-centre sovereigntist parties, managed to win an extra seat or two they alone could command a majority of seats.

Political support in Quebec has swung widely for the last 12 months, ever since the New Democrats demolished the Bloc [Bloc Québécois, the nationalist party at the federal level] and the PQ’s internal troubles sent them on a downward spiral (which only reversed itself earlier this year). The CAQ has gone from the government-in-waiting to also-ran and now to kingmaker status. Through it all, the provincial Liberals have staggered from crisis to crisis. Jean Charest has been waiting for an opportune moment to call an election, but with things so tumultuous in the province there is no telling which way the wind will blow when the next window opens.”

Meanwhile the National Post has some very interesting letters from a host of readers debating the merits, or otherwise, of Québec independence, or the breakup of the Canadian federation if you prefer (thanks to Laurent Desbois for the heads-up and link to the video featured below). Some pretty blunt stuff here, and quite a bit of it spells out the nastiness that lurks underneath the great debate in Canada (particularly it must be said on the federalist or unionist side: that is from Canadian Nationalists), but a few perceptive thoughts too. And here is a familiar one for Irish readers (and now some Scottish ones, too):

“Provided the conditions of the Clarity Act are met, some areas of Quebec may be allowed to secede from Canada. However, the majority of Quebec’s current landmass was added to the province by the British Crown long after New France/Quebec was ceded to Britain by France in 1763. These lands would certainly stay in Canada, as would other regions where federalist votes prevail. The issue is not the separation of Quebec, but its partition.

Michael Peacocke, Ottawa.”

And this:

“I’m not sure that a velvet divorce is in Canada’s future but more in all likelihood would be a rocky divorce. So let’s get on with it as Canada’s and Quebec’s future would best be served just like what happened with Czechoslovakia. Canada should keep the mostly English south shore and Quebec would get Baffin Island in return? Wouldn’t be nice not to be a bilingual (questionable) nation any longer as they will always be 95% socialist and we just 15%.

Charles Steele, Vineland Ont.”

Troubles ahead?

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There’s a recent article in the Global Post examining the actions of the Conservative Party government in Canada and the fallout from its increasingly unpopular policies, particularly in the autonomous province Québec.  This time last year the nationalist movement in Québec looked like it had taken a major step backwards with the collapse in the vote of the province’s Bloc Québécois (BQ), the nationalist party at the federal level. There were very real worries that this would have a knock-on effect on its sister party, the Parti Québécois (PQ), which operates at the provincial level within Québec itself as it faced its own troubles (many of them down to internal rivalries or debates about the party’s future direction). 

Now things have turned around somewhat after a period of considerable (and at times turbulent) change within Franco-Canadian politics. BQ is no longer looking the spent force some believed (or in the case of Canadian federalists, hoped) it to be, and may be ready for a comeback as some Québécoise voters seem to be already disenchanted with the federalist National Democratic Party (NDP) who they unexpectedly turned to in droves last year, in preference to their traditional BQ loyalties. At a local level some polls are predicting a strong showing for the PQ in expected provincial elections in Québec this year or next, and the target of retaking the government of the province may be back in the party’s sights again. 

Meanwhile the Canadian federal government under right-wing Tory leader (and unapologetic Amerophile) Stephen Harper, celebrating a year in power on the back of a parliamentary majority, is continuing to enact a series of measures that seem almost purpose-designed to aggravate the traditional centre-left and social-democratic impulses of Québec’s population, both nationalist and federalist in nature. 

“Harper celebrated his anniversary with a speech vaunting policies he said will “sustain the economy of tomorrow.” Many in Quebec beg to differ. They see an attempt to remake the country into an austere capitalist bastion, where the interests of Big Oil trump environmental concerns, where “tough on crime” means soft on gun control, and patriotism involves reverence to the British monarchy.

It’s a version of American Republicanism meeting the European welfare state. The difference is that in Canada, the clash involves a province the federal government estranges at the country’s peril — one that has already held two referendums on independence, the last one, in 1995, coming within a few thousand votes of making Quebec a separate country. 

The warning signs are many, some coming from high-profile “federalists” — the term used for those who want to keep Canada united. The most noteworthy is Justin Trudeau, a federal politician from Quebec with the opposition Liberal Party. His father, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was a long-time prime minister and stalwart in the battle for national unity. 

“There is a way of viewing social responsibility, openness to others, a cultural pride here in Quebec that is necessary to Canada,” the younger Trudeau told the public broadcaster, Radio Canada. “And I always say that if I ever believed Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper and we were going against abortion and going against gay marriage, and we were going backward in 10,000 different ways, maybe I’d think of wanting to make Quebec a country.” 

The statement made headlines across the country, largely due to Trudeau’s pedigree. He’s also touted as a potential future leader of the Liberal Party, which last ran the country from 1993 to 2006. That ended when Harper first gained power with a minority government. 

Separatist forces in Quebec sang hallelujah, while some federalists were shocked. In a later interview, Trudeau didn’t back down. 

“The separatist option is not the bogeyman it used to be,” he said. “You ask me what the bogeyman is? It’s the one sitting in our prime minister’s chair right now.” 

Quebec’s independence movement grew out of the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, a period when the province’s French-speaking majority shook off cultural domination of the Catholic Church and economic domination of the English-speaking minority. Since then, support for sovereignty has rarely dipped below 40 percent, and politics have been decidedly left of centre. 

Harper spent years wooing Quebec, recognizing that winning many of the province’s 75 seats in the federal House of Commons has historically been the ticket to majority government. He even passed a law describing Quebec as a “nation” within Canada. 

For almost two decades, Quebecers sent left-wing separatists with the Bloc Quebecois to parliament. Then, in the May 2011 federal election they suddenly gave most of their seats to the federalist New Democratic Party, which has socialist roots. Conservatives won only six seats in Quebec, but formed a majority government by capturing Ontario and the Western provinces. And the clash of visions began. 

Needles to say, Harper’s fascination with the British monarchy — restoring the “royal” designation to Canada’s air force and navy, hanging the Queen’s portrait in federal buildings and celebrating her diamond jubilee — doesn’t go over well in Quebec. It’s a province where license plates read “je me souviens” (I remember) — a reference to England’s 1759 victory against France in a battlefield near Quebec City, which turned Quebec into an English colony. 

The most bitter fight is over Harper’s new crime law, which imposes minimum mandatory sentences and gets tougher with young offenders. Quebec’s government, which prefers to stress rehabilitation and a more lenient approach to young offenders, has been scathing in its criticism. 

“I don’t recognize myself in this Canada,” fumed Quebec’s justice minister, Jean-Marc Fournier, after a recent meeting with his federal counterpart. 

All this is music to the ears of Quebec separatists, already honing their arguments for a provincial election that could come this year. “Quebec no longer exists for Ottawa,” said Bernard Drainville, a key politician with the Parti Quebecois, which held two independence referendums when it was in power. 

Harper’s majority government has only been in power one year. Already, many fear his greatest legacy may be the breakup of the country.”

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• Hebert: Harper’s alienation of Quebec just what the Liberals need – Toronto Star (thestar.com)
• Ignatieff insists remarks on Quebec were taken out of context (theglobeandmail.com)
• Celebrate the Charter, but don’t forget the scars of patriation (theglobeandmail.com)
• Kelly McParland: Mulcair and the separatists, a love story (fullcomment.nationalpost.com)

The Irish Examiner has an editorial, presumably reflecting the newspaper’s official view, which yet again shows the extraordinarily warped reasoning of the anglophone media in Ireland. While justifiably decrying the lack of full equal rights before the law between all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, in particular the right to same-sex marriage, it manages to drag in a whole lot of frankly unrelated issues, in an argument whose logic is beyond stupid.

The greatest irony of the piece is that the writer, while demanding proper legal entitlements for some men and women in this country, is quite happy to trample over the rights of others by attacking the Irish-speaking citizens and communities of Ireland. For be in no doubt: an attack on the Irish language is an attack on those who speak the Irish language. The two are inextricably linked.

“We pretend that Irish is our national language and lavish hundreds of millions a year on trying to revive what is a linguistic dodo. Wasting that money is bad enough, but the time spent in schools pushing an increasingly irrelevant language on disinterested pupils is almost criminal.”

Civil rights for gay men and women in Ireland: as long as they are English-speaking gay men and women? Pathetic, petty-minded bigotry. Those who speak Irish as their language are citizens of this Republic. They are not a non-people, however much some anglophone supremacists may wish it to be so. They are taxpayers too and have every right to access or receive the same resources of the state as their English-speaking peers.

The simple, inconvenient truth is that they do not get the same access or receive the same resources. On the contrary they face a state whose anglophone intolerance is built into the very foundations of the state, with anti-Irish discrimination fully institutionalised within the organs of government, from top to bottom.

Take the words of veteran journalist Pól Ó Muirí in the Irish Times:

“One of the more disturbing aspects of the language debate – or, more often, argument – is the way in which those who have no interest in Irish characterise those who do as “fanatics” or, almost as bad, “enthusiasts”. We speak English, goes the line, and have no need to spend time or money on a “dead” language. (It says much about contemporary Irish values that having two cars, two homes or two holidays abroad is good while having two languages is bad.)

Yet many countries use more than one language. Our nearest neighbours – who were kind enough to, ahem, gift us English – also have native communities of Welsh and Scots Gaelic speakers and other language communities from former colonial holdings. Continental Europe is awash with regional, lesser-used or minority languages – take your pick – and some of the same boast far more speakers than Irish. Those languages speak of a different and older Europe, one that predates the borders of many of the modern states drawn with such finality in the school atlas.

…the next generation of young native speakers could well be the last and that, once they die, Gaeltacht Irish will go with them.

…English is becoming more central to every aspect of Gaeltacht life and that Irish is being pushed out. As a consequence, the opportunities young native speakers have to engage fully with Irish is gravely lessened…”

The era when the LGBT community in Ireland was forced to hide behind closed doors has thankfully long passed. Adult citizens of this republic are legally entitled to live their lives as they wish and with whom they wish. We have a way to go in our general society and culture before sexual orientation is no more noteworthy than one’s hair colour but in time it will happen.

But the Irish-speaking community remains one of second class citizens with second class rights. Discrimination against Irish-speakers in Ireland is not just acceptable – it is positively promoted.

The Irish people, as a nation, have moved beyond the influence of the Roman Catholic Church or of any other faith, and increasingly see the separation between church and state as a necessary component of modern Ireland. Indeed, as simple normality. However when will a  sizeable section of the anglophone media in Ireland, and the public services of this state, move beyond the influence of 800 years of foreign colonial rule? When are they going to think as Irishmen and Irishwomen rather than insipid British clones? Or would they rather remain caricatures of Irishness aping a foreign language and culture, indeed an identity, because they believe it to be superior to their own?

For some the choice is simple. Speak Irish, read Irish, think Irish, be Irish. Or continue to follow the alternative path. Speak English, read English, think English, be English. But the choice is ours to make. All of us. And whether we choose to live in Éire or Ireland we should not be subject to abuse or ridicule for taking one path or the other. We should not, by the choice of the language we use for our name or our address or simply how we communicate, be reduced to the status of lesser citizens.

In that, at least, Ireland’s Gael community has much to learn from Ireland’s Gay community.

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The J.R.R. Tolkien fansite, TheOneRing.net, carries some news on the release of An Hobad, the Irish language version of Tolkien’s children’s classic the Hobbit. Very interesting it is, including details on some of the issues around finding a suitable word to translate the term Elf as Tolkien employs it.

“Part of the evening was taken up by media interviews with the extraordinary people involved in the translation. Professor Nicholas Williams (who previously translated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) explained that a particular difficulty in the translation was the absence in Irish mythology of an exact equivalent of Tolkien’s Elves. The search for a suitable word resulted in a years-long delay while Professor Williams and the publisher, Michael Everson (himself a formidable linguist, typesetter and font designer) sought to find common ground on the matter. In the end, a new word was created, Ealbh, based on a borrowing into Scottish Gaelic from Norse – a solution Tolkien might well have approved of!”

Maybe Tolkien would approve of it but I certainly don’t. What a terrible decision. And an awful Gaelicisation. Yes, I know it’s based upon an original Scottish word ealbhar, so has genuine Gaelic roots, but that word in turn is a borrowing from Old Norse álfr “elf”; and in Scottish the original borrowing now means “a good for nothing”. I should also point out that ealbh is an alternative spelling of the existing Irish word ealbha which means “a drove or herd of cattle”. Is that a suitable root for the Eldar of Middle-earth? And one that Tolkien the philologist would approve of?

As for the claim that there is no exact equivalent of Tolkien’s Elves in Irish mythology, stuff an’ nonsense. Tolkien’s Elves are straight out of Irish mythology, via the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Aos Sí.

There are many Irish terms for the Otherworld Folk which would have been entirely suitable for the Elves of Middle-earth and all derived from the base word Sí “Otherworld”. I have listed most of them here. Yes, some might say it is “culturally” incorrect (and perhaps confusing) to apply the same word for the supernatural race of Irish, Scottish and Manx myth to J.R.R. Tolkien’s imaginative creations. But since that imaginary race is so heavily based on its Irish counterpart, and since context would clearly indicate which race is being discussed, I see no harm in it.

In any case there are plenty of now fairly obscure Irish Otherworld terms that could have been used: and with far more gravitas and authenticity. Ealbh is right up there with rampaí as an indicator of our lack of confidence in our own language and culture. One only has to look at other non-English versions of The Hobbit to see the ready use of culturally-specific translations without the need for awful bastardisations. Elf would have been rendered far better in Irish as Sióg or Síogaí than the mongrelised Elabh. Or if they were felt too modern or too loaded with other connotations then one could have used Síodhaí, Síodhbróg or even Sídheog (all meaning an inhabitant of the Otherworld or an Otherworld domain).

Of course one could point to the translation of the term Hobbit itself: Hobad. Why? It is perfectly clear that the Halfling Hobbits of Tolkien’s Middle-earth have a close role-model in the Little People of Irish Folklore, the Lucharacháin or Leipreacháin. Yes, that’s right: Leprechauns. However the more literary term Lucharachán for Hobbit would surely have been more suitable, and more indicative to an Irish-speaking reader, than the utterly meaningless Hobad.

I wish the translators of An Hobad every success. They have done wonderful work and so far I have heard nothing but praise for the job they have done (a job, in fact, apparently superior to many other translations made of Tolkien’s first published work of Middle-earth legendarium). I will certainly be purchasing it and I recommend others do the same.

I’m just hoping that Ealbh dies the linguistic death it so richly deserves. But I doubt it.

UPDATE: Two videos on the release of An Hobad, one from Grafton Media and the other from Club Leabhar via Gaelchultúr (focusing mainly on the translation Eachtraí Eilíse i dTír na nIontas or “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by the same translator of The Hobbit).

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Ah, the upcoming referendum on the Austerity Treaty has the Golden Circle all of a-quiver as they face the outside prospect that the Irish citizenry, unruly rump of ignorant proletariat that they are, might have the temerity to say no to our betters in the European Union – and thereby upset the lucrative gravy train for the reborn Redmondite ranks of Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and the Greens.

So what hove’s into view but the grandly titled “Alliance for Ireland”. Hooray! But who are they you might ask? Why none other than a collection of the great and the good. Well, not so great, and not so good, but what the hey: loosers can’t be choosers when you’re desperate. And boy do those Pro-Treaty folk reek of desperation.

From the Irish Examiner:

“A clutch of senior GAA figures, including Cork football manager Conor Counihan, his Dublin counterpart Pat Gilroy, and Kilkenny hurling manager Brian Cody, are supporting a yes vote in the fiscal treaty referendum.

They have agreed to be patrons of Alliance for Ireland, a civil society group of political, business, NGO, trade union, and sporting figures campaigning for treaty ratification.

The alliance, whose director is former European Parliament president Pat Cox, launched its campaign in Dublin yesterday.”

Pat Cox? The Pat Cox? Back again, like Lazarus from the dead. Or in his case from a cushy job in Brussels.

“Chairman Brendan Halligan said the alliance was an entirely voluntary one and that its budget would be “under €10,000″.

Mr Halligan, a former Labour general secretary, expressed himself satisfied with the yes campaigns being run by the coalition partners.

Mr Halligan, meanwhile, said that he stood over language in the alliance’s leaflet which referred to members of the no campaign who wanted to stop gay marriage and abortion as “fundamentalists”.”

Funny people these Yes-To-Poverty types but at least they can claim some fame for being on the side that is willing to stand up for the rights of their fellow citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender.

Ooops, the again, it seems not:

“Shabby Seanad antics by Fine Gael, Labour kill gay Bill.

THE sheer spinelessness of the moment was summed-up by the remark: “Would we really be wasting time consulting with the Catholic Church if they could discriminate against black people in this way?”

Fianna Fáil Senator Averil Power was speaking after her bid to end the fear felt by gay teachers and medical staff who can be sacked on the grounds of their sexual orientation was voted down by Fine Gael and Labour in a nakedly cynical move.

Jerry Buttimer may be out but that did not stop his Government colleagues going in to kill a bill aimed at ending official discrimination against gay people working in schools and hospitals under the direction of a religious body.

Ms Power told the Seanad the threat of being fired is very real in an Ireland that is not as liberal as it likes to pretend.

With 92% of national schools under the direction of the Catholic Church, Ms Power revealed she had received numerous letters from teachers, as well as medical staff in genuine fear of losing their jobs.

One, who can only be named as Mary, is too frightened to even socialise with her partner in the town where they live together.

Such matters left Justice Minister Alan Shatter unmoved as he said the Bill needed to go because he was unsure it would “pass constitutional muster”.

While my view that Shatter does not pass ministerial muster would take up a whole different column, his judgment is highly questionable — especially as Senator Power merely asked for the Bill to be put forward to committee stage so that any problems with the wording could be ironed out.

Instead, Fine Gael and Labour killed it — cementing discrimination and fear in our schools and hospitals for at least another 18 months.

Shatter said the delay was needed for “consultations” with the Catholic Church and others.

The move was particularly craven in Labour’s case as it has long advocated getting rid of this clause — and its parliamentary party is made up of so many ex-teachers.

The grand sounding, but impotent bleatings of Labour Education Minister Ruairi Quinn in the Seanad only added to the spineless nature of the occasion.

Fine Gael may have a more hostile, right-wing agenda regarding getting rid of discrimination, but Labour voted the reform down simply because it did not want Fianna Fáil to be able to claim political credit for it.

Labour would rather gay people have to continue to live with prejudice at work because it suits its petty party interest.

It was the same story with the recent United Left Alliance bid to legislate for abortion rights in line with the Supreme Court’s X Case judgement.

Despite there being nothing in the ULA Bill that was not in Labour’s manifesto — not to mention the despair caused by seven successive governments failing to implement the Supreme Court ruling — Labour joined with Fine Gael in throwing out the reform to prevent the opposition getting credit for something Labour has promised, yet failed to deliver.”

The Alliance for Ireland? Or the alliance for another 90 years of the same old crap?

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