Death Of The Irish Harp

For those interested in the psychology of art symbolism there is a great study by Mary Louise O’Donnell, of the University of Limerick, examining the slow dilution of the Irish Harp as the recognised emblem of the modern nation-state of Ireland. In particular since the sudden growth and equally sudden demise of the country’s so-called Celtic Tiger socio-economic model Ireland’s political and social elites have been at the forefront of chipping away at the historical legitimacy of their own state. A cultural phenomenon perhaps unique in modern Europe.

“Peter Alter notes that ‘national symbols are not static’ and can ‘lose their political integrating force and their credibility especially when the national programme for which they stand loses its persuasive power and is replaced by a different programme’.

The concept of branding has become an integral part of Irish harp iconography in the last decade. Terminology such as ‘emblem’ and ‘symbol’ has been replaced by the term ‘logo’, which is now the most potent tool in corporate branding and the creation of brand recognition. The Irish harp emblem, which is regarded increasingly as visually anachronistic, has been replaced by a variety of harp logos…

The Irish harp emblem is increasingly rejected in favour of a selection of fluid, oblique images of harps which reflect postmodern Irish society and culture. Fredric Jameson suggests that postmodernism ‘only clocks the variations themselves, and knows only too well that the contents are just more images’.

He notes that ‘there can-not but be much that is deplorable and reprehensible in a cultural form of image addiction which, by transforming the past into visual mirages, stereotypes, or texts, effectively abolishes any practical sense of the future’.

Dorothea Olkowoski-Leatz explores the consequences of this dispersion and fragmentation of images, suggesting that ‘there is nothing to know; there is only the distribution of information. There is no longer any history, only the parodying repetition of the past: a repetition visible in art culture, styles, political posturing.’

Harp logos, as employed by government departments or agencies, are arbitrary images which claim to represent reality but which, in truth, mean nothing. Jean Baudrillard used the term ‘simulacra’ to describe signs which serve no purpose and have no connection with reality. In Simulacra and Simulation he identified four orders of simulacra: firstly, the creation of false images which no longer represent what they are intended to signify; secondly, the reproduction and repetition of these false images; thirdly, the collapse of any distinction between the real image/sign and its simulation; and finally, pure simulation which has no relation to any reality.

The increasing employment and reproduction of harp logos, or false harp images, in place of the Irish harp emblem exemplifies the early stages of Baudrillard’s theory of simulacrization

Sadly, it seems that the Irish harp emblem has no significant role in the image-driven culture of post-modern Ireland. It has an uncertain future.

The national symbol, the potent visual representation of centuries of Irish politics, culture and history is evidently not an ‘integral part of a visual identity’ for the period… In light of the transformation of the Irish harp emblem over the last two decades one wonders how much longer it can remain an integral part of Irish identity.”

I’m no fan of the Irish Harp as such, nor indeed of the Tricolour or National Flag of Ireland. The latter in particular seems ugly and alien to me, unlike say the Gal Gréine. However I would mourn the passing of the Harp, with its ancient emblematic lineage, as one of the symbols of Ireland. If that does happen, and I suspect Mary Louise O’Donnell’s prediction may prove to be correct, it simply adds to the general feeling so readily observable all around us that we live in a “false” Ireland. One that the certain classes and cliques in Irish society seem determined to impose instead of the “real” Ireland which came before.