[ROCKTOBER 4] darraghmac Appreciation Day

just want to say I apreesh dmac 🙂

heh ty ums and rb@u but i really only took half-notice of what thread that crucial wins post was in when i bumped at 5am

gyac, absolutely i get the trap that an irish person abroad- i think anyone away, really, even me in dublin to a certain extent- can fall into without any blame attached of having a postcard relationship with place. experiencing it through parents and doing the summers back home, more so again, sure.

ive cousins in what i would think are a very similar type relationship, london to irish parents and its v clichéd how and where the stuff sticks, the importance to them of ritual and cultural points that....fell away from cousins this side as we lived through change. very understandable stuff.

but all that said, that this is a version of irish that seems acceptable- and look i guess we all have our sore points, this must be one of mine- to write and put on and tour around the world and slap "mid nineties western ireland" on it is something i take a strong allergy to tbh.

its cod ireland and whether the fault is in mcdonagh as a writer (frankly i suspect so) or whether this is a representation of ireland hed be happy to sit and talk to a journalist in nyc and insist is his truth is somewhat imo beside the point, rly

friel was writing a more modern rural ireland in the early 60s, like.

sure, mcdonagh is writing broad strokes, but my objection to the level of apery goes beyond "arah its doesnt have to be a documentary".

im overanalysing it, surely, but the question of why this, of anything, is what went superstar from the irish writing scene in the past two decades is one that goes beyond "he can write a decent quip" imo

I’m not disagreeing with you, I just understand where he’s coming from I guess. You see this to a much greater extent with Irish-Americans and the way they cling to things like corned beef and Irish dancing and stuff that died out in the late 19th century. Literally. (Why they insist on clinging to St Patty’s is another thing entirely).

You read old Flann and he was bang otm now, today, probably tomorrow. I mean, the “plain people of Ireland” still cuts! and even that is so beyond McDonagh. I do think he writes well though, when you strip this shite away? The issue is that there’s so much of it.

Anyway, Cruiskeen Lawn though! None of this sounds like anyone itt, ofc.

A LADY lecturing recently on the Irish language drew attention to the fact (I mentioned it myself as long ago as 1925) that, while the average English speaker gets along with a mere 400 words, the Irish-speaking peasant uses 4,000.

Considering what most English speakers can achieve with their tiny fund of noises, it is a nice speculation to what extremity one would be reduced if one were locked up for a day with an Irish-speaking bore and bereft of all means of committing murder or suicide.

My point, however, is this. The 400/4,000 ration is fallacious; 400/400,000 would be more like it. There is scarcely a single word in the Irish (barring, possibly, Sasanach) that is simple and explicit.

Apart from words with endless shades of cognate meaning, there are many with so complete a spectrum of graduated ambiguity that each of them can be made to express two directly contrary meanings, as well as a plethora of intermediate concepts that have no bearing on either

...

But what is the use? One could go on and on without reaching anywhere in particular.

Your paltry English speaker apprehends sea-going craft through the infantile cognition which merely distinguishes the small from the big.

If it’s small, it’s a boat, and if it’s big it’s a ship. In his great book An tOileánach,however, the uneducated Tomás Ó Criomhthain uses, perhaps, a dozen words to convey the concept of carrying super-marinity – árthrach long, soitheach, bád, naomhóg, bád raice, galbhád, púcán and whatever you are having yourself.

The plight of the English speaker with his wretched box of 400 vocal beads may be imagined when I say that a really good Irish speaker would blurt out the whole 400 in one cosmic grunt. In Donegal there are native speakers who know so many million words that it is a matter of pride with them never to use the same word twice in a life-time. Their life (not to say their language) becomes very complex at the century mark; but there you are.
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i think nakh pbuh may have posted some very interesting stuff in the middle of some long forgotten thread about how and where irish-scotch culture in particular- actually iirc its in particular-particular ulster-schotchtch- travelled in packets and stuck in their new places with specifically traceable cultural touchstones but sprung thence as a new genus in its own new conditions, and i think thats what we're saying here

amerikay tends, at least imo, to veer btwn quiet man and sayyyyy roddy doyle

i think that-if i think of them as the kilburn irish i hope that doesnt come across as having any negative connotations, these are my people- the kilburn irish have a very definite idea of rural ireland that-

will we say mcgahern? we will, maybe-

strikes me, when i mix with them as i do in their own place (london irish is a fascinating culture to me) or as they return to my place as tantalisingly close to quantifiable, tho im sure wed have a fine row in nailing down the characteristics.

and beyant all that, i would still say that mcdonaghs innismore is worthy of a flann to tear it to pieces

right, breakfast

this is good stuff deems and while nothing to contribute at the time these posts are worthy of appreciation, have it off me imo