Life & Death
Sam Cochran
This thread started with an educated opinion that Irish is a dying language.
Do you have any idea what that might mean to Irish speaking people?
You immediately turn the discussion to moonshine and mason jars. Triviality
knows no bounds.
Shame on you.
Sam Cochran
______________________
"always step on the weeds
s...@n0toole.freeserve.net
wrote:
>>
>I have a son doing his junior certificate next year, who has to drop
>either German or Spanish , because he is doing French. English and
>Irish. are compulsory, and he can only do 3 languages....... he
>hates Irish, and gets very poor marks in it.
>
>This may surprise you but I encouraged him to stick with it and tried
>to raise his level of interest in it, sadly, to no avail. In my heart
>of hearts though I know it is complete waste of time. He would be far
>better off with another language, probably Spanish.
>
>The Government should understand by know that if force people to do
>something , most are going to stop as soon as they can.
>
>I see multi-fluent young europeans arriving in my country by the plane
>load. I would like to give my young people the best tools with to
>compete on a level playing field.......whether we like it or not
>Irish is not even in the game.
>
i totally agree.
i work for periods in various parts of europe, particulary eastern
europe and so many of them speak several languages. i know a dutch guy
who speaks english, italian, spanish, german, french and a
"smattering" of japanese - it was enough to carry on a conversation
with a japanese guy all one evening.
i also meet lots of young eastern europeans with several languages and
good or improving computer skills, plus loads of ambition and a
willingness to work hard, looking to go to other parts of europe or to
north america. they are finding it easier to get work permits too.
it will be a shame for irish to wither and maybe even die out, but
ireland has had generations of poverty and it's payback time.
>Eddie ( PS....... don't shoot the messenger.)
>
sean
Sheela na Gig
wrote:
>I think it's a "shame" that Eddie's 2% don't have more supporters in
>their own country, don't you? I think it's a very lyrical language
>that would be a shame to lose.
After living in Ireland, I came to believe that the preservation of
the language was crucial in preserving the culture. I did not really
understand that as an outsider, and it is difficult to explain how
much of the culture would be lost (or even already is slipping away)
with the loss of the language. Or actually, I'm a bit too tired to do
an analysis and I'm sure it is someone else's specialty :)
_____________________________________________________
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things
which escape those who dream only by night.
The Pirate Queen
s...@n0toole.freeserve.net wrote in message
>it will be a shame for irish to wither and maybe even die out, but
>ireland has had generations of poverty and it's payback time.
hmmm...everything else you said I understood (and snipped) but
I don't get this part?
PQ
hmm...weirdest thing just happened...noticed my clock was
a day ahead and tried to post and my new server wouldn't
let me!
The Pirate Queen
The Pirate Queen wrote in message <8k0m05
>hmmm...everything else you said I understood (and snipped) but
>I don't get this part?
>
>PQ
uh oh...this is probably gonna show up 4 or 5 times...sorry!
The Pirate Queen
s...@n0toole.freeserve.net wrote in message
>it will be a shame for irish to wither and maybe even die out, but
>ireland has had generations of poverty and it's payback time.
Sam Cochran
<edw...@indigo.ie> writes:
>It is a pity.... really a terrible shame, and form an academic
>armchair it is "interesting" to explore the reasons etc etc..... but
>for most people especially the youth......... Irish deprived them of
>a more valuable European language.
Couldn't you also make the case that other aspects of a liberal arts education,
history, music and art etc. have the same result? Why not just eliminate all
the superfluous curricula and stick to the important stuff?
[...]
>It is nice and easy to smugly suggest to someone that they should be
>more supportive of what is in effect a dead " working" language, when
>they are swamped my multi-literate europeans taking choice jobs simply
>because of their linguistic ability.
Sorry, but this makes no sense. How can multi-literate europeans have their
choice jobs simply because of their linguistic ability? Why learn Swahili
unless you do business with Africans? Seems to me that in Ireland, English and
Irish should do just fine except perhaps for someone in sales. If you told me
which choice jobs hinged upon multi-lingual abilities I could understand more
clearly.
[...]
>I see multi-fluent young europeans arriving in my country by the plane
>load. I would like to give my young people the best tools with to
>compete on a level playing field.......whether we like it or not
>Irish is not even in the game.
Nor should it be. AFAIR, Irish is not a technical language. Sounds to me like
you are making excuses as in "gee whiz dad, I didn't get that swell job 'caus I
studied Irish while in school blah blah blah......"
Sam
Sam Cochran
<edw...@indigo.ie> writes:
>Triviality is the eye of the beholder.... to some discussions on the
>Irish langauge is about as trivail as you can get. A dying langauge
>practised by 2% of the population.......... Hello..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was making the case that a discussion of moonshine and mason jars is trivial
when compared to the death of a language. It is also true that there is a
great deal of debate about and interest in many languages that are and have
been truly dead for a long, long time. Latin, and Anglo-Saxon come immediately
to mind and I suspect that there are numerous others. Irish, OTOH is a
functional language even if practiced by only 2 per-cent of the population. It
is not dead YET. And it amazes me that you, an Irish person, could be so
flippant about its imminent demise.
Sam Cochran
<She...@purgatory.com> writes:
>After living in Ireland, I came to believe that the preservation of
>the language was crucial in preserving the culture. I did not really
>understand that as an outsider, and it is difficult to explain how
>much of the culture would be lost (or even already is slipping away)
>with the loss of the language. Or actually, I'm a bit too tired to do
>an analysis and I'm sure it is someone else's specialty :)
The connection between between language and culture is not hard for a Cherokee,
Native American to understand. It may be a matter of not knowing what is lost
till it is gone. Then it is too late. But this is counterfactual speculation
on my part. I know shit 'bout this stuff.
Sambo
Laura
news:u4o7ms49knk45tjt9...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 05 Jul 2000 19:28:04 -0400, Sheela na Gig
> <She...@purgatory.com> wrote:
>
>
> >After living in Ireland, I came to believe that the preservation of
> >the language was crucial in preserving the culture.
>
>
> Is it the same for everyone in Ireland. ?
Not to mention that interest in one's "native" language tends to go in
cycles. Your kid's kid will probably want to learn the language just to
spite your kid who "deprived" him of it. Kids can be like that, and thus
goes the world.
--
Laura
~~~~~
I worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz
-J.J
~~~~~
Séimí mac Liam
jake <iubh...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:jr59mscfuj1c8i551...@4ax.com...
> On 06 Jul 2000 04:05:24 GMT, len...@cs.comxspam (Sam Cochran)
wrote:
of
really
> >>understand that as an outsider, and it is difficult to explain how
> >>much of the culture would be lost (or even already is slipping
away)
> >>with the loss of the language. Or actually, I'm a bit too tired to
do
> >>an analysis and I'm sure it is someone else's specialty :)
> >
> >The connection between between language and culture is not hard for
a Cherokee,
> >Native American to understand. It may be a matter of not knowing
what is lost
> >till it is gone. Then it is too late. But this is counterfactual
speculation
> >on my part. I know shit 'bout this stuff.
> >
> >Sambo
> Eeeuuwww....you really know how to push the edges, fella. :)
>
>
Call me a thick WASP, but I have never quite understood why that
particular story got branded as racist.
--
Saint Séimí mac Liam
Carriagemaker to the court of Queen Maeve
My eyes are hazel as well as my nuts"
Canonized December '99
b ro
> On Wed, 7 Jun 2000 17:12:00 +0000, kfuz...@tinet.ie (Unki) wrote:
>
> >Things
> >are changing but for the likes of myself and Eddie we still have vivid
> >memories of being slapped across the head by some greasy haired fuckwit
> >from Connamara in his grandfathers suit screaming some incoherent noises
> >at terrified and bewildered children.
>
> My particular sadistic bastard was from or near Rathlin Island.....
> and boy did he get off on whacking the shite out of us. He also spoke
> in the Donegal dialect with a northern twang,
everything's beginning to make sense now...
bro
s...@n0toole.freeserve.net
i feel that perhaps things like: irish, gaa, the catholic church, dev
and his legacy, have in some sense held back progress for 'the people'
in ireland. ( or really the attitude of many people in that loose
grouping). i think that has been a cause of much poverty for many
years. now there is a good economic climate for many people and they
are modern europeans instead of 'dark ages' irish.
the irish languge has become associated with the 'dark ages' and
suffers because of it. just read about the great teaching methods in
followup messages :)
the arguments about gaa, dev, the church have been done to death so i
don't need to repeat them.
perhaps the irish language promotors and scholars should have chosen
their associates more carefully but it suited them at the time.
i'm sure jams o' donnel will refute all this :)
sean
i don't know why i'm in this thread. i'm only really interested in
football, music, drink and socialism
Bren Vaughan
> We had a brutal little mean beady-eyed nun who hit us with a bell whenever
> we dared question her, she would trounce down between the desks to you and
<snip the christian fluffiness only a truly dedicated nun can provide>
My primary school was actually in Kerry and there we did Irish and it
was no big deal. I mean that in the sense that while there were
certainly kids who disliked it there wasn't really an overpowering "I
really hate this!" school of thought. Mind you, in our daily lives
certain Irish phrases and words were still used by our elders (and in
particular my grandmother's generation) so it wasn't so much a seperate
language but more a language on whose iceberg tip we lived.
When I was 11 we moved to Birr in Offaly and there things were horribly
different. There every single student hated Irish and the standard was
shocking. I mean, they hadn't a clue. There also I found quite a lot of
the teachers (with a few exceptions) to be teaching the subject as if
they were at war with the students, determined to force the thing into
their heads against their will. Needless to say it didn't work. But why
the difference? The fairly obvious one could be that Birr (and parts of
Leinster in general) was heavily anglicised throughout its history and
still retains that aura today. There is no tradition there of Irish as
it was extinguished long ago. Therefor I don't think the language will
ever recover in places like that as it is a foreign entity and one which
generations have been led to believe is a negative thing without ever
really thinking about it. Dublin of course is the most anglicised area
of the whole country and is so disconnected historically and mentally
from gaelic speaking regions that they might as well be on two different
continents sometimes.
bren, incontinent.
Unki
> When I was 11 we moved to Birr in Offaly and there things were horribly
> different. There every single student hated Irish and the standard was
> shocking. I mean, they hadn't a clue. There also I found quite a lot of
> the teachers (with a few exceptions) to be teaching the subject as if
> they were at war with the students, determined to force the thing into
> their heads against their will.
Story of the Irish state when you think about it. Gaelic Catholic
Fundies waging war against individualism and free expression. I went
into my Leaving Cert Irish exam not having the faintest clue about
anything.
It's time for compulsory Irish to be removed from the school curriculum.
Only fanatics can justify it continued inclusion at this point. Chances
are, if it is offered to the kids as an optional language they are more
likely to embrace it. The Irish language vanguards in this country have
been a disaster and should be consigned to the scrapheap when they
belong. Give all primary school children a basic intro to the language.
The ones that enjoy it can keep it up during their secondary years. All
the others can learn German, French, Italian, Spanish and so on.
Well that's my rant over and I am back to bed to suffer some more
*sniff-wheeze-general snot type deal*
K. E. Dennis
> Í (htail_alaeTWIRLY!@my-deja.SCI-RULEZ!com) wrote:
>
> > We had a brutal little mean beady-eyed nun who hit us with a bell whenever
> > we dared question her, she would trounce down between the desks to you and
>
> <snip the christian fluffiness only a truly dedicated nun can provide>
>
> My primary school was actually in Kerry and there we did Irish and it
> was no big deal. I mean that in the sense that while there were
> certainly kids who disliked it there wasn't really an overpowering "I
> really hate this!" school of thought.
Just parenthetically: IME, it doesn't matter what subject is being taught - a
brutal sadist of an instructor can make even the most intrinsically interesting
mat'l hateful.
For example: I may not be the most artistically gifted creature on earth [this,
BTW, falls into the category of Massively Understating The Truth], but I had
what was undoubtedly the typical child's enthusiasm for scribbling, dabbling, &
smearing paints all over myself & anything else.... until I encountered a middle
school art teacher, one of those people who'd either mistaken his calling or had
deliberately gone into teaching in order to satisfy his need to bully & frighten
people smaller than himself.
I subsequently conquered my [painfully acquired] aversion to art only after many
yrs of associating w/ people who love it, & who devoted some considerable time &
effort to gently introducing me to its pleasures & histories - but I know many
people never overcome the fear & loathing induced by a difficult introduction to
a subject [this is all too obvious in maths & sciences for most people, I'm
sorry to say].
[small snip]
> When I was 11 we moved to Birr in Offaly and there things were horribly
> different. There every single student hated Irish and the standard was
> shocking. I mean, they hadn't a clue. There also I found quite a lot of
> the teachers (with a few exceptions) to be teaching the subject as if
> they were at war with the students, determined to force the thing into
> their heads against their will. Needless to say it didn't work.
I can't speak for Birr, of course, but can I ask if it wasn't like that w/ other
subjects as well?
What I mean is that when I would speak w/ many of the schoolkids in Tullamore
about their schools, this combat model of education seemed to be pretty
dominant. Not ubiquitous, mind you, but the emphasis did seem to me to be on
"drumming it into them whether they want it or not," whether *it* was history,
or Irish, or anything else...
> But why
> the difference? The fairly obvious one could be that Birr (and parts of
> Leinster in general) was heavily anglicised throughout its history and
> still retains that aura today.
Well, not quite thru out its history - certainly not before the Marian
plantation;-)
& Offaly was still dominantly Irish speaking into the 1820s, IIRC, till the
national school system really began cooking away & the O'Connellite version of
nationalism made English the language of "national advancement" in the popular
mind.
Which is not to say that the majority were not fluent in English by that point -
particularly in the lgr towns such as Birr & Tullamore, w/ their garrisons &
substantial Anglo-Irish & also Protestant populations [these latter two groups
were not perfectly synonymous, BTW] - but Irish was not restricted to the
present Gaeltachta quite yet.
> There is no tradition there of Irish as
> it was extinguished long ago. Therefor I don't think the language will
> ever recover in places like that as it is a foreign entity and one which
> generations have been led to believe is a negative thing without ever
> really thinking about it.
Well, I'm happy to report that this is not apparently the case - apparently
there is considerable interest in Irish - & in correcting the abuses of the
past. I noted w/ great pleasure, for example, back in Sept., the following
passage in an IT article about new housing being built in Cloncollagh, on the
outskirts of Tullamore, by the UDC:
> "The most recent addition to the development, where we have
> already built 60 homes with 16 more due to be ready early
> next year, is the Gaelscoil. This is a great addition to the
> development and it will give the kind of mixed development we
> hope to achieve there." The project has already created
> considerable interest throughout the State and there have
> been a number of queries from other local authorities to the
> UDC for information on what is being done in Tullamore.
Tullamore leads fight for home prices
By Sean MacConnell
MIDLANDS REPORT
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/1999/0909/mid1.htm
IRISH TIMES > IRELAND
Thursday, September 9, 1999
So I'd say the article Ger posted was very much to the point: the langauge &
the Gaeltacht are *not* synonymous, & in the future, Irish will be far less tied
to place than @ present. But it will *not* die, despite all the hopes & wishes
of dog-in-the-manger jackeens & bullied students alike.
respectfully submitted,
|K.E. Dennis den...@mail.montclair.edu
|My employer is not responsible for my opinions,
|regardless of how sensible they are.
Bren Vaughan
> Just parenthetically: IME, it doesn't matter what subject is being taught - a
> brutal sadist of an instructor can make even the most intrinsically interesting
> mat'l hateful.
Indeed.
> For example: I may not be the most artistically gifted creature on earth [this,
> BTW, falls into the category of Massively Understating The Truth], but I had
> what was undoubtedly the typical child's enthusiasm for scribbling, dabbling, &
> smearing paints all over myself & anything else.... until I encountered a middle
> school art teacher, one of those people who'd either mistaken his calling or had
> deliberately gone into teaching in order to satisfy his need to bully & frighten
> people smaller than himself.
I've met a few teachers who obviously didn't like kids. why in the hell
they were teaching was beyond me but then again having one child a
priest or nun, one a doctor and one a teacher is very old ireland and it could
account for some of them.
> I subsequently conquered my [painfully acquired] aversion to art only after many
> yrs of associating w/ people who love it, & who devoted some considerable time &
> effort to gently introducing me to its pleasures & histories - but I know many
> people never overcome the fear & loathing induced by a difficult introduction to
> a subject [this is all too obvious in maths & sciences for most people, I'm
> sorry to say].
You were lucky then. Many people never get over it. As for science, I
can never understand why it is not so attractive. didn't these people
watch Buck Rogers while young?? :)
> I can't speak for Birr, of course, but can I ask if it wasn't like that w/ other
> subjects as well?
> What I mean is that when I would speak w/ many of the schoolkids in Tullamore
> about their schools, this combat model of education seemed to be pretty
> dominant. Not ubiquitous, mind you, but the emphasis did seem to me to be on
> "drumming it into them whether they want it or not," whether *it* was history,
> or Irish, or anything else...
Well, there are a few factors. In general I would say with some teachers
definately yes. I spent my last year in primary school in a Christian
Brother's school in Birr and while I never was physically attacked or
anything (although others were certainly given a clout) there was
certainly an air of menace about the place. Fear was the overriding
emotion first thing in the morning among my classmates. They were afraid
of getting things wrong and facting the music. This was in sharp
contrast to my previous school where I had some wonderful teachers who
treated kids as small people and aided rather than punished as a rule.
Also it was my first experience of an all boys school which I found to
be stilting and did nothing to help young children understand each other
from a gender perspective.
> Well, not quite thru out its history - certainly not before the Marian
> plantation;-)
> & Offaly was still dominantly Irish speaking into the 1820s, IIRC, till the
> national school system really began cooking away & the O'Connellite version of
> nationalism made English the language of "national advancement" in the popular
> mind.
> Which is not to say that the majority were not fluent in English by that point -
> particularly in the lgr towns such as Birr & Tullamore, w/ their garrisons &
> substantial Anglo-Irish & also Protestant populations [these latter two groups
> were not perfectly synonymous, BTW] - but Irish was not restricted to the
> present Gaeltachta quite yet.
Be that as it may, Birr is one of the most anglicised towns I have ever
been in Ireland and is quite proud of it's past. The Earl of Rosse still
sits in his castle and parts of the town carry parts of previous names
of the place such as Oxmantown and Parsonstown. Parts of the garison
still stand and my father still refers to it as "A garrison town" in ones
which do little to hide his contempt. I met my first protestant in Birr
and saw my first Protestant Church (which I have never entered initially
due to childish Catholic guilt and later due to not giving a toss about
any church at all). Ironically it was also the first place I saw a Sinn
Fein office although I would consider my previous homeland a much more
Republican area. I first hear the term "mush" there and have only ever
heard it used elsewhere on Eastenders and the biggest annual attraction
in Birr is the Vintage Week which turns the town back into an image of
perfect Anglo-Irish respectability. I have never ever heard anyone speak
Irish in Birr outside of a school.
> Well, I'm happy to report that this is not apparently the case - apparently
> there is considerable interest in Irish - & in correcting the abuses of the
> past. I noted w/ great pleasure, for example, back in Sept., the following
> passage in an IT article about new housing being built in Cloncollagh, on the
> outskirts of Tullamore, by the UDC:
<snip article>
This is the kind of thing that is needed. There is a Gaelcoil in
Newcastle West which I believe is very successful and it's great to see
it. I would send my child to one except it's probably too late now :(
> So I'd say the article Ger posted was very much to the point: the langauge &
> the Gaeltacht are *not* synonymous, & in the future, Irish will be far less tied
> to place than @ present. But it will *not* die, despite all the hopes & wishes
> of dog-in-the-manger jackeens & bullied students alike.
I sincerely hope it does not. Get em young I say. We have people over
here buying bainne in the shops and putting their geansai on when they
are cold. If the Sasanachs can do it, surely anyone can.
bren
Breathnac
>
>Eddie Wall said:
>>My particular sadistic bastard was from or near Rathlin Island.....
>>and boy did he get off on whacking the shite out of us. He also spoke
>>impossible to understand him and were therfore subjected to more
>>abuse.... I really don't have a christian thought for him, and I hope
>>he reaped the harvest that he sowed in human misery.
>
>We had a brutal little mean beady-eyed nun who hit us with a bell whenever
>we dared question her, she would trounce down between the desks to you and
>would stand at the school gate at a few minutes to 9am, ringing the bell,
>and wallop anyone with it who tried to duck in a minute late, then she
>carried the bell to all her classes. I swear this is true, ask anyone who
>went to the Mercy in Sligo, I think she's still there. But it was Christian
>Doctrine she taught us and a few of us would bait her with reincarnation
>talk. This after being in National School with a teacher from Collooney who
>spoke and taught beautiful Irish but went wild with a cane if you didn't
>have the catechism off by heart. Is it any wonder I'm an atheist.
>
>As strange luck would have it, about five years after I left school I went
>through a born-again type of religious experience which lasted only a year
>or so, but I came home for a meeting which was held at the school hall and
>there she was, without the bell, eyes dancing with love and joy, born-again,
>hallelujah. It was a very bizarre experience.
I have to say when it came to skin flying I always found the lay teachers, as we
called them, to be far worse than the nuns, Christian brothers and priests. My
woodwork teacher was a total sadist, and off all the teachers to be sadists, a
woodwork teacher is surely the worst, because this fucker had at his disposal
things only a Christian brother could dream off - saws, chisels, hammers and the
dreaded T-board, which he loved to swing and bury in your rib-cage and crack a
few bones while the going was good.
Being left-handed I was totally victimized in his class, and blah blah blah I
know everyone's a victim, but put a leftie in a woodwork class, working on a
right-handed bench with right handed tools, add a psycho teacher from Leitrim
with wiry grey hair shooting out in every direction, and add to this the fact
that another fella's mother called him a bastard behind his back at a parent
teacher meeting and he turned around with a vicious look on his face and thought
it was my mother who said it. He always had it in for me after that.
A madman like this will always find some kind of logic to administer you a few
good cracks on the back with the T-board, however twisted that logic might be,
and this headcase's thing was blood. If he saw a spec of bogman blood on the so
called dovetail joint you just created, he'd be sure to knock some more out of
you while it was still plentiful. Blood was a sign of sloppy work - of course,
he was right here. It was a sign you took a slice of your own finger when the
saw hit a knot and hopped off the fresh timber you were carving in two, or maybe
the chisel slipped just as you put all your body strength behind it, shot up and
took half your skull off in the process.
Being an awkward kithoge, I gave many a bucket of blood in that woodwork class,
and Mr. Headcase in return kept the circulation of what still remained going
with a few well aimed kidney blows. I never hated a teacher so much in all my
born days and I did everything possible to get out of his classes, for the prick
also taught me technical drawing and construction studies too, so I was
guaranteed a few hours of hell with him everyday, all because he thought my
mother called him a bastard. As no one would listen to me, the only solution was
to do my devil best at his subjects, so as not to give him any excuse to go on
one of his beloved T-board fests. So I made a vow to myself that no more blood
would be shed, by my own hands, on my own hands. I didn't care if it took me
hours to saw a piece of wood, so long as my index finger was still there at the
end of class.
One day in preparation for our exams, with a menace of his face, and his wiry
hair all scattered in every direction, he gave us a complex piece of woodwork to
complete - saws, vice-grips, planes, chisels, the whole nine yards would be
required on this one. It would take total concentration to avoid bloodshed here,
and sure enough cometh the hour, cometh the carpenter, for at the end of the
day, surely to God hadn't I produced something truly exquisite and not a drop of
the red stuff to be seen on it. My bench mate, Grady, who was a dab hand at the
woodwork, marvelled when he saw it and held it up in the air in amazement.
As was customary, we all had to march up to the front of the class one by one,
with our finished work and Mr. Headcase would inspect it and mark it out of ten,
and up until now I'd never done better than two out of ten. I'd never done
worse, either. He always gave me two out of ten, along with a few belts into the
bargain for the bloodstains.
This time, however, he couldn't believe I'd produced such a masterpiece. He
inspected every inch of it for a mistake, checked to make sure the joints were
all at ninety degrees. He checked it high and low, but not a fault could the
fucker find, until slowly a demonic smile spread across his face. Blood! The
hoor found some blood on the wood, not much, but blood nevertheless. Well bollix
it anyway. I stuck out my hands in fear. "Look no cuts, sir", I said. He took my
hands and inspected them, but much to his disappointment couldn't find any saw
marks. It was then he scanned the whole classroom, before slowly walking down to
my workbench. I wasn't sure what his game was but I soon found out. He inspected
poor auld Grady's hand, and found his blood. Poor Grady who had a clean record
up until now had fatally handled my wood. As he thumped poor Grady with the
T-board, I could feel every blow like it was my own back.
Well here, finally at last, the story takes a GAA twist, for I saw the fucker a
few years later, long after I'd departed that hellhole, as he tried to drive his
way out through the crowds after a Connacht semi-final. Myself and the brother
walked in front of his car, not bothering our arses to move too quickly and we
held him up for a good mile or two. Who was laughing now. We could be thick
bastards, too.
Breathnach
Sweeney the Wanderer
> You were lucky then. Many people never get over it. As for science, I
> can never understand why it is not so attractive. didn't these people
> watch Buck Rogers while young?? :)
Some of us found Buck Rogers boring as hell. We then proceeded to find
science boring as hell and more than a little infuriating since a good
grade in biology, chemistry and physics are the bare minimum necessary
to get into university over here. This takes time away from the really
cool stuff like Spizoza, seventeenth century property law and street
rioting. Scientists think the correct answer matters and lawyers proceed
to turn scientists into courtroom whores because of it. I can't get
excited about science; it doesn't have the excitement of bending another
mind to my reality.
Sweeney
KateH
> Bren Vaughan wrote:
> > You were lucky then. Many people never get over it. As for science, I
> > can never understand why it is not so attractive. didn't these people
> > watch Buck Rogers while young?? :)
>
> science boring as hell and more than a little infuriating since a good
> grade in biology, chemistry and physics are the bare minimum necessary
> to get into university over here.
I've never seen Buck Rogers. :(
But I think science is cool as all hell (which is very, very cool, BTW) I
took biology, zoology, botany and oceanography and then I *accidentally*
took a physics class (I wanted an Early Etruscan (sp) Art class that was
canceled due to lack of interest from everybody in the world 'cept me) .
Soooooooooo, I figured if you studied hard enough..........even in something
that you were no good at (math) ......you could *at least* get a passing
grade......and it WAS very interesting stuff. I enjoyed the class!
Unfortunately, even dating the TA and going to ALL the extra help classes
couldn't save me from an F and I dropped the class.
I was devastated, but eventually I decided it was more fun studying biology
and chemistry at the nude beach for the rest of the quarter. There might've
even been *some* physics involved there somewhere..........nude guys playing
frisbee..........velocities and vectors and all that. :)
KateH
Bren Vaughan
> Bren Vaughan wrote:
> > You were lucky then. Many people never get over it. As for science, I
> > can never understand why it is not so attractive. didn't these people
> > watch Buck Rogers while young?? :)
> Some of us found Buck Rogers boring as hell. We then proceeded to find
> science boring as hell and more than a little infuriating since a good
> grade in biology, chemistry and physics are the bare minimum necessary
> to get into university over here. This takes time away from the really
> cool stuff like Spizoza, seventeenth century property law and street
> rioting. Scientists think the correct answer matters and lawyers proceed
> to turn scientists into courtroom whores because of it. I can't get
> excited about science; it doesn't have the excitement of bending another
> mind to my reality.
Why would we care about bending minds to our reality (which of course
several sciences do but keep secret from lay people) when we can bend
reality itself?
bren
Séimí mac Liam
Bren Vaughan <bvau...@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:8k6nca$c6f$3...@niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk...
science, I
> > > can never understand why it is not so attractive. didn't these
people
> > > watch Buck Rogers while young?? :)
>
find
> > science boring as hell and more than a little infuriating since a
good
> > grade in biology, chemistry and physics are the bare minimum
necessary
> > to get into university over here. This takes time away from the
really
> > cool stuff like Spizoza, seventeenth century property law and
street
> > rioting. Scientists think the correct answer matters and lawyers
proceed
> > to turn scientists into courtroom whores because of it. I can't
get
> > excited about science; it doesn't have the excitement of bending
another
> > mind to my reality.
>
> Why would we care about bending minds to our reality (which of
course
> several sciences do but keep secret from lay people) when we can
bend
> reality itself?
>
race? If it don't suit us we figure a way to change it.
K. E. Dennis
> K. E. Dennis (den...@mail.montclair.edu) wrote:
>
> I've met a few teachers who obviously didn't like kids. why in the hell
> they were teaching was beyond me but then again having one child a
> priest or nun, one a doctor and one a teacher is very old ireland and it could
> account for some of them.
I have no doubt of that. People take the job opportunities that are on offer, after
all, don't they. & in an economy in which few positions came w/ as much community
respect [& often freedom from scrutiny] as teaching, one could expect a certain
internal as well as external motivation on the part of many to go into this
profession, perhaps w/o comprehending how much it might disagree w/ them personally.
The same, unfortunately, was all too true of the religious orders as well, as has
become painfully evident to so many.
> > I subsequently conquered my [painfully acquired] aversion to art .... - but I know
> many
> > people never overcome the fear & loathing induced by a difficult introduction to
> > a subject [this is all too obvious in maths & sciences for most people, I'm
> > sorry to say].
>
> You were lucky then. Many people never get over it. As for science, I
> can never understand why it is not so attractive. didn't these people
> watch Buck Rogers while young?? :)
I used to wonder about this, much as I wondered why so many people genuinely seem not
to enjoy reading, & indeed seem utterly unable to believe that reading can be a source
of intense pleasure.
I've come to realise that for such folks, reading [or maths, or science, or a 2nd
language, or whatever] is what one *must* do in order to pass the exams that lead to
the the credentials that are req'd for the good jobs that will allow them to buy the
toys they really want - that is, what one must suffer thru to get to the real goal, &
which never need be done again from that point on.
We humans are fundamentally lazy creatures, & don't naturally warm to chores, IME.
[snipped schools comparison & the atmosphere of fear; Irish speaking in Offaly]
> Be that as it may, Birr is one of the most anglicised towns I have ever
> been in Ireland and is quite proud of it's past. The Earl of Rosse still
> sits in his castle
Yes - I find that quite amusing, TBH. Did you know, BTW, that the Gardens have just
been re-opened after a major overhaul?
> .... my father still refers to it as "A garrison town" in ones
> which do little to hide his contempt.
One of the reasons I was attracted to the Midlands for my research was precisely
because it's there that you get this 'frontier' as it were btwn the [overly
simplified] two traditions: the anglicised east & the gealicised wesht.
The local politics reflect that; even tho few people these days hanker for any
explicit connection w/ the old unionist trad'ns [pace David Christopher & the ever
self-deluding Keith Mills], there's distinctly more comfort w/ the idea of an
Anglo-Irish past than you might find elsewhere - & IME, distinctly less defensiveness
about it too.
People seemed not to feel as if their Irishness might be 'compromised' by
long-standing ties w/ 'English' things, if you see what I mean - except that
Protestant families were typically highly conscious of demographics, as well as the
fact that if they *wish* to maintain some of those trad'ns [shorn, typically, of any
political allegiance to things British] in raising their children, they had to look
further afield for educational opportunities. The classic minority dilemma.
> I met my first protestant in Birr
;-)
>
> and saw my first Protestant Church (which I have never entered initially
> due to childish Catholic guilt and later due to not giving a toss about
> any church at all).
Tullamore, of course, can boast of having 3: COI, Methodist [one of the oldest
congregations in Ireland, BTW] & Presbyterian. To me, of course, this seemed
unremarkable, until I traveled more around Ireland & realised how many places were
'uni-denominational'.
> Ironically it was also the first place I saw a Sinn
> Fein office although I would consider my previous homeland a much more
> Republican area.
This is the flip side of that political easiness I noted above, I think - a reflection
of some pretty intense local conflicts that go back to the Civil War [& no doubt
earlier].
FF & FG family trad'ns are very strong, & altho few people were comfortable talking
about that period w/ me [let's face it, even after 2 yrs living there I was still an
American, & likely to draw simplistic & stupid conclusions, wasn't I], I found the
former folks were very republican indeed.
OTOH, all the pro-IRA graffiti were typically ascribed to youths home from England on
holidays;-)
> > ....apparently
> > there is considerable interest in Irish - & in correcting the abuses of the
> > past. I noted w/ great pleasure, for example, back in Sept., the following
> > passage in an IT article about new housing being built in Cloncollagh, on the
> > outskirts of Tullamore, by the UDC:
>
> <snip article>
>
> This is the kind of thing that is needed. There is a Gaelcoil in
> Newcastle West which I believe is very successful and it's great to see
> it. I would send my child to one except it's probably too late now :(
Too late? He's just 4, isn't he? Or is it that you're living too far off now? [Not
that it's my business to ask, of course.]
Perfect age for starting to pick up other languages, actually - tho perhaps you're
concerned that he'd be a bit behind the other children in vocabulary & so forth.
That's something he'd pick up very quickly, in all likelihood, as kids are absolute
sponges for words [you've already noticed that, I'm sure].
Anyway, you & your partner have laid the groundwork for it anyway by using Irish
yourselves.
In the neighbourhood where I grew up, most of the adults spoke Italian [some, Yiddish]
when they wanted to discuss subjects not suitable for children; the natural result was
that I developed an insatiable desire to learn the language [thwarted, alas, by a
school system that was able to provide instruction only in French or German].
Curiosity is a wonderful motivator.
> > So I'd say the article Ger posted was very much to the point: the langauge &
> > the Gaeltacht are *not* synonymous, & in the future, Irish will be far less tied
> > to place than @ present. But it will *not* die, despite all the hopes & wishes
> > of dog-in-the-manger jackeens & bullied students alike.
>
> I sincerely hope it does not. Get em young I say. We have people over
> here buying bainne in the shops and putting their geansai on when they
> are cold. If the Sasanachs can do it, surely anyone can.
Indeed. Even me, perhaps.
Anyway, I have to note a dazzling instance of synchronicity: here we are chattering
away about Birr, when what should pop up on the front pg of today's NY Times but the
following article, on another topic of some considerable ongoing interest in this ng.
New York Times > International
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/070800ireland-refugees.html
July 8, 2000
Irish Now Confront the Other Side of Immigration
By SARAH LYALL
BIRR, Ireland -- It is hard to find anyone in this busy
little town with a specific complaint about the 70-odd
strangers who abruptly arrived last fall from places like
Chechnya and Nigeria. But that does not mean the town
wants them here.
"Maybe we're ignorant, but the only colored person you'd
ever see before was someone back from England," said a
45-year-old carpenter who refused to give his name,
saying that the issue was too fraught and that Birr, with
only 4,000 or so people, was too small.
"It's not that we're biased," he said,
trying to explain why he had not
spoken to any of the newcomers, who
are living here at government expense
while their applications for political
asylum are being considered. "It's
just that we don't know what to make
of these black people. We don't
understand them. We're, maybe, afraid
of them."
For the last decade, Ireland's
membership in the European Union has
helped fuel an economic boom,
transforming an isolated, desperately
poor economy into the proud success
that calls itself the Celtic Tiger.
But the boom has brought another
European dividend: waves of unwanted
newcomers, most of them seeking
employment and refuge from politically
unstable, war-ravaged areas of Africa
and Europe.
And now Ireland, with its history of
sending its citizens abroad in search
of better lives, has become something
it never would have imagined: a magnet
for the dispossessed. "This is the
real world catching up to us," said
Piaras MacEinri, director of the Irish
Center for Migration Studies at
University College, Cork. "It's not
just about refugees. It's about
Ireland no longer being a small, white
place of emigrants."
By now the Irish are all too familiar
with the prejudice and hardships their
countrymen suffered over the centuries
as they searched for work abroad. It
is hard-wired into their sense of
themselves.
That is why people like Ned Lawton
become so angry when they hear the
common complaint, voiced in Birr and
elsewhere, that the refugees are here
simply to take advantage of Ireland's
newfound wealth, not to flee
persecution at home.
"In the 1980's when you saw a headline
about illegal immigrants, you'd assume
the article was talking about Irish
immigrants in New York," said Mr.
Lawton, a spokesman for the Irish
Refugee Council. "This is all a bit
rich, coming from us, particularly now
that we have a booming economy."
Europe is awash in refugees these
days, but Ireland, more than its
Continental cousins, has been forced
by the rush of events to make up its
asylum policy as it goes along.
In 1992 only 39 people applied for
asylum in Ireland. In 1999 there were
7,724. Now 1,000 are applying every
month, a number that sounds
inconsequential until you consider
Ireland's relatively tiny size, less
than half the size of North Carolina.
With only 3.6 million residents, the
country drew more asylum seekers as a
percentage of its population last year
than any other European country except
Austria and Belgium. Most of the new
arrivals have gravitated to an already
overwhelmed Dublin, forcing the
government to scramble for places to
put them.
A proposal to build floating detention
centers, or "flotels," foundered when
port after port found new objections
to raise. The current plan is to build
some 4,000 housing units where the
refugees can live for the 18 months or
so it generally takes to process their
applications.
In the meantime the Nigerians,
Congolese, Romanians, Chechens and
Poles living in the Maltings
guesthouse, a private rooming house at
one end of Birr, are beneficiaries, if
that is the right word, of the
government's current program of
dispersing the asylum seekers around
the country, even in rural areas ill
equipped to handle them and even less
prepared to welcome them.
Compounding the problem, for the
refugees and the residents, is the
government's decision to forbid asylum
seekers to work while their cases are
being considered.
"You're having a situation where
people are being dispersed, but social
services are not dispersed with them,"
Mr. MacEinri said. "Local government
is in a poor state, and we're not
really giving it any extra money."
In Birr the program has stirred up a
stew of feelings, many of them
negative, about where the country is
going. Residents say they cannot
square the fact that the asylum
seekers are living rent-free -- with
their meals taken care of and 15
pounds ($18) a week in spending money
besides -- with the knowledge that
there are still Irish people living on
the streets of Dublin.
"They keep to themselves," admitted a
23-year-old man, walking past the
Maltings on his way home from work and
speaking on condition that his name
and occupation not be disclosed. "But
most people aren't happy with them.
They're living the life of luxury."
Another man, who is in his 50's and
runs a tractor-trailer business, stood
next to a construction site and said
he thought Ireland was taking on more
than it could handle. Birr, too.
People tend to know each other here.
Smack in the middle of Ireland, the
town has several bustling streets of
small stores and pubs and makes its
living from a handful of factories
around its edges and from the tourists
who drive through, looking for Birr
Castle.
Before the newcomers came, the man
said, he had rarely -- if ever -- seen
more than one dark-skinned person at a
time.
"I turned against them completely when
I saw them begging in restaurants," he
said. He did not know whom he had
seen. "Either Romanians or Nigerians,"
he said. "We don't know the
difference. They're all the same.
They're all black, and we've never
been used to colored people here."
On the other side of the cultural
divide are people like Dorcas Balogun,
25. For Mrs. Balogun, a Muslim who
fled Nigeria with her husband when
both of his parents were killed by
Christians who then came looking for
them, her exile to Birr has meant long
days of idleness, with too much time
to fret about the future.
While she waits for her application to
be processed -- and only a tiny
percentage of Nigerians who applied
for asylum in Ireland last year had
their applications accepted -- she has
had scarcely a conversation, let alone
a shared meal, with an actual Irish
person.
"Mostly I just sit around the house
all day," she said, the house being
the two-bedroom apartment she and her
husband share with another Nigerian
couple. Sometimes they take the long
bus ride into Dublin, but they do not
feel comfortable walking around.
"It's not too bad," her husband,
Adele, said. "But sometimes, when you
go out to take some air, they look at
you and say: 'Black people -- what are
you doing in Ireland? Go back to your
country.' "
Some townspeople have reached out.
Maeve Garry, who runs the Maltings
with her husband, has made several
trips to Dublin to buy African food.
The Rev. Tony Cahir, the priest at St.
Brendan's, the Roman Catholic church
in Birr, organized a minivan trip to
visit a neighboring town. He also gave
refugees used radios and tape
recorders donated by his parishioners.
And when he sees the refugees walking
past his house on their way to the
tiny local library, where they tend to
gather, he goes out of his way to
greet them.
"If there was somebody passing by, I'd
introduce them and say, 'This is Jimmy
from Nigeria,' " he said.
Father Cahir said the community had
reacted as well as could be expected.
"Honestly, I'd say that the attitude
has been a positive one," he said.
"There has been wonderment,
questioning, people asking who these
people are, what is going to happen.
But then people realized that they
were here waiting for a decision from
the government, and they saw that
there's been absolutely no trouble."
But his optimism does not erase the
anger simmering beneath the surface
around the country, particularly in
the places ordered to accept people
they do not want. So far, almost 1,500
refugees are living in small
communities outside Dublin.
In the town of Kildare, the outraged
Chamber of Commerce has sued to block
the arrival of 400 refugees, pointing
out that the town had already taken in
300 from Kosovo. And in tiny Clogheen,
in County Tipperary, an empty hostel
that was being refurbished to house 40
asylum seekers was set on fire.
"We would have liked to consult a lot
more, but you have to understand our
predicament," said Alan Mulligan, a
spokesman for the Department of
Justice, Equality and Law Reform,
explaining the government's policy of
dispersing the refugees. "The vast
majority -- 90 percent -- were staying
in Dublin, and we just didn't have the
accommodation for them."
Meanwhile, a country that was so
homogeneous until the mid-1990's that
the Rough Guide travel book described
its residents as having a "uniquely
naïve brand of racism," is trying as
best as it can to figure out what to
do next.
"The government accepts its obligation
to asylum seekers under international
law," Mr. Mulligan said. "Racism will
not be tolerated. But no government
can go into any village and force
people to like each other."
[/ARTICLE]
Rebecca Ore
(Snips)
> Anyway, I have to note a dazzling instance of synchronicity: here
> we are chattering away about Birr, when what should pop up on the
> front pg of today's NY Times but the following article, on another
> topic of some considerable ongoing interest in this ng.
> New York Times > International
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/070800ireland-refugees.html
> July 8, 2000
> Irish Now Confront the Other Side of Immigration By SARAH LYALL
> BIRR, Ireland -- It is hard to find anyone in this busy little town
> with a specific complaint about the 70-odd strangers who abruptly
> arrived last fall from places like Chechnya and Nigeria. But that
> does not mean the town wants them here.
Rather funny in that even some fairly bigotted people to Southern
Blacks (the old "you don't understand our cullerd people" sorts) would
be quite okay about blacks who were Africans.
--
Rebecca Ore
**if you don't want to see this post, try
http://www.nfilter.org
Rebecca Ore
> Sam Cochran said:
> >The connection between between language and culture is not hard for a Cherokee,
> >Native American to understand. It may be a matter of not knowing what is lost
> >till it is gone. Then it is too late. But this is counterfactual speculation
> >on my part. I know shit 'bout this stuff.
>
> Sílim, agus tá fhios agam fosta, nach mbeadh aon chúis ghearáin ag Eddie (ná ag
> an chuid eile freisin) faoi an dTeanga Álainn, dá mba aon seans aige/acu páirt a
> ghlacadh 'san spraoi (-;
>
And the Cherokee say (at least the woman who said it to me),
eventually every kook in the world comes through the Eastern Band
Reservation.
Being able to speak a second language that the tourists are unlikely
to have mastered does allow for running commentary about the tourists
with ones mates.
--
Rebecca Ore
http://www.ogoense.net
us.admin.committee
"Rebecca Ore" <reb...@ogoense.net> wrote in message >
> Rather funny in that even some fairly bigotted people to Southern
> Blacks (the old "you don't understand our cullerd people" sorts) would
> be quite okay about blacks who were Africans.
>
> --
> Rebecca Ore
> **if you don't want to see this post, try
> http://www.nfilter.org
Not in this life they wouldn't. They see 'foreigners' as inferior and
regard it as the 'natural order'. Racism against blacks is based on their
race.
--
us.* hierarchy committee
usa...@email.com
Proud Irish Catholic
us.admin.committee <usa...@email.com> wrote in article
<PyR95.5537$_O.11...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>...
>
>>
> Not in this life they wouldn't. They see 'foreigners' as inferior and
> regard it as the 'natural order'. Racism against blacks is based on their
> race.
>
> --
> us.* hierarchy committee
You'll have to stop seeing things as black or white.
Consider the grey areas.
PIC
K. E. Dennis
> K. E. Dennis whispered:
> >Anyway, I have to note a dazzling instance of synchronicity:
>
> We need to have someone write a prime directSCIve, to protect the universe from
> us. Seriously.
I'm afraid there is no possible protection against the forces of s.c.i. The
universe will have to take its lumps, like the Offaly hurling team.
>sigh<
> Did you see someone even arrived here the other day with a
> ProgRock webpage, and I visited it;
Rash woman - what have you done? You'll have Gavin's squad down on you now, for
counterrevolutionary crimes.
Bren Vaughan
>I have no doubt of that. People take the job opportunities that are on offer, after
>all, don't they. & in an economy in which few positions came w/ as much community
>respect [& often freedom from scrutiny] as teaching, one could expect a certain
>internal as well as external motivation on the part of many to go into this
>profession, perhaps w/o comprehending how much it might disagree w/ them personally.
It is still a problem today. Personally I had very little career
guidance through school. I think I had one ten minute chat when I was
doing my Leaving Cert. Most people I met in college had chosen courses
that they had little clue about but they thought (or were advised by
parents) that they were good career opportunities. It hardly makes for
having people in jobs which suit them.
>The same, unfortunately, was all too true of the religious orders as well, as has
>become painfully evident to so many.
Yes. I have always felt that this was part of the problem.
>I used to wonder about this, much as I wondered why so many people genuinely seem not
>to enjoy reading, & indeed seem utterly unable to believe that reading can be a source
>of intense pleasure.
I know people who do not read and who profess to hate it. It blows my
mind because I can never remember a time when I wasn't reading a book. I
guess it's horses for courses.
>I've come to realise that for such folks, reading [or maths, or science, or a 2nd
>language, or whatever] is what one *must* do in order to pass the exams that lead to
>the the credentials that are req'd for the good jobs that will allow them to buy the
>toys they really want - that is, what one must suffer thru to get to the real goal, &
>which never need be done again from that point on.
I always hated school. I hated the way it limited my freedom. Unfortunatly I
was very good at it so stayed in educational institutions for 20 years.
:) I strongly suspect I will never be a major "toy" owner. I haven't the
interest.
>We humans are fundamentally lazy creatures, & don't naturally warm to chores, IME.
That's me.
>Yes - I find that quite amusing, TBH. Did you know, BTW, that the Gardens have just
>been re-opened after a major overhaul?
I wasn't aware they had closed :) I know they are building some European
Science Centre in there or something. Ed Walsh, the former President of
University of Limerick (a most dynamic University president) is involved
in it so it will probably be a success. The gardens themselves are very
pretty. They have the highest box hedges in the world apparently.
>One of the reasons I was attracted to the Midlands for my research was precisely
>because it's there that you get this 'frontier' as it were btwn the [overly
>simplified] two traditions: the anglicised east & the gealicised wesht.
>The local politics reflect that; even tho few people these days hanker for any
>explicit connection w/ the old unionist trad'ns [pace David Christopher & the ever
>self-deluding Keith Mills], there's distinctly more comfort w/ the idea of an
>Anglo-Irish past than you might find elsewhere - & IME, distinctly less defensiveness
>about it too.
Yes, it has been absorbed and is seen as an asset for the town. I think
pride in it though tends to differ among those who are affluent and
those who are not.
>People seemed not to feel as if their Irishness might be 'compromised' by
>long-standing ties w/ 'English' things, if you see what I mean - except that
>Protestant families were typically highly conscious of demographics, as well as the
>fact that if they *wish* to maintain some of those trad'ns [shorn, typically, of any
>political allegiance to things British] in raising their children, they had to look
>further afield for educational opportunities. The classic minority dilemma.
I have a friend who dated a protestant girl in Birr and met severe
animosity on the basis of him not being protestant. It was very
unfortunate and parental presure eventually ended up finishing the
relationship. It is the only instance of sectarianism I have ever heard
or in either direction but granted I was never fully clued into Birr as
my heart (and frequently my body) was living in the wilds of West Limerick.
>> I met my first protestant in Birr
>;-)
I'm sure I've met loads of Protestants in England except I haven't a
clue as noone ever seems to talk or care about what religion they are.
>Tullamore, of course, can boast of having 3: COI, Methodist [one of the oldest
>congregations in Ireland, BTW] & Presbyterian. To me, of course, this seemed
>unremarkable, until I traveled more around Ireland & realised how many places were
>'uni-denominational'.
I know Birr has another church which I think is Methodist. I can't think
of another town off hand with a Protestant church (excluding cities) but
granted it's not something I've researched :)
>This is the flip side of that political easiness I noted above, I think - a reflection
>of some pretty intense local conflicts that go back to the Civil War [& no doubt
>earlier].
>FF & FG family trad'ns are very strong, & altho few people were comfortable talking
>about that period w/ me [let's face it, even after 2 yrs living there I was still an
American, & likely to draw simplistic & stupid conclusions, wasn't I], I found the
>former folks were very republican indeed.
I think this is true of a lot of other places though. Where I grew up,
families were in camps based on events decades before. No-one voted in
an individual basis, it was "That family is black Fianna Fail" or
whatever. It's why we have those criminal self-promotors getting elected
year in and year out today. Just about every family was Republican
though ;)
>OTOH, all the pro-IRA graffiti were typically ascribed to youths home from England on
>holidays;-)
My ex driving instructor was born in England to parents from Tipperary
and lived here all his life. His parents were here for 30 years and
eventually moved home. He used to tell me very interesting stories about
when he would go home for the summer and meet people in republican circles.
He was probably more indoctrinated than those kids who'd grown up there.
>Too late? He's just 4, isn't he? Or is it that you're living too far off now? [Not
>that it's my business to ask, of course.]
Well, we plan to move home but not for at least two years. By then it
might not be fair on him to put him in a Gaelscoil.
>Perfect age for starting to pick up other languages, actually - tho perhaps you're
>concerned that he'd be a bit behind the other children in vocabulary & so forth.
>That's something he'd pick up very quickly, in all likelihood, as kids are absolute
>sponges for words [you've already noticed that, I'm sure].
I have noticed. His vocabulary is a bit overdeveloped I think. Because
he is an only child he hears Adult conversation all the time and so
instead of asking things like "Where do doggys go when they die" he asks
"Dad, tell me more about atoms!"
>Anyway, you & your partner have laid the groundwork for it anyway by using Irish
>yourselves.
He can say his name and his age in Irish. It's a start.
>Anyway, I have to note a dazzling instance of synchronicity: here we are chattering
>away about Birr, when what should pop up on the front pg of today's NY Times but the
>following article, on another topic of some considerable ongoing interest in this ng.
I have a theory that the world is only 300 miles across but nobody's
noticed. There are too many damn coincidences in my life for it to be
bigger.
<snip article on Birr>
I knew the refugees were there and it seems a pretty standard reaction
to other reports I've read about other towns. My parents were similarly
a bit ambivalent about the subject, knowing that helping people is a good
thing, but also somewhat afraid of the unknown. Ireland will be meeting
more and more of this as the years go on because for the first time not
only immigrants, but working people will move there for jobs. All part
of growing as a Nation.
bren
K. E. Dennis
> K. E. Dennis (den...@mail.montclair.edu) wrote:
[snipped about schools, love of learning, & Protestants]
> >Too late? He's just 4, isn't he? Or is it that you're living too far off now? [Not
> >that it's my business to ask, of course.]
>
> Well, we plan to move home but not for at least two years. By then it
> might not be fair on him to put him in a Gaelscoil.
Sorry, I realised a bit earlier today that my memory was playing tricks on me - when in the
middle of puzzling over a work-related issue I suddenly said to myself "the Gaelscoil is in
Newcastle *West*, ya eejit, in Limerick."
I read "Newcastle," had a momentary brain brown-out, & thought you meant there was a
gaelscoil in a town near to Cambridge. Didn't mean to be suggesting you should pack the wee
fella off to home while you yourselves stayed in England.
[& yes, I realise that Newcastle-on-Tyne is nowhere nr Cambridge - but there's surely more
than one Newcastle in Britain.]
> >...kids are absolute
> >sponges for words [you've already noticed that, I'm sure].
>
> I have noticed. His vocabulary is a bit overdeveloped I think.
A common hazard of parenting, innit: the "where'd he learn *that*" phenomenon?
> Because
> he is an only child he hears Adult conversation all the time and so
> instead of asking things like "Where do doggys go when they die" he asks
> "Dad, tell me more about atoms!"
& what did you tell him? I'm always looking for good tips, blessed as I am w/ a small
horde of up-&-coming nephews & nieces.
> He can say his name and his age in Irish. It's a start.
Better than I can do!
> <snip article on Birr>
>
> I knew the refugees were there and it seems a pretty standard reaction
> to other reports I've read about other towns. My parents were similarly
> a bit ambivalent about the subject, knowing that helping people is a good
> thing, but also somewhat afraid of the unknown.
That's only natural. It's a situation about which people can't help but be ambivalent -
much as they are about becoming a tourist hotspot, say, w/ all the potential that has of
similarly altering a community's center of balance.
After generations of dealing w/ very little if any significant immigration, & an economy
that offered so little to so many, it would be astounding if folks didn't feel some
ambivalence.
> Ireland will be meeting
> more and more of this as the years go on because for the first time not
> only immigrants, but working people will move there for jobs. All part
> of growing as a Nation.
I would imagine that as more of the Irish-born return [long may this trend continue!],
especially those who have lived & worked a while in places w/ ethnically diverse pop'ns,
they'll be able to help the folks @ home feel more comfortable w/ the cultural variation &
the assoc'd confusions & discoveries.
Not but that I expect Ireland, too, will see its darker moments - but unlike many of its
geographical neighbours, it's a country where nearly everyone has some intimate experience
of the costs to individuals & families & communities of emigration, & it won't take much
imagination to put themselves in the shoes of even the most visibly different strangers in
their midst.
I frequently found that folks in the smallest Irish communities were - by American
standards, which admittedly are low - quite well-informed about the rest of the world, &
possessed of a great deal of empathy for the less fortunate. That can bring one a very
long way toward tolerance of superficial differences.
Anyway, as I see it, there's a lot of promise here: the Offaly hurling team may someday
feature a Nigerian-Irish forward or two. It might make the difference in getting us past
Kilkenny someday.
respectfully submitted,
|K. E. Dennis den...@mail.montclair.edu
Bren Vaughan
> Sorry, I realised a bit earlier today that my memory was playing tricks on me - when in the
> middle of puzzling over a work-related issue I suddenly said to myself "the Gaelscoil is in
> Newcastle *West*, ya eejit, in Limerick."
> I read "Newcastle," had a momentary brain brown-out, & thought you meant there was a
> gaelscoil in a town near to Cambridge. Didn't mean to be suggesting you should pack the wee
> fella off to home while you yourselves stayed in England.
> [& yes, I realise that Newcastle-on-Tyne is nowhere nr Cambridge - but there's surely more
> than one Newcastle in Britain.]
There may well be. Actually I remember last year there was somthing about
schools in certain parts of England offering Irish as a subject. I
haven't heard more of it since but it certainly isn't happening in our
area.
> A common hazard of parenting, innit: the "where'd he learn *that*" phenomenon?
Yes. As an example, yesterday morning when his mother was listening to a
bit of classical music, he suddenly said "Watch this Mom, I'll do some
ballet for you!" and proceeded to do a tragic parody of all the well
known ballet moves. Once his mother had recovered from suppressed
convulsions of laughter she praised him and when I got home I got a
repeat performance and had similar convulsions. When asked where the
hell he had learned ballet he informed us that he had learned it from
TV. He doesn't watch very much TV but even still it is teaching my kid
things I don't even know about which is scary.
> & what did you tell him? I'm always looking for good tips, blessed as I am w/ a small
> horde of up-&-coming nephews & nieces.
Well, when it comes to science I give it to him straight down the
middle. I try and answer as correctly as possible without getting too
technical. For atoms I used grains of sand which are almost too small to
see, but put a lot of them together and you get a big solid castle. He
is really really into science much to my delight and his mother's fear.
The thoughts of having two pedantic nerds in her household is enough to
send her running for prozac.
> That's only natural. It's a situation about which people can't help but be ambivalent -
> much as they are about becoming a tourist hotspot, say, w/ all the potential that has of
> similarly altering a community's center of balance.
> After generations of dealing w/ very little if any significant immigration, & an economy
> that offered so little to so many, it would be astounding if folks didn't feel some
> ambivalence.
Absolutely. You'd have to hope that human decency will shine through
though. Fingers crossed.
> I would imagine that as more of the Irish-born return [long may this trend continue!],
> especially those who have lived & worked a while in places w/ ethnically diverse pop'ns,
> they'll be able to help the folks @ home feel more comfortable w/ the cultural variation &
> the assoc'd confusions & discoveries.
Exposure is a great thing. Mind you, I've been exposed to the negative
side of things as well, so I hope people don't bring that home with
them.
> Not but that I expect Ireland, too, will see its darker moments - but unlike many of its
> geographical neighbours, it's a country where nearly everyone has some intimate experience
> of the costs to individuals & families & communities of emigration, & it won't take much
> imagination to put themselves in the shoes of even the most visibly different strangers in
> their midst.
This is the key. With our history we should be the first to welcome the
dispossessed.
> I frequently found that folks in the smallest Irish communities were - by American
> standards, which admittedly are low - quite well-informed about the rest of the world, &
> possessed of a great deal of empathy for the less fortunate. That can bring one a very
> long way toward tolerance of superficial differences.
I think in general the Irish are well informed about other parts of the
world maybe even as a result of having family living all over the place.
It's funny but sometimes in a pub I'll hear people of my father's
generation discuss routes and places around London with enclycopedic
knowledge while at the same time they wouldn't be able to name four
streets in Dublin.
> Anyway, as I see it, there's a lot of promise here: the Offaly hurling team may someday
> feature a Nigerian-Irish forward or two. It might make the difference in getting us past
> Kilkenny someday.
Isn't one of the stars of Cork GAA, Sean Og O'Hailpin, half Fijian. I
haven't a clue about Dublin's Jason Sherlock.
bren
Si
>There may well be. Actually I remember last year there was
somthing about
>schools in certain parts of England offering Irish as a
subject. I
>haven't heard more of it since but it certainly isn't happening
in our
>area.
>
The O' and A' level subject index of the London Board has Irish
on it, IIRC. I know this does not mean a school necessarily has
the werewith all to teach it. (I think you used to be able to do
hebrew on the leaving cert too).
>
>Well, when it comes to science I give it to him straight down
the
>middle. I try and answer as correctly as possible without
getting too
>technical. For atoms I used grains of sand which are almost too
small to
>see, but put a lot of them together and you get a big solid
castle. He
>is really really into science much to my delight and his
mother's fear.
>The thoughts of having two pedantic nerds in her household is
enough to
>send her running for prozac.
>
Wey hey another wee sandbag against the rising tide of neo-
luddites. Fair play to ye. Now when I have perfected my plastic
toy rocket that runs on lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda I'll
know where to flog the first one.
Si,
Bog snorkler extrordinaire
"If I had've known I was this thick I would never have started"
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
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Bren Vaughan
> bvau...@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Bren Vaughan) wrote:
> The O' and A' level subject index of the London Board has Irish
> on it, IIRC. I know this does not mean a school necessarily has
> the werewith all to teach it. (I think you used to be able to do
> hebrew on the leaving cert too).
Hmm. I can see an easy way to make money flogging my inadequate Irish
skills looming.
> Wey hey another wee sandbag against the rising tide of neo-
> luddites. Fair play to ye. Now when I have perfected my plastic
> toy rocket that runs on lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda I'll
> know where to flog the first one.
Your timing is remarkable. Last weekend his babysitter took him firing off
a six foot plastic rocket. I've heard about little else since. I may as
well just forward you my bank account and get it over with.
bren
Si
>> Wey hey another wee sandbag against the rising tide of neo-
>> luddites. Fair play to ye. Now when I have perfected my
plastic
>> toy rocket that runs on lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda
I'll
>> know where to flog the first one.
>
>Your timing is remarkable. Last weekend his babysitter took him
firing off
>a six foot plastic rocket. I've heard about little else since.
I may as
>well just forward you my bank account and get it over with.
>
>bren
>
>
Commendable paranting skills there Bren, I would offer to expand
his enthusiasm for the noble art of propulsion by taking you on
a tour of our facilities here next time you're over Oxford way,
but I'd bet they would be tiresome relics of past industrial
glories. And all our engines are for satellites and are tested
in vacuum chambers. Thus eliminating the childish thrills of the
whooses and smoke. Some of that does go one here but a bunch of
very imposing looking chaps keep threatening to do unspeakable
things to me if I go near, not being part of their company or a
signatory to the OSA.
Alas I think your bank account is safe for now. Having witnessed
the joys of a six foot rocket with I suspect a 'k' class mini
solid motor. The putt-putting of an weedy CO2 powered toy would
not be sophisticated enough. BTW you can get a pneumatic/water
powered version from most reputable model shops, should the
sleeve tugging become intolerable.
Séimí mac Liam
Si <simonicusfac...@my-deja.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:0162a34e...@usw-ex0106-045.remarq.com...
> bvau...@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Bren Vaughan) wrote:
>
>
> Alas I think your bank account is safe for now. Having witnessed
> the joys of a six foot rocket with I suspect a 'k' class mini
> solid motor. The putt-putting of an weedy CO2 powered toy would
> not be sophisticated enough. BTW you can get a pneumatic/water
> powered version from most reputable model shops, should the
> sleeve tugging become intolerable.
>
kfuz...@tinet.ie
> Isn't one of the stars of Cork GAA, Sean Og O'Hailpin, half Fijian. I
> haven't a clue about Dublin's Jason Sherlock.
Shamrock Rovers.
nuff said...
--
unki