Comments - The Disappearing Ireland - The Wild Geese2024-03-28T13:52:46Zhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=6442157%3ABlogPost%3A199576&xn_auth=noYou are right Colm regarding…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-26:6442157:Comment:2006312016-09-26T19:51:27.681Zmichael dunnehttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/michaeldunne
<p>You are right Colm regarding the EU and its mixed bag. In the earliest days of Irelands banking crisis, Angela was adamant the Irish Government should 'burn the bondholders' Her stance changed within days on realizing the extent of the problem and how many of these same bondholders were German. These are stressful times for all people. My daughter is apparently happy working in New Zealand. She had a well paid job here but left as she sees many of her friends here unemployed when she…</p>
<p>You are right Colm regarding the EU and its mixed bag. In the earliest days of Irelands banking crisis, Angela was adamant the Irish Government should 'burn the bondholders' Her stance changed within days on realizing the extent of the problem and how many of these same bondholders were German. These are stressful times for all people. My daughter is apparently happy working in New Zealand. She had a well paid job here but left as she sees many of her friends here unemployed when she returned on holiday. The EU is being outthought and outmaneuvered by the US and by certain elements in the UK. For me it is sad to watch what was the greatest organization of people and their entitlements being scuppered by both devious and dense individuals. So the baby is going to be dumped with the bathwater.</p> Michael, I think we differ ma…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-26:6442157:Comment:2007052016-09-26T14:24:58.340ZColm Herronhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/ColmHerron
<p>Michael, I think we differ mainly in emphasis. The EU is a mixed bag. It has so many good attributes but Merkel got her minions to read the riot act to Cowan and his cowards during the long night of the long knives because her (and others') friends the bankers had to be accommodated, Irish haircut not an option. This crowd of European gangsters studiously ignored the first rule in investments: THE VALUE OF YOUR SHARES MAY GO DOWN AS WELL AS UP.</p>
<p>I'd love to think that our determined…</p>
<p>Michael, I think we differ mainly in emphasis. The EU is a mixed bag. It has so many good attributes but Merkel got her minions to read the riot act to Cowan and his cowards during the long night of the long knives because her (and others') friends the bankers had to be accommodated, Irish haircut not an option. This crowd of European gangsters studiously ignored the first rule in investments: THE VALUE OF YOUR SHARES MAY GO DOWN AS WELL AS UP.</p>
<p>I'd love to think that our determined young people would rise up in 10/20 years but if your sentence "<span>So our greatest export and sadly our greatest asset is once again the boat or the plane to anywhere" comes to pass in a big way then God save us. Hence my feelings of despair. </span></p>
<p>And as for the US, well, the US is a disaster that has already happened and is on its way to being a catastrophe. Every call they make on foreign policy is so utterly stupid that it's almost unbelievable. (Look at Samantha Power for heaven's sake. And have a gander at this: <a href="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/09/19/deconstructing-samantha-powers-big-lies/" target="_blank">http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/09/19/deconstructing-samantha-powers-big-lies/</a> )</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Michael, the US movers and shakers inside and outside of Washington have produced Trump as surely as Victor Frankenstein produced his monster. And I wouldn't blame it all on the Republicans by any means. And when Hillary wins, as she will, brace yourself for the most hawkish, brutal, self-satisfied presidency since Dubya's. The girl can't help it. I'll make a forecast now which I hope to God is wrong. The Palestinian people are going to get it in the neck within months of her inauguration. It will make the last slaughter of 2 years ago seem tame. And her war games in the further and wider will only be Gaza writ large.</p>
<p>I agree entirely with your socialist analysis in your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. And I accept what you call "<span>age old racketeering and exploitation of the working class" as a fact. That's what I mean by our differing emphases. When I wrote of the 2 main Irish parties' lies I was including those two characteristics.</span></p>
<p></p> Thank you Colm. I am no liter…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-26:6442157:Comment:2006202016-09-26T12:37:59.260Zmichael dunnehttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/michaeldunne
<p>Thank you Colm. I am no literary scholar, but I come from a long line of proud underdogs, which has its setbacks but despair isn't one of them. It may take another decade or so, but so many of our young population have been consigned to impoverishment by discriminating government/ Trade Union partnerships disenfranchising those starting out in life to the extent they may never be able to afford a home in which to live. So our greatest export and sadly our greatest asset is once again the…</p>
<p>Thank you Colm. I am no literary scholar, but I come from a long line of proud underdogs, which has its setbacks but despair isn't one of them. It may take another decade or so, but so many of our young population have been consigned to impoverishment by discriminating government/ Trade Union partnerships disenfranchising those starting out in life to the extent they may never be able to afford a home in which to live. So our greatest export and sadly our greatest asset is once again the boat or the plane to anywhere.</p>
<p>I'm not sure its the lash of Europe we bend under but more like the age old racketeering and exploitation of the working class. No more adept a species could one find for this pursuit than the Gombeen Irishman and his cohorts elsewhere. But reforms in civil rights, social entitlements, access to the E.U. courts and women's equality are credited to the same EU. Its a worrying development to see working class people form the backbone of the Brexit referendum. They are voting themselves back to the Victorian time where children were used as chimney cleaners until legislation eventually stopped the practice. Afterwards geese were substituted. The UK never embraced the Euro because the divide would have been too expensive to bridge, and so remain joined at the hip with the US dollar.The US a couple of years ago protested Irelands corporate tax laws were not right? Then as soon as they raised enough protest, and the EU have now taken up the 'Lash' the US has stepped back to watch developments. Ireland as you know is a small population of 5 million souls with up to recently an agricultural economy. This was even part of a plan to keep the UK in cheap food.Now with EU help and an educated population we have diversified. But our country as yet isn't powerful enough to act as the sole International Revenue Police Enforcement Agency. When we are, our first port of call might be the US followed by the UK and how their banking system and tax returns operate.</p>
<p>Spheres of influence especially economic ones have 'changed utterly' in the past couple of decades. The US who helped set up the Common Market and coupled this economic package with the military one of 'Containment' are now side by side with the Russians in Syria. The elephant in the room is the expanding economy of China due to its exploitation of cheap labour costs.This is where the real focus of the international community enforcement organizations like the UN should be focused. Whatever about Americas finest hour in rescuing Europe militarily and economically after World War 2, recent events and the specter of Mr.Trump raises the big question of where and how future US policies will develop. </p>
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<p></p> Thanks Michael. I have no ill…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-26:6442157:Comment:2004612016-09-26T10:51:49.164ZColm Herronhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/ColmHerron
<p>Thanks Michael. I have no illusions about Yeats' attitudes to what he considered the mere mortals of Ireland. Three people convinced me long ago that his talent as a wordsmith (excepting his nonsensical stage collaborations with Augusta Gregory) was an entirely different matter from his socially poisonous better than thou attitude and unbearable pretensions. Those three were Joyce, Francis Stuart (see Black List, Section H) and Stan Davies in his outstanding and underrated biography of Joyce…</p>
<p>Thanks Michael. I have no illusions about Yeats' attitudes to what he considered the mere mortals of Ireland. Three people convinced me long ago that his talent as a wordsmith (excepting his nonsensical stage collaborations with Augusta Gregory) was an entirely different matter from his socially poisonous better than thou attitude and unbearable pretensions. Those three were Joyce, Francis Stuart (see Black List, Section H) and Stan Davies in his outstanding and underrated biography of Joyce A Portrait of the Artist. Just as Oscar Wilde's buggering of boys in the company of Andre Gide during their forays into north Africa in no way turns me off the brilliance of what they wrote, Yeats' insufferably stuffy world outside his poetry doesn't affect my appreciation of most of what HE wrote. </p>
<p>The present indecision of our people, in my opinion, is down to their apathy and lack of backbone - with a small minority of honourable exceptions. They bent and continue to bend under the lash from Europe and the lies of our two main political parties re the unforgivable crime of austerity that was visited on them. Our people need to be led and the political establishment have rendered them so passive that I despair. </p> W B would have stuck to 'the…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-25:6442157:Comment:2006172016-09-25T22:50:38.081Zmichael dunnehttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/michaeldunne
<p>W B would have stuck to 'the waters and the wild' were it not for the terrible beauty created by social inequality. The Faeries and hobgoblins had to go like the Earls. Both were pains in the butt and responsible for the present indecision of our people.</p>
<p>W B would have stuck to 'the waters and the wild' were it not for the terrible beauty created by social inequality. The Faeries and hobgoblins had to go like the Earls. Both were pains in the butt and responsible for the present indecision of our people.</p> The Fisherman is at a remove…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-25:6442157:Comment:2005272016-09-25T22:46:47.689Zmichael dunnehttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/michaeldunne
<p>The Fisherman is at a remove from 19th and 20th Century Irishmen. We are not talking about W B's version of Gillies and landed gentry. We should think carefully about the notorious Gregory Clause and the aristocracy which WB aspired to. If you want, please look up what a Breacadóir done for a living in those times. Breac is the Gaelic word for speckled and also for a trout. Irishmen were not 'fly fishermen or experienced anglers as depicted in this poem which is an attack on irish people…</p>
<p>The Fisherman is at a remove from 19th and 20th Century Irishmen. We are not talking about W B's version of Gillies and landed gentry. We should think carefully about the notorious Gregory Clause and the aristocracy which WB aspired to. If you want, please look up what a Breacadóir done for a living in those times. Breac is the Gaelic word for speckled and also for a trout. Irishmen were not 'fly fishermen or experienced anglers as depicted in this poem which is an attack on irish people and a supporting endorsement for Synges Playboy of the Western World.The vast majority of Irish people in those times of great hardship could hardly feed themselves let alone attend the theatre. This poem is an attack on the Irish but an indiscriminate one like the indiscriminate attacks that are made on the underprivileged everywhere. The philistines which W. B. directs his criticism in this play are the Nouveau Rich, the greasy penny to the greasy till merchants that his class helped set up in Gombeen Ireland. </p>
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<p>Although I can see him still,<br/> The freckled man who goes<br/> To a grey place on a hill<br/> In grey Connemara clothes<br/> At dawn to cast his flies,<br/> It’s long since I began<br/> To call up to the eyes<br/> This wise and simple man.<br/> All day I’d looked in the face<br/> What I had hoped ‘twould be<br/> To write for my own race<br/> And the reality;</p>
<p>The living men that I hate,<br/> The dead man that I loved,<br/> The craven man in his seat,<br/> The insolent unreproved,<br/> And no knave brought to book<br/> Who has won a drunken cheer,<br/> The witty man and his joke<br/> Aimed at the commonest ear,<br/> The clever man who cries<br/> The catch-cries of the clown,<br/> The beating down of the wise<br/> And great Art beaten down.</p>
<p>Maybe a twelvemonth since,<br/> Suddenly I began,<br/> In scorn of this audience,<br/> Imagining a man,<br/> And his sun-freckled face,<br/> And grey Connemara cloth,<br/> Climbing up to a place<br/> Where stone is dark under froth,<br/> And the down-turn of his wrist<br/> When the flies drop in the stream;<br/> A man who does not exist,<br/> A man who is but a dream;<br/> And cried, ‘Before I am old<br/> I shall have written him one<br/> Poem maybe as cold<br/> And passionate as the dawn.</p>
<p>As a matter of interest a Breacadóir would call to people in various Munster towns and for a modest fee he would speck;le of punch your grinding stones so you could break down grain and make bread. Under colonial and royal laws it was illegal for people to grind their own grain. A check on the early Census records will let you know who the Millers were. It may also be noted that millers were a form of Proctor or tithe collector or tax man for the Crown.</p>
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<p></p> I'd heard The Stolen Child so…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-19:6442157:Comment:2001112016-09-19T11:22:37.794ZColm Herronhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/ColmHerron
<p>I'd heard The Stolen Child song Claire and have just played it again. Scott's idea of having the local man's recitation interspersed with the rest was inspired. The entire piece is a tribute to Yeats and his attempted flight from the material world. Every time I hear the words 'the waters and the wild' in my head I think of Gerard Manley Hopkins who must have had a significant influence on Yeats. It's impossible to say his poem Inversnaid aloud without marvelling at his mastery of rhythm and…</p>
<p>I'd heard The Stolen Child song Claire and have just played it again. Scott's idea of having the local man's recitation interspersed with the rest was inspired. The entire piece is a tribute to Yeats and his attempted flight from the material world. Every time I hear the words 'the waters and the wild' in my head I think of Gerard Manley Hopkins who must have had a significant influence on Yeats. It's impossible to say his poem Inversnaid aloud without marvelling at his mastery of rhythm and <span>onomatopoeia.</span><span> Here's the link to it. It begins quietly, then explodes.</span> <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/122/33.html" target="_blank">http://www.bartleby.com/122/33.html</a></p> 'Come away human child, to th…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-18:6442157:Comment:2001062016-09-18T17:37:13.088ZJohn Anthony Brennanhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p>'Come away human child, to the waters and the wild...'</p>
<p>Classic Yeats. Fisherman's Blues another classic.</p>
<p>'Come away human child, to the waters and the wild...'</p>
<p>Classic Yeats. Fisherman's Blues another classic.</p> Colm, have you ever heard the…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-18:6442157:Comment:2000412016-09-18T16:34:44.977ZClaire Fullertonhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/ClaireFullerton
<p>Colm, have you ever heard the last song on the Waterboys album, "Fisherman's Blues?" Mike Scott, the mastermind behind the band, which recorded this classic album in Spiddal, hired a local man from Carraroe to read "The Stolen Child" and then put it to music. Loved this piece!</p>
<p>Colm, have you ever heard the last song on the Waterboys album, "Fisherman's Blues?" Mike Scott, the mastermind behind the band, which recorded this classic album in Spiddal, hired a local man from Carraroe to read "The Stolen Child" and then put it to music. Loved this piece!</p> John, I've a feeling that the…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-09-18:6442157:Comment:1999872016-09-18T14:46:02.559ZColm Herronhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/ColmHerron
<p>John, I've a feeling that the Whispering Man was a local construct. Nobody I spoke to outside of Derry had heard of him.</p>
<p>John, I've a feeling that the Whispering Man was a local construct. Nobody I spoke to outside of Derry had heard of him.</p>