Ancient Grudge
-
Macdara is keen to emphasise his agreement with Abbott’s basic point: the racism (or prejudice) suffered by minorities now classified as white, is different in various ways to that experienced by non-white people. This closes nothing down, but is a reasonable starting off point for exploring all the various ways that different groups experience different…
-
In any case what interests the present writer is not the article itself, but Abbott’s letter, and strictly speaking it isn’t quite the letter that interests him, but rather the response to it. First, here is the letter itself: Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain…
-
Time for another round of Macdara’s favourite game: ancient grudge. In this case it is not so ancient, but highlights an age-old phenomenon: English racism. Let us explore further. Your correspondent’s representative in the theatrically undemocratic electoral system that obtains in the UK is Diane Abbott. He has no idea if Abbott is an effective…
-
I The English language is a rented tool; this could be viewed as a problem, as the Irish elite know that they can be well understood if anyone elsewhere is paying any attention. In fact they have turned this situation into an opportunity, acting at all times to appease the imagined observer in London, New…
-
IV The differences between Irish and Scottish attitudes to the Union are evident in many ways, but it is a source of constant disappointment to the present writer that Scottish politics has rejected any and every means available to an anticolonial movement to succeed in its aims. Why not take the Irish case as a…
-
I One of the greatest idiocies of the Late Capitalist democratic-imperialist state is that there can be such a thing as an illegal referendum, when it comes to nations within the state wanting to leave it. It seems to the present correspondent that even in an authoritarian state, it would be foolish for such a…
-
Let us listen in, learn something of Imperialism, since the language allows it. The cleverest people in London discuss the world amongst themselves. Of course I don’t like nationalism, she says, in reference to Scotland; the concept of Britain, England’s drag name, allows her to live as if she is happily of no nation at…
-
Macdara’s readers can look forward to future letters that touch on Sceilg Mhichíl and the Giant’s Causeway. Add in Brú na Bóinne and that is our three World Heritage Sites listed out. Three. No Glendalough, no Georgian Dublin, no Burren, no Rock of Cashel. These are all on the Tentative list, with others, and have…
-
We witnessed in 2016 a commemoration of the Easter Rising and the Proclamation of the Republic; other terms were used, certain old wars being continued into the Present with words in place of arms. An extraordinary poster in a prominent site in Dublin commemorated four people for the occasion, Henry Grattan, Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart…
-
Macdara assumes that everyone litigates repeatedly certain arguments that they may once have had, or that they wish to have had. Now that he has his own small corner of the Internet within which to hold forth, Macdara asks the reader to bear with him while he returns to a repugnant episode from the Brexit…