FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Although Myles na Gopaleen (Brian ONolan) was a fluent Irish speaker and scholar he had little time for the gaeilgeoirí he loved to satirise. Similarly the Tóstal festival of Irishness in the 1950s was an inevitable butt of his regular "Cruiskeen Lawn" columns, such as this one which was headlined Xenogenesis and which also touched upon a subject that has become more topical for us again recently – the effects of another unwanted "foreignism" brought to us on the wind.
IN THIS brave Tóstal day, do you speak Irish, reader? I know Irish well myself but take care never to speak it (except occasionally to myself) because I do not want to be taken for a German philologist. It is the leading mark of foreignism.
I am writing this note on Sunday afternoon. It is pouring rain. It is foreign rain, from Iceland or some such place, blown over on top of our heads by some alien breeze. Atomic ash will descend on us in the same way. I have tried to note down how badly we in Ireland are infected with foreignism, to what extent our peerless Republic is being to this day contaminated.
Why is it that after thirty odd years (and odd is the word!) of Home Rule, we must still be content with French windows, polish, beans, drains and leave? With Scotch broth and butterscotch? With German measles, bands and sausages? With Welsh rarebit?
Why must we have Cornish whisky, Russian salad, Russian boots, Swedish drill, shoes and turnips – even Japanese limerick bacon?
Why should the ancient Gael be asked to worry himself about Spanish ladies, onions, armadas and Succession, Wars of The?
The Dutch are not ashamed to intrude upon our tóstalish hospitality. Dutch courage and Dutch treats are features of the national context. The sovereign Irish people are similarly addicted to Hungarian rhapsodies, Bohemian girls, American wakes, and Brazil nuts. (I notice I am not getting many answers to these furious questions!)
I will go further. Why trouble us with Scotch greys, British Grenadiers, English garden wall bond Canadian Capers, Australian “burgundy,” Indian clubs, corn, ink, files, meal, summer, tobacco and rope trick, also rubber?
It is my submission that we can do alright without Greek kalends. On behalf of the nation I repudiate Turkish towels, baths, carpets and delight; for Turkey cocks and trots I hold no brief.
I disallow and disavow Swiss Guards, and also Swiss rolls, to say nothing of Pekinese and Siberian dogs, Siamese twins, Sicilian vespers, Portuguese agitators, Rhenish wine, symphonies, Flemish bonds, Spanish prisoners, Roman law, pottery, bricks, roads, cement, balance, beam, simplicity, honesty, virtue, patriotism, nose, letters, type, alphabet, numerals, architecture, fever, snails, vitriol, candles and Catholics.
Further again I will go. I denounce as exotic and therefore evil such concepts as Spartan endurance, simplicity, Persian carpets and cats, Mongolian idiots, Eurasian doctors, Peruvian bark, Iceland lichen, poppy and spar.
I may seem old-fashioned on this Monday morning thus to try to re-inject life into that old phrase Sinn Féin. But if we don’t be ourselves, who else can we be? There have been recently some dangerous occurrences among the politicians, where men who have spent a few years traducing each other at the top of their voices have changed the tune to one of dulcet praise. Are such people sane and the rest of us mad?
When I am duly sentenced to death for thus speaking my mind, I will insist on going to my doom in a Norfolk jacket. On such an ignominious occasion, not for me the Celtic toilet!
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