Mary Robinson and Richard Kearney suggest that 'Irishness', or what it means to be Irish, must be as inclusively broad as possible. Their reasons for this are to encapsulate not only those born on the island, North and South, but also the expatriates who for whatever reason, and in whatever time emigrated from Ireland. This inclusiveness is at the heart of the thesis of Postnationalist Ireland, which attempts to address standing divisions in Irish culture and politics. The Kinsella phrase he uses, 'the divide mind' speaks to me of a culture at once very much associated with the 'proper dark' of orality, and at the same time embracing the literate qualities of 'the filthy modern tide'. Yeats uses the metaphor of climbing to this proper dark in order to measure modernism, while Joyce uses the recognition of this 'otherness' as an escape from fixity in order to better understand our place in this ebb and flow of time. Yeats is in the linearity of historical time, while Joyce is in his circurnambulating fashion stepping out of the trap of time and linearity to be at once within the self and without the other. In recognition of this tactic I will use the orality of three Irish proverbs, and two songs to connect the literature and film we have covered the last two weeks.
Cha
dual grian gan sgaile.
There is not usually sunshine
without shadow.
The obvious meaning of this proverb is that the
duality of existence is without disconnection; without light there is no darkness
and vice versa, or as Liam suggested, "the extremes determine the center,
without the extremes the center is without definition." On a similar note it
is applicable to the postmodern concept of recognizing the other in order to
understand ourselves better. The agency is misplaced when we only see our part
in the shadow and not perceive the light's part in the play of oppositions.
The men in the IRA, as we saw in Biting at the Grave, thought they had
a grasp on the light when Bobby Sands was elected to Westminster and then again
when the 'mountain climber' arranged a deal. They didn't see the shadow of their
predicament that they were dealing with a force that was as implacable as they
themselves were. Ten men died because of that misunderstanding of the dynamics
of light and dark. And in the same instance Britain had little understanding
of how the myth of martyrdom and the light of resurrection would cast a dark
shadow on their part in this tragedy.
In the film Some Mother's Son we see the parts of this duality in the
two mothers; one a willing participant in the Republicanism of the IRA's struggle,
and the other reluctantly pulled into the battle for recognition in the hunger
strikes of Maze/Long Kesh. On a metaphorical level these women represent the
light of life and the shadow of death. Both of them make inroads to recognition
of the other through their ordeal at the hands of their hunger-striking sons.
In many ways they also represent the differences in the ideal of women in Ireland,
the pre-Christian woman represented by Deirdre or Macha, and the nationalist
Cathleen ni Houlihan calling Irish sons to their deaths. Kearney approaches
this dichotomy through several poets, specifically Meeb McGuckian, who represents
a reclaiming of physicality, the joy de vive if you will, from the jaws
of that darkness whose only escape is death. This same dualism can be seen in
the songs R6isln Dubh and Eileanoir a Ruin. The first is yet another
call to the farrow of Ireland's sow to sacrifice their lives for the utterly
intangible ideal of nationalism, "Every valley, mountain and bogland throughout
Ireland will tremor/ Some day before my R6isin Dubh dies". In a direct
reference to the power which light as life (sensuality physicality) has on the
human psyche, Eileanoir's lover says, "She had a gift that she could revive
the cold corpse from death/ The taste of her little kiss was sweeter than the
cuckoo at dawn".
Briseann an duchas tre shuilibh
a chait.
The natural disposition of a
cat bursts out through her eyes.
The film Into the West captures the essence
of this proverb with tremendous alacrity. It is the travelers who represent
the natural disposition of a people at once attached to their homeland and detached
from the permanence which characterizes the fixity of boundaries, the illusion
of borders. In many ways these mobile folk trapped in modernity intent on their
assimilation represent the Yeats phrase, "We Irish, born into that ancient sect."
The close association with the sacred sites of pre-Christian Ireland, the seashores,
the sacred wells, the Western highlands, as well as their intimate connection
with the natural time of seasons all suggest a people more in tune with what
was the proper dark of 'Irishness'. Their attention to story and revelry, song
and community harks back to an Irish culture largely destroyed by the Great
Hunger. The recognition in the grandfather's eyes when first he espies Tir
na nOg suggests an understanding of the form of Celtic myth and its interaction
with the Irish; particularly the suspension of disbelief and the expectancy
of the miraculous or mysterious in everyday affairs.
One of the lingering questions from this week for me is whether or not the European
Union's Council on Human Rights recognizes the Romani, or the travelers as a
minority population entitled to protection from legal restrictions. For as I
said in seminar, if they do not then the protections guaranteed in their charter
are shallow and disingenuous. Ultimately giving credence to Liam's reservations
that it is only an economic arrangement designed to benefit the urban bureaucracies
and their capitalist masters.
Maireann an chroabh air a
bh-fal as cha mhaireann an lamh a chuiri.
The tree in the hedge remains, but not so the hand that planted it.
This parable suggests that the actions of humanity
have little consequence in the overall scheme of the cosmos. Our actions are
merely transitory constructions to give meaning and proof of our existence,
and in the end these monuments become little but flotsam and jetsam on the tides
of time. Postmodernism attempts to suggest to our time trapped minds that the
histories we carry in our hearts are as illusionary and objective as everything
else humanity creates. Mental constructs to pass the time while trapped in this
mortal coil. If one was to take the image in the parable and apply it to the
thesis of Postnational Ireland, the tree represents the 'fifth province',
the median between the boundaries created by the hedge. At first the tree has
little chance of making much difference in the barrier, yet as the time aspect
suggests eventually it is the tree which remains as the agent which breaks the
boundary of the hedge. Similarly the tree is analogous to the participants of
the Corrymeela film, in that they represent the seedling which through
years of growth under the influence of this connective exercise will break through
the hard walls which separate the communities in the North of Ireland.
To use the metaphor of the chess game Padraig used to explicate his 'Jeffersonian
solution', the impermanence of our ideas about wealth and posterity are in their
time worn down by the reality of change; as long as we hold onto the concept
of possession and inheritance we perpetuate inequality. For centuries we have
functioned under the ideal which capitalism projects, that the greatest gift
we can give to our children is the accumulation of wealth. In the end the bankruptcy
of this illusion is shown when generations removed from the creation of that
wealth are unable to maintain it, not having the initial skills it took to generate
it. Postmodemism suggests not only that it is necessary to do away with the
self-imposed boundaries we have established for protection's sake, but more
importantly that we recognize the need to cooperate amongst ourselves for the
benefit of the entire 'global village'. I discussed in our seminar group the
'design science' work of R. Buckminster Fuller and Bill Mollison, specifically
the World Game and Permaculture. Both of which posit the same sense of cooperation
not only amongst ourselves, but also with the natural environment in order to
make the ride on 'spaceship earth' more enjoyable and equitable for all.
The polycentrism of postmodemism represents a reclaiming of history for the
purpose of limiting the competitiveness that our world has been plagued with,
especially within the confines of Malthusian economics. It allows us to recognize
the multiplicity of existence, which the narrowed focuses of the entire modem
'isms' have obfuscated. The inclusiveness isn't the faddish knee-jerk reaction
to marginalization which political correctness attempts to assuage. In the postmodem
world-view it is possible to resuscitate some of the same ideal Irish characteristics
that Joyce and Toland represent. In regards to the above proverbs some of these
are, the recognition of the physical nature of our existence and the importance
sensuality and sexuality play in our lives; which for so long has been devalued
by Christianity and Puritanism. The connection to our little rock(et) ship hurtling
around the great gaseous fireball in the heavens, and how important that natural
interconnectedness is to our own survival and understanding of our place in
the cosmos. Most importantly though it requires us, especially those caught
between the Scylla and Charibides in Ulster, Ireland, and Britain to make a
'salmon leap' out of the constrictive barriers which nationalism lays upon us.
The computer, like the printing press before it, is shaping this new world of
postmodemism. Hypertext allows the reader to jump out of the objectively limited
nature of an individual document and into other similarly limited objective
documents that as a whole give a 'multiperspectival' or subjective view of the
subject. This communication between texts hasn't been seen since the illuminated
manuscripts of the Irish monks where Latin classics, spoke to Greek classics,
spoke to Irish classics, spoke to the poetry of scribal monks. And in that interconnected
communication civilizations were saved.