tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post112654037970717236..comments2024-03-18T09:14:44.500+00:00Comments on Grumpy Old Bookman: Beautiful IrelandMichael Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11338398159818400930noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-83243987973106138862011-07-20T23:21:47.379+01:002011-07-20T23:21:47.379+01:00P.S. Oops, I forgot to add....
My year in Ireland...P.S. Oops, I forgot to add....<br />My year in Ireland was spent completing my Linguistics degree in Trinity College Dublin. I'm afraid I could not help but notice that the three "bitter" postings above were most probably written by one person since the use of language is unusually in tandem. This has made me even more convinced the author has an axe to grind and has used some trickery to "create" postings to support his negative opinions. Not good practice. And probably not heallthy behaviour. I would suggest the author lighten up and live a little. Perhaps I could suggest a holiday in Ireland might be a useful cure? (smile)Mirandanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-43532589856287530232011-07-20T23:15:04.362+01:002011-07-20T23:15:04.362+01:00I lived in Ireland for a year. I wish I could liv...I lived in Ireland for a year. I wish I could live there permanently but unfortunately I have commitments to family at home in Canada. I found the above rather bitter-sounding. Can't help feeling the author has an axe to grind with Ireland. But then he is English and, as another poster has said, perhaps it is time for some English people to move on and not hold their infamous grudge against the Irish for initiating the break-up of their Empire. The Irish have nothing left to prove in my opinion. I have had only good experiences during my residency in their beautiful country. Thank you Ireland.Mirandanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-11764881526153004882011-02-15T03:01:01.116+00:002011-02-15T03:01:01.116+00:00I love Ireland. And what's the most entertain...I love Ireland. And what's the most entertaining aspect of Ireland? Every Englishman's infatuation with it. You only have to browse the web and the English are still, even to this day, enormously angry towards the Irish who felled their empire with nothing more than gutsy determination. And the thing i loved most about the Irish? Their utter disinterest in the English. A true David and Goliath story. Move on England. It's over. They won.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-82906180522324290902010-01-21T13:42:26.570+00:002010-01-21T13:42:26.570+00:00Daithi is probably only posing as an Irishman. Ire...Daithi is probably only posing as an Irishman. Ireland does indeed have bad points, being human, but the more i travelled the more I realised Irelands real trump card. People are judged almost solely on their character and not on their appearance. People give you a chance to explain yourself, give you the time to unravel who you are and what you are about, instead of looking you up and down and wondering what it is they could possibly extract from you. This is absent in a large part of the world and is more precious than anything I have found. So what if Beckett left and Joyce left at some point. They grew up here. Many people travel for different reasons. Many Americans go to Europe. Seriously, the point being? Pretty much every country that England meddled with for extended periods of time (try 800 years) became extremely dysfunctional in the aftermath. That's not victimhood, that's just the reality of our history.Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14469827226329663362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-738343064486865742009-06-15T03:36:41.356+01:002009-06-15T03:36:41.356+01:00I'm a U.S. citizen and I've been to Irelan...I'm a U.S. citizen and I've been to Ireland 7 times. I think that it's a beautiful place, the people are awesome, and I wish the U.S. was more like it. Every place has it's faults, but I feel it's the people of Ireland that make it so beautiful. Their wit, brains, and compassion in everyday life make me yearn for such a place. Off the subject quite a bit, but I never knew or heard that palm trees grow there..freaked me out.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-59865183662737389002008-04-02T03:00:00.000+01:002008-04-02T03:00:00.000+01:00I'm afraid I did not really enjoy reading the post...I'm afraid I did not really enjoy reading the post of "Daithi". I'm a very proud Irishman and I don't need to use b'gorrahhs or oirishness to promote this country. Obviosly like any country we have our bad points and horrible points (sexual abuse by clergy, violent crime and drug use) but please do not attempt to say that me, my friends and family, my neighbourhood and so on are deeply dysfunctional without bothering to come and see how we're doing. I had a great childhood and so did the majority of people that I know. I'm now in my twenties and enjoying the benefits of a great place to live. I've really tried to articulate this post as best as I can without really showing the anger that I feel right now but I just have to say fuck off out it ye cunt!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13575158299667838608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1126722350237830472005-09-14T19:25:00.000+01:002005-09-14T19:25:00.000+01:00And what is the moral of this story? Simple. Relig...And what is the moral of this story? Simple. Religion is the curse of the human race.<BR/><BR/>In fact, if you look at its manifold crimes and obvious absurdities, you might wonder how it can have retained its grip for so long. Well, here’s why. First, religion was, as Philip Larkin tells us in <A HREF="http://www.boothill.ca/goatwrrld/aubade.html" REL="nofollow"> Aubade</A>, ‘Created to pretend we never die’; and second, it is always and inevitably an expression of cultural identity. No one wants to die, and everyone needs to belong.<BR/><BR/>But ultimately, humanity always bites the bullet: in the end, we reject superstition. Such things don’t happen overnight, but the death-knell of religion in the Western world was sounded many centuries ago by the twin bells of Renaissance and Reformation. Between them, even if it was not immediately obvious, they made inevitable the elevation of Man over God, and reason over superstition.<BR/><BR/>But Ireland? Ireland was a Catholic stronghold in Protestant northern Europe, isolated and fiercely determined, in defiance of a big bully of a neighbour, to retain her own identity. This surely explains the backwardness and superstition which we read about in the work of McGahern, Frank McCourt (<I>Angela’s Ashes</I>), James Joyce (look especially at <I>Dubliners</I> and <I>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</I>) and many others. But it couldn’t last, and even Ireland is now changing at dizzying speed. Catholicism has already lost its grip, and will not regain it: the process is never reversible.<BR/><BR/>No sweat, then? Superstition need never scare us again . . . If only. Hitherto, Islamist terror has been bloody and horrific without coming anywhere near to threatening Armageddon. But what will happen if terrorism and technology should ever meet where Hiroshima met Albert Einstein? Some believe that it is only a question of time before Islamists achieve a nuclear detonation in the United States. If they do, all bets on the future of the human race are off. Scary.<BR/><BR/>As a corrective to religion, you might just try reading the Bible or the Koran with open eyes and an open mind. Alternatively, have a go at Philip Pullman’s <I>His Dark Materials</I>, or at <I>Knowledge of Angels</I> by Jill Paton Walsh. And if decades of indoctrination make it impossible for you to accept that Jesus might not have been much of anything, take a gander at <A HREF="http://www.atheists.org/christianity/didjesusexist.html" REL="nofollow">this</A>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1126643149672013122005-09-13T21:25:00.000+01:002005-09-13T21:25:00.000+01:00Oh! I forgot. Excellent post Mr. Allen. You look...Oh! I forgot. Excellent post Mr. Allen. You look beyond the b'gorrah-isms here and it's a very unpleasant country.Ithiadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15970447456230934062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1126643000000802892005-09-13T21:23:00.000+01:002005-09-13T21:23:00.000+01:00Never mind Joyce... more to mind is that Beckett l...Never mind Joyce... more to mind is that Beckett left too. I mean, Beckett. It just makes you want to cry. (I would say only the greatest man ever to put pen to paper, but I don't want to appear fawning.)<BR/><BR/>Bah. God isn't the problem in Ireland. You have to look hard to find Him these days anyways, and well, the country still isn't much of a social utopia.<BR/><BR/>If you can forgive the grotesque generalisation, the real problem is Irish people and their deeply disfunctional society. It's so very depressing.Ithiadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15970447456230934062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1126608758005403112005-09-13T11:52:00.000+01:002005-09-13T11:52:00.000+01:00For myself, I have always agreed with Mr. Casey th...For myself, I have always agreed with Mr. Casey that there is too much God in Ireland, and in everywhere else besides.archerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07585829829302449682noreply@blogger.com