‘Accidentally Irish’: How Ruining The Economy Made Us All Irish Again
The Celtic Tiger left a hollowed out corpse that we're now filling with Claddagh rings, Pellador jumpers, St Brigid's crosses and pints of Beamish. And I don't mind.
It may be hard to imagine now, at the height of Dublin’s Pelladorification, but in the early 2000s there were few things more embarrassing than embracing your Irishness.
There was a sense of hollowness about certain aspects of Irish culture. On the streets of Dublin, Irish culture was positioned as artificial and cringey – something only to be consumed by gormless tourists who had the misfortune of wandering into an O’Carroll’s gift shop. Now things couldn't be more different. Drury Street heaves with people of all demographics, decked out in Claddagh rings and ‘grá’ stick-and-pokes, who’ll hardly touch a Guinness now because Diageo is British. It seems that the Coláiste Lurgan kids (historical victims of cyberbullying for their adherance to Irish customs) have finally gotten the last laugh. In the current age, it might even be cool to now say that you attended Lurgan in 2013 and sang an Irish-language cover of Avicii.
I want to be clear from the outset that there’s nothing derisive about my tone here. I am lapping up this pro-Irish zeitgeist. I spent many nights last summer in the Conradh bar, I’m a sucker for a pair of O’Neill’s shorts, and I’ve developed a newfound interest in trad. On top of that, I unironically love to see people championing Saint Brigid. If there’s one person who can’t afford to point fingers here, it’s me.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this change in attitude towards Irishness and whether it occurred as quickly and suddenly as it seems. Let’s reflect on how I think we’ve gotten here.
Cad a tharla anseo?
While there are plenty of smaller factors at play, I believe that in Ireland there are two things we can usually trace most of our problems back to: the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Celtic Tiger.
Today, the Treaty is off the hook.
At the turn of the century, we were steeped in shame about anything perceived to be Irish. I blame the Celtic Tiger. It seduced the nation into an irrational obsession with all things American. There are the obvious, ostentatious examples of this: hummer limos, publicised celebrity birthday parties, and the very un-Irish obsession with cocaine and capitalism that ensued. Then there were the more subtle ways that American culture became pervasive in Ireland, becoming a clear show of wealth and class.
Brands like Abercrombie and Hollister had posh teenagers by the throat. It’s easy to write off the heyday of A&F tracksuit bottoms as an old trend that came and went, but I think there was a more complex cultural moment spurring on the popularity of American fashion brands in Ireland.
Firstly, American Apparel, Abercrombie and Hollister hadn’t opened brick-and-mortar stores in Ireland. Secondly, online shopping just wasn’t really a thing yet. Finally, the clothes were relatively expensive for what they were. These factors made the acquisition of many American brands a purely aspirational pursuit.
The successful attainment of Hollister tracksuit bottoms was enough to signal that someone in the family was well-off enough to take a shopping trip to New York City. There’s something almost funny about this pastime as a concept, because I genuinely cannot imagine a more stressful way to spend my free time than shopping in one of the world’s busiest cities. Yet, it was a common enough activity for the well-to-do in the 2000s.
Anywhere but Ireland
The fetishisation of mundane American products didn’t begin and end with fashion (if you’d call it that). If you’re a certain age, you’ll easily remember all of the junk food and tat that Irish people desperately wanted to get their hands on, as Celtic Tiger consumerism gripped the nation. Pop Tarts and Twinkies (which tasted no better than the box they arrived in) were put on a pedestal, among other food and drink products we saw on television. People became obsessed with Sharpies – despite the fact that we had perfectly good permanent markers at home. There are countless examples of excitement surrounding the mundane, but then-inaccessible commodities, which at the time seemed harmless. When you look at the wider cultural landscape, there was definitely something a bit more insidious going on.
It’s clear when you look back at some of Ireland’s biggest musical exports of the time. Most were fronted by singers with neutral or fake American accents, priming themselves for mass appeal and distancing themselves from detectable Irishness. This is a world apart from the Grian Chattens, the Kojaques and the Pam Connollys of today.
To add to this defanging of Irish people on the world stage, bands like The Thrills and The Coronas made names for themselves by contributing to the obsessive romanticisation of the US. Hits like ‘Big Sur’ and ‘San Diego Song’ had young Irish people yearning for these glamorous problems in more aspirational places than Ireland.
Parallel to what was happening in the world of fashion and music, there was another worrying cultural shift that occurred during the Celtic Tiger, which I believe was another blow to Irish culture (and the language, in particular). This shift pertains specifically to how people began to view the Irish education system.
The Celtic Tiger Curriculum
For the last two decades, the people of Ireland have been fervently debating the role and relevance of our native language in modern society. When the language seemed to be in decline, people often fell back on the classic line about how there are problems with “how it’s taught” – a simple, conversation-ending point that suggests a curriculum reform of some sort could solve the problem.
While there may be some truth in that, I think we should probably look at the bigger picture and how education has evolved over the last couple of decades.
Formal education is a relatively new concept. The Irish school system was only finding its feet when my grandparents entered and left the system as small children. By the time my parents made it into school, the system was undergoing quite a bit of refinement. For both of those generations, the school experience was incredibly difficult. Abuse was rampant. It was socially acceptable for adults to beat children senseless back in those days. With that in mind, I won’t suggest that the education system was ever perfect – but in the twentieth century, the lessons at least seemed somewhat geared towards creating well-rounded adults who knew a bit about everything. Generalists, who’d eventually apply their newly acquired practical knowledge at some stage in life.
By the time I entered secondary school, the Celtic Tiger was mustering up a pathetic final roar. The country was more bullish on capitalism than ever before, and this obsession with becoming rich was informing children’s decisions on school subjects to an alarming extent. Even in working class areas.
At the age of 12, I had to mull over my subject choices for secondary school like every other kid in Ireland.
At this time, there was a real fixation on the languages of commerce – something I believe really weakened people’s interest in learning our native language. I consulted the adults around me for input on this and was frequently told things like “There are more jobs with German than French” while being advised that these languages would eventually strengthen my CV and job prospects.
In contrast, the Irish language promises nothing in the way of social mobility – so what’s the point? I dread to think what would have happened if Irish was an optional subject back then. Buíochas le dia, bhí an Ghaeilge riachtanach.
Many children entered the school system conscious that they were making decisions that could determine their chances of becoming wealthy later in life. I reckon this has had a very detrimental long-term impact on what the country deems worthwhile, both culturally and economically.
Kids selected their optional subjects, informing their choices based on the commodification of themselves – an incredibly absurd way to approach education. It’s like studying the English language by reading entrepreneur’s autobiographies, instead of Brian Friel or Shakespeare. This consequence of Ireland’s hunger for success robbed many people of a very simple joy: learning for the sake of it. Not to mention the fact that there’s great value to understanding people and the world around you. But sure, aren’t we paying for that now?
And what was it all for? The recession hit and many saw their ambitions to work in STEM or business upended anyhow.
We were left with a predicament where starving artists were replaced with starving scientists, who’d all ultimately be pushed from the country by the cost of living and a totally avoidable housing crisis. There’s a whole other story to be told about how greed has subjugated the Irish language – as well as the arts – in this country.
When did the tide change?
In the picture I have painted of the early 2000s, we were very taken with the United States and all it had to offer.
Irish people wanted the clothes, the cars, the culture, the junk food, the lifestyles, and the homes they had seen on television. For lots of people, the Celtic Tiger brought these luxuries within reach for the first time. People started buying SUVs and American fridges, along with unnecessary novelties for their homes like pool tables and art collections. Well-off teenagers used J-1 and graduate visas to take things a step further and go live out their fantasies of life in America. I wonder if it was everything The Coronas promised.
It’s so at odds with the world we live in two decades later, where the girls who grew up in Dublin 4 now fawn over Fontaines DC and boys with tattoos of harps and shamrocks. I’ve thought good and hard about how this has happened, and the answer is pretty grim:
The Irish Celtic Tiger aspiration was to live bigger and better. Now, the loftiest height to which Irish people will dare to aspire, is being able to afford to live in Ireland.
I started to realise this in 2018, when my friend Emma emigrated to Toronto. Before Emma left Dublin, stifled and frustrated with the cost of living, we spent our free time and youth rolling our eyes at the touristy nature of Dublin. We’d sit around taking the piss out of TG4’s programming, with Paisean Faisean and Aifric in the crosshairs. We had a great deal of cynicism directed towards anything created in Ireland, really. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, when I look back, but the point is that Emma was the last person I’d ever expect to begin brooding over Ireland. She had gotten so fed up with the place that she had left, after all.
Then a year or two into her Canadian visa, I saw that emigration and homesickness will chip away at even the most wry and sarcastic of us. It wasn’t long until Emma was mourning the loss of Ireland, and all that she had stepped away from. It’s something I’ve witnessed happen to virtually every person I know who has left the country.
The grass isn’t greener
The same people who once scoffed at the very concept of Irishness have become those most devastated by the loss of what they had at home.
Emigrants became the first to recognise (albeit, maybe too late), that we actually had something really special here all along. At first, that manifested through the absence of tangible things. There are no deli counters in London or New York or Sydney where you can get a chicken fillet roll or a few sausage rolls when you’re hungover and feeling a bit sorry for yourself. The diaspora had to learn the hard way that nowhere does a curry like The Jazz in Coolock.
Then there’s the intangible. The ways in which we understand one another, along with the ways in which we struggle to connect with others when we are away from home.
How many Irish people have you heard resolutely declaring that they’ll steer clear of other Irish people when they’re setting off to move abroad?
How many have been adamant that they aren’t moving abroad just to fall into the trap of habitually associate themselves with new Irish people, in a new setting?
While I see where they’re coming from, I have seen from the sidelines that it is a futile pursuit. Irishness is too inseparable from all of our identities, regardless of how many American Apparel disco pants you were able to get your hands on before the shop arrived on Grafton Street.
Alienating yourself from Irish people, Irish culture – tangible and intangible pieces of home – will ultimately alienate you from your self. We all end up seeking out those unique maternal and fraternal traits in Irish people for a sense of familiarity.
If you can’t access those things, I guess it makes sense why your pining for Ireland might be such that you want a little gold Ireland-shaped pendant necklace.
If this is the case from emigration, then surely we also sustained a reasonable amount of psychic damage from the hyperconsumerism that took a hold of us in the 2000s.
We have moved into the future, only to develop a grá and nostalgia for the cultural symbols and relics that were once considered embarrassing. It might have started with a harp necklace here. A Claddagh ring there. There was a vacuum left behind when people emigrated and realised that the grass might not have been greener after all. And it has created a generation of hibernophiles.
Dirty New Town
It’s not just the Irish abroad who are longing for an idea of Ireland. Those of us who have stayed at home have lost an awful lot too, as a result of the housing crisis and the ill effects of post-boom austerity. This applies materially and socially. Again, there’s an entirely separate story that could spin out of this about the economic devastation people have experienced in this country.
Looking at the social side of things, when I was in my late teens and early 20s, I took great pleasure in strolling around town, waiting to see who I’d bump into from school, college, or work. I’d struggle to get from Eden Quay to Stephen’s Green without a chance encounter that could subsequently make my day. That has become a rarity.
Over the last few years, there has been a palpable and profound emptiness in Dublin. I can feel how many of my peers are no longer here.
Of course, there are a few spots where the hold-outs remain and make themselves known. Namely Drury Street and Grogan’s – condensing the Pellador population into a single street, making the trend more apparent.
That’s all without mentioning the disappearance of the physical places where people used to convene, back when drinks weren’t verging on €7 a pint. At this stage, it feels tired to harp on about how hotels have replaced everything we’ve ever known and loved. But surely, it’s quite clear how the obsession with endless economic growth and perpetual technological innovation we inherited from the other side of the Atlantic has eroded that tangible aspect of our culture too.
So those who have stuck it out, may now find themselves missing Ireland.
We went too far in the wrong direction and we’re witnessing a cultural overcorrection, of sorts. Through language revival, fashion trends, and our musical exports, we are making up for years of shame-induced ignorance.
We lost touch with ourselves so badly while dabbling with mega capitalism, that we’re now leaning into a bizarre subversion of tourist paraphernalia to make things right again.
You can make as many jokes as you like about mustached lads with mullets in League of Ireland jerseys or GAA shorts, or lesbians in Pellador jumpers covered in Irish flash tattoos, but my instincts remind me that cynicism has done us enough harm.
The things that people might have cringed at in the 2010s are being reclaimed and celebrated. And I’m here for it. Our music is no longer designed for mass appeal, with our artist’s voices and accents offering familiar comfort to the Irish abroad. At home, they serve as a reminder that you shouldn’t have to neutralise your accent – or anything about your identity – in order to succeed. Funnily enough, it has gotten to the point where many artists are now exaggerating working class accents in order to connect with audiences. Again, I’ll take a deep breath and let the cynicism go away, but I do look forward to the day when the rest of Irish society gets over its hang-ups about accents.
In conclusion, I wholeheartedly think that this renewed acceptance and admiration for Irish culture is a good thing. Sure, someday we may laugh (or cringe again) when we look back on this period and the lengths we went to in order to plaster Irish identity all over our minds and bodies. The risk of embarrassment grows even greater if all of it becomes derailed by consumption, rather than serving to enrich. But isn’t it at least a bit better than the shame that drove us to emulate other Western cultures during the brief period when we had a bit of money?