22 April 1999 Edition
Television: Anyone for an aul uachtar reoite?
Lip Service/Leaving Cert Irish (TnaG)
Counterblast (UTV)
Spotlight (BBC1)
Pull Of The City (BBC2)
``Cad is ainm duit?
Tá mé fear sneachta ar an rothar.
Cad é do caitheamh aimsire is fearr?
Oh tá an aimsir sunny agus ag cuttáil an grass.
Cad a cheapann tú faoi dríodar raidió gríomhach (nuclear waste?) Tá-Seá-raidió anois agus fear sneachta.''
Hard to believe this constitutes the Oral Irish Leaving Cert Exam for many teenagers after studying the language since childhood, which was the focus of TnaG's ``Scrudú-Béil-Oral Irish'' and the hilarious short comedy ``Lip Service'' on Tuesday last.
Even more shocking can be the attitude of some, including republicans, to our native language - ``sure what use is it? - it's boring - French is more important''. Ignoring the fact that the minority of us who do emigrate to France spend our time on building sites with Paddies and the French usually refuse to converse with our ``Je m'appelle Jacques'' jargon.
``It was boring in school'' is another sentiment garnered from the programmes ``Peig with her no teeth and her children falling over the cliff, swimming twelve miles to school to be battered over the head with an oar by an elbow jacketed maniac'' ample proof of the failure of the 26-County education system to revive Irish as the primary means of communication and the survival of the colonial mentality.
Despite the gloom encountered by Seán McGinley on entering a Dublin secondary school, the large majority of Irish people are in favour of the language, as evidenced by the thriving number of Gaelscoileanna and the innovative TnaG.
McGinley is welcomed by the teaching staff, products of a career-minded, establishment-based language system, which up to recently saw the language, in Dublin in particular, becoming largely the preserve of the middle class.
Keen to present a good image, the Cigire (Inspector) is met with a barrage of Marietta biscuits and best china tea, replacing the more common staple school diet of mouldy cheese sandwiches and úlla glas (green apples) and depressing answers from the deágóirí (teenagers) ``Tá mé ag shittáil na briá, ar nós na gaoithe, séa, ní heá, an tarbh agus an dochtúir, tá mé fear - mister! haven't a bleeding clue what you're saying!''
A brow-beaten McGinley eventually makes a hasty retreat from the ghetto, realising the object role Irish plays in their lives, but we know better as the many working class communities from Ballymurphy to Ballymun have repossessed their tongue, using it as a badge of self identity and esteem in the same manner as driving out drugs. There lies the future of an Gaeilge.
Ar aghaidh leis an eabhlóid ``onwards with the evolution!''
The progress of similar Welsh and Gaelic speaking schools across the water irks the Anglophobic Alan Ford on UTV's provocative ``Counterblast'' as he laments the discrimination against ``Anglo-Saxon culture in favour of minorities.''
Ford, whose views mirror National Front manifestos, informs us that ``the English have given more to the world than any other race on the face of this planet'' and the Anglo-Saxon culture ``is a bounty of riches'' identifying the Queen, the Church and daffodils as fine examples of such, omitting The Sun, tattoos and lager louts, who he proclaims ``are treated like animals abroad'' by a ``sore'' Europe, who ``we fought over the centuries and beat them.''
He laments pubs being granted licences for St. Patrick's Day and not St. George's, the hijacking of the kilt by the Scottish, English traditions losing out in schools in favour of minorities, a law that favours ethnic minorities - tell that to the many Irish victims of the PTA and the family of Stephen Lawrence, the overrepresentation of Scottish ministers in the British cabinet and the Welsh and Scots ``doing well out of us'', omitting Thatcher's pillage of North Sea Oil profits for the South East of England.
Ford, unfortunately, ignores the many traditions and races, including the Irish that have created a multicultural British society. Rather than accomodate them, would prefer forced resettlement of immigrants from `non-white' countries and ``a much higher definition of English citizenship''.
Bizarre but revealing, these views fortunately do not represent the majority of the English people, but rather the minority that has indeed ``tarnished the reputation'' over recent centuries.
Loyalist minorities and ``mavericks'' were blamed for the assassination of Rosemary Nelson on BBC's ``Spotlight'', ignoring the malaise that exists in many loyalist areas where ``Bibles and grenades'' are combined to keep under heel unruly ``fenians'' such as Rosemary Nelson, who ``pinpointed her work with victim of injustice Colin Duffy as the beginning of a marked deterioration of her relationship with the RUC''.
The spirit of resilence, as exemplified by the Garvaghy Road women at last week's thronged Dublin benefit, is claimed to have uplifted New York in BBC's ``The Pull Of The City'', where homeless men with shopping trolleys have been replaced in the city centre by ``Internet entrepreneurs'' and private security guards.
It appears many of the city's marginalised have been shunted forcibly from the city, and ``the sidewalk - the last bastion of democratic contact, has been semi-militarised'' to make way for entrepreneurs' ``synergy'' and the world's largest parties, yet they've banned alcohol, tobacco, music and gambling - strange parties!
By Sean O Donaile
Counterblast (UTV)
Spotlight (BBC1)
Pull Of The City (BBC2)
``Cad is ainm duit?
Tá mé fear sneachta ar an rothar.
Cad é do caitheamh aimsire is fearr?
Oh tá an aimsir sunny agus ag cuttáil an grass.
Cad a cheapann tú faoi dríodar raidió gríomhach (nuclear waste?) Tá-Seá-raidió anois agus fear sneachta.''
Hard to believe this constitutes the Oral Irish Leaving Cert Exam for many teenagers after studying the language since childhood, which was the focus of TnaG's ``Scrudú-Béil-Oral Irish'' and the hilarious short comedy ``Lip Service'' on Tuesday last.
Even more shocking can be the attitude of some, including republicans, to our native language - ``sure what use is it? - it's boring - French is more important''. Ignoring the fact that the minority of us who do emigrate to France spend our time on building sites with Paddies and the French usually refuse to converse with our ``Je m'appelle Jacques'' jargon.
``It was boring in school'' is another sentiment garnered from the programmes ``Peig with her no teeth and her children falling over the cliff, swimming twelve miles to school to be battered over the head with an oar by an elbow jacketed maniac'' ample proof of the failure of the 26-County education system to revive Irish as the primary means of communication and the survival of the colonial mentality.
Despite the gloom encountered by Seán McGinley on entering a Dublin secondary school, the large majority of Irish people are in favour of the language, as evidenced by the thriving number of Gaelscoileanna and the innovative TnaG.
McGinley is welcomed by the teaching staff, products of a career-minded, establishment-based language system, which up to recently saw the language, in Dublin in particular, becoming largely the preserve of the middle class.
Keen to present a good image, the Cigire (Inspector) is met with a barrage of Marietta biscuits and best china tea, replacing the more common staple school diet of mouldy cheese sandwiches and úlla glas (green apples) and depressing answers from the deágóirí (teenagers) ``Tá mé ag shittáil na briá, ar nós na gaoithe, séa, ní heá, an tarbh agus an dochtúir, tá mé fear - mister! haven't a bleeding clue what you're saying!''
A brow-beaten McGinley eventually makes a hasty retreat from the ghetto, realising the object role Irish plays in their lives, but we know better as the many working class communities from Ballymurphy to Ballymun have repossessed their tongue, using it as a badge of self identity and esteem in the same manner as driving out drugs. There lies the future of an Gaeilge.
Ar aghaidh leis an eabhlóid ``onwards with the evolution!''
The progress of similar Welsh and Gaelic speaking schools across the water irks the Anglophobic Alan Ford on UTV's provocative ``Counterblast'' as he laments the discrimination against ``Anglo-Saxon culture in favour of minorities.''
Ford, whose views mirror National Front manifestos, informs us that ``the English have given more to the world than any other race on the face of this planet'' and the Anglo-Saxon culture ``is a bounty of riches'' identifying the Queen, the Church and daffodils as fine examples of such, omitting The Sun, tattoos and lager louts, who he proclaims ``are treated like animals abroad'' by a ``sore'' Europe, who ``we fought over the centuries and beat them.''
He laments pubs being granted licences for St. Patrick's Day and not St. George's, the hijacking of the kilt by the Scottish, English traditions losing out in schools in favour of minorities, a law that favours ethnic minorities - tell that to the many Irish victims of the PTA and the family of Stephen Lawrence, the overrepresentation of Scottish ministers in the British cabinet and the Welsh and Scots ``doing well out of us'', omitting Thatcher's pillage of North Sea Oil profits for the South East of England.
Ford, unfortunately, ignores the many traditions and races, including the Irish that have created a multicultural British society. Rather than accomodate them, would prefer forced resettlement of immigrants from `non-white' countries and ``a much higher definition of English citizenship''.
Bizarre but revealing, these views fortunately do not represent the majority of the English people, but rather the minority that has indeed ``tarnished the reputation'' over recent centuries.
Loyalist minorities and ``mavericks'' were blamed for the assassination of Rosemary Nelson on BBC's ``Spotlight'', ignoring the malaise that exists in many loyalist areas where ``Bibles and grenades'' are combined to keep under heel unruly ``fenians'' such as Rosemary Nelson, who ``pinpointed her work with victim of injustice Colin Duffy as the beginning of a marked deterioration of her relationship with the RUC''.
The spirit of resilence, as exemplified by the Garvaghy Road women at last week's thronged Dublin benefit, is claimed to have uplifted New York in BBC's ``The Pull Of The City'', where homeless men with shopping trolleys have been replaced in the city centre by ``Internet entrepreneurs'' and private security guards.
It appears many of the city's marginalised have been shunted forcibly from the city, and ``the sidewalk - the last bastion of democratic contact, has been semi-militarised'' to make way for entrepreneurs' ``synergy'' and the world's largest parties, yet they've banned alcohol, tobacco, music and gambling - strange parties!
By Sean O Donaile