The Irish state and revisionism

The ennobling of Sir P. Bartholomew Ahern approacheth; he will soon follow Sir Peter Sutherland, Sir Tony etc down the aisle. While the teaching of revisionism in Irish unis strikes some as problematic – how can you presume the moral force to levy taxes from people in order to pay lecturers to question your historical right to levy them? - here, in the US, Irish government policy reached fantastical heights of absurdity.

In 2005, the Irish consul-general in the western US decided to ignore the existence of a program in Irish studies in San Francisco and celtic studies at UC Berkeley, as well as the pleas of the Irish community here, and gave money to British studies to put on lectures in Irish studies. The sole historical lecturer was an arch-revisionist; check out

Tugging the forelock

After the “Workshop with Professor Jane Ohlmeyer” Revisionism: Debates on Irish History I guess we can expect “Pro-choice; debates in reproductive rights” and “No zyclon; debates on the holocaust.”


We got these lectures stopped only after sending a delegation to Aengus O Snodaigh in the Dail; to his credit, Aengus asked a written question. In the meantime, the Irish state has not attended any of the main regular non-political cultural events here, including a whole Irish day put on by International House at UC Berkeley;

“Question No 341

Parliamentary Question - Dept Details

To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to
the fact that the Irish consul in California donated funding to a course on
revisionist history run by the British Studies Department in the University
of California, Berkeley and has refused funding to a course on traditional
Irish music proposed to be run under celtic studies at the same university;
and if he will make a statement on the matter.
- Aengus Ó Snodaigh.

For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 12th December, 2006.”

FF are Clemenceau's “radical republicans” in Irish drag; they got away with pretending to believe in a UI until it suited them not to. One of the Ohlmeyer lectures is on the web; we were indeed there, did object, and our objections were edited out. This lecture was described by Prof. Dan Melia, secretary of academic senate at UC Berkeley, as “boring and stupid”. La Ohlmeyer and her like are just academic mercenaries paid by the “Free” state to keep the coolies in line; once out of their Irish hothouse, they come across as the morons they are.

The Irish electorate did not know that, as events have proven, any provision of the GFA can unilaterally be rescinded by the British. Had they done so, it is highly likely arts 2+3 from the 1937 constitution would not be in play, and there would have been no uproar about the Mandelson action in unilaterally suspending the NI assembly. Incidentally, this uproar went as far as the Taoiseach's office; Blair was personally attacked from within that body.

It is perfectly legitimate to ask for another referendum on the issue, which is currently legally ambiguous. In the meantime, the spectacle of McGuinness and Robinson having to run something together will be good for a laugh.

So many of us do in fact feel that we have a territorial claim, and that there is a border dispute.

Putting things extremely simply;

1.The Irish govt. funded lectures given under the aegis of British studies on revisionism at UC Berkeley. Brit Studies, in turn, is a dept. within European studies. They had promised in writing not to do this.
2.The Irish govt. refused to fund fully accredited academic courses both at New College and UC Berkeley on Irish culture. In fact, they have repeatedly denied the existence of these courses.
3.After a question by Aengus, they finally deigned to engage with the matter by sending a delegation to UC Berkeley and actually talking to the New college people.
4.However, they did nothing, contributed nothing, and courses have had to be cancelled again
5.Clint Eastwood's recognition by the Irish state for perhaps the most significant global contributions to Irish culture of the past 5 years would have been a useful publicity coup, but this govt. is unable to see this. We spoke to Clint in 2007, and he would have loved a formal invite to Ireland
6.The Irish govt. again has been conspicuous by its absence at an annual international festival at cultures here, and we now routinely apologise for their chronic non-participation in cultural events.
7.The revisionism project is essentially a retrospective justification of British rule in Ireland. It is therefore logically inconsistent for the Irish state to levy tax for revisionist lectures, whether in Ireland or the US.

What is galling in this case is the attacks on Irish culture itself by the state (see the music scam thread on seanonuallain.com), along with the abysmal intellectual level of defenders of revisionism.

We always win this one, and will do so again.



PS
Does anyone have similar tales from the assimilation of the Irish to the British state? In case anyone doesn't believe the above;

From the UC Berkeley Institute of European studies report 2005-2006 , P. 13;

'Thanks to the generous support of the Irish government, Jane Ohlmeyer hosted a workshop on “Revisionism; Debates on Irish history”'