Irish Links: A Gameshow
Here’s a little game we can play. It’s kind of like the Krypton Factor. But don’t phone; it’s just for fun. And Irish-America.
Here’s how it works. I give you a bunch of links to major Irish websites. You visit each one briefly, to glance around the home page - don’t go off exploring, we’re playing a game here. And when you’re done I’ll ask you a question. Just one question. Related to all the websites.
1. IrlGov.ie - Official Site for Information on the Irish State
2. Ireland.com - Home of The Irish Times
3. NLI.ie - The National Library of Ireland
4. RTÉ - Ireland’s National TV & Radio Broadcaster
5. An Post - Ireland’s National Postal Service
6. The National Gallery of Ireland - National Collection of Irish Art
7. GAA - The Gaelic Athletic Association
8. CIE - Irish Rail, Irish Bus, & Dublin Bus
9. Áras an Uachtaráin - Official site of the President of Ireland
10. Conradh na Gaeilge - The Gaelic League
11. National Archives - Records of the Modern Irish State
12. CSO - Central Statistics Office of Ireland
13. Fianna Fáil - Home of Ireland’s Largest Political Party
14. Ask Ireland - Irish Government’s International Directory
15. Dept of Foreign Affairs - Irish Department of Foreign Affairs
16. Education Ireland - International Education Board of Ireland
17. St Patrick’s Festival - Official Celebration of St Patrick in Dublin
Seventeen links, as it turns out. Did you look at them all? Liar. Anyway, luckily the game still works if you only looked at a sampling. Here’s your question:
Q. What did you not see?
It’s possible with advertising and news that the dynamic content of RTÉ & The Irish Times, might be exceptions, but they’re not at the time of posting this question, nor are they usually.
And, if you don’t know, here is your answer.
You see? It’s possible to be Irish without one.
See Some Vaguely Related Things, Honest:
• The Less Celebrated Differences Between Ireland & the USA
• Frequently Asked Irish Questions
• Irish Conversations in the American Midwest
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
In fairness, Eolaí, I can forgive all bar the St. Patrick’s Festival folks. The harp is our national emblem not the wee green trefoil.
You have me backwards Primal. There’s nothing to forgive any of the sites for. I was showing that the Harp is the symbol, not the shamrock, bearing in mind that I’m writing it from a place overloaded with shamrocks.
Not so much ‘why don’t do they bleedin’ well have a shamrock or two’ as ‘why on earth is the shamrock so adopted and overused from foreign viewpoints (and tourism targetting those foreigners)’
I thought the sample of high-profile sites illustrates perfectly that Irish sites don’t need a shamrock to make them Irish. Even beyond St Patrick’s related sites, practically everything in the US related to Ireland comes with a shamrock. Aside from largely (though not exclusively) ignoring the Harp, it ignores variety itself.
Oops! Well that’s me back to Subtlety 101 next semester.
Did you look at them all?. Yes. But then I’m a lyre, though not a sham.
Nah, I framed it badly trying to ask the same question of peoples in two different countries. All clarifications I had thought of before posting, ruined the game, so I dropped them, but I think I’ll amend the framing now.
I wouldn’t want anybody reading and then shaking their head - for the wrong reasons.
Hm… I’ve never actually seen a shamrock bleed.
More seriously… seems to me most of those sites don’t have any graphic at all representing Irishness. Just like most sites in the U.S. don’t have any graphics representing Americanness. Lack of a flag on U.S. websites does not mean people in the U.S. don’t see the flag as a symbol of the U.S. Not that I disagree with your point, but I don’t think that collection of websites prooves the point.
It’s the very variety of the ways that Irishness is conveyed that this collection does prove.
Most of those sites (I’ve counted 12) do use graphics that conveys Irishness, the harp being the most common, but also celtic script and art, maps, the provincial flags, and the colors of the national flag.
But beyond that, just simply use of the words “Ireland”, “Irish” or us of the Irish language can be enough too. Every one of those sites is a national site where its Irishness is relevant, unlike say internationally commercial sites.
I don’t know that the U.S. flag example you give is a fair one as the Irish flag is also a symbol of Ireland, but it is the Harp that sholud be compared to the American Eagle. The Harp, in some shape or form can be seen on 7 of those 17 websites.
The shamrock by contrast is seen primarily on Irish websites in the tourism sector, and in a more subdued fashion on the sites where it features specifically as the logo, such as Aer Lingus and the sporting sites of the FAI (soccer) and the IRFU (rugby). But then you’ll also see the Irish Setter on Irish Bus, Irish dancers on the the National Folk Theatre, celtic interlace on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and spirals and celtic lettering all over the place.
I think that collection of websites does prove that the vast majority of Irish sites do not see the shamrock as necessary to depict Irishness, in direct contrast with overseas sites which appear to believe it essential.
Well… as I sit here in Arkansas listening to a news
report that today, the Arkansas state legislature
saw fit to spend a great part of their valuable time
deciding that the “official” way to show the
possessive case with regards to the word “Arkansas”
is to add an apostrophe and another ’s’ to the end
( As in… Arkansas’s desire is to treat its’s citizens well )
and also reading this latest post I somehow can’t
help but feel the two are related ( Wait for it! )
Eolaí said…
No question. The national symbol of Ireland is the
Celtic harp, not the shamrock.
The shamrock isn’t even a real plant.
It’s a type of clover that grows in Ireland.
It has a Latin name but that won’t fit on a
button or rhyme well in the lyrics of a song
from Broadway.
The word most people pronounce as “Shamrock”
simply comes from the Irish Gaelic word seamrog,
which means “little clover.”
Ok… I know… so what… how does that relate to
adding apostrophes and extra ’s’ letters to words?
I submit: Whenever parade planners or politicians
get involved… it isn’t what’s real that matters… only
what you can make people THINK is real.
If you want someone to blame for contributions to
the symbol confusion… blame the Irish Prime Minister.
( or blame Canada ) ( or both! )…
Since 1980, the Irish president has presented a bowl
of shamrocks to the U.S. President in a White House
ceremony held annually around St. Patrick’s Day.
It’s now a “tradition” whose end might only come
when American tanks have to roll into Dublin and
pull a statue of someone down.
Crystal Bowl (Irish cyrstal, of course) full of (real)
shamrocks ( “little clover”, from Ireland ).
Every year. St. Patrick’s Day. At the White House.
No stopping it now.
Even if they could switch to harps now I doubt
they could find one to fit in the crystal bowl.
Photo of Pres. Bush accepting the annual bowl
of shamrocks from Irish Prime Minister Ahem…
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/images/20050317-3_p44604-132jpg-515h.html
Irish Prime Minister Ahem’s words to Pres. Bush as he
handed him the bowl of shamrocks…
As for Arkansas’s official view on this… might be
something like this…
On this St. Patrick’s’s day…
It is Arkansas’s desire to express its’s profound
appreciations’s and congratulations’s to all of
its’s citizens of Irish descent on their contributions’s
to Arkansas’s rich and varied history. We are sure
that all Arkansans’s hopes’s and dreams’s for a
better future full of good luck and shamrocks’s
a’plenty will, all faith and begorras’s aside, one day
come true. Please don’t have drinks’s and drives’s.
Thanks for the insightful posts’s, Eolaí.
Keep ‘em comin’!
Yours…
Kevin Kiley