Irish Press Banned as Irish Independence Revoked
The recent Chris Moyles Bob Geldof thing reminded me of when I worked in England and my English boss - who was about to go on his summer holidays in Cork - made it clear that he believed Cork was part of the UK.
Tricky one with your boss, but I pointed out that we were lucky if the Peoples’ Republic of Cork considered itself part of Ireland - as indeed the Constitution of Ireland and international law did - let alone it be a part of the United Kingdom.
This had me described as inflammatory, banned from reading the Irish Press at work (at the time one of the top two national daily newspapers in Ireland, that I purchased every day from a very friendly Sikh), and Ireland declared part of the UK forever. Harsh, I thought, that the entire Republic of Ireland should suffer for my casual constitutional defence of the nation. And over Cork?
Before Mary Robinson invented the Irish Diaspora, Chris Moyles grew up as an Englishman with the rare gift, for an Englishman, of being able to accurately immitate Irish accents, specifically those of his Irish cousins and his Irish mother.
Being English, Moyles was therefore quite chuffed to find himself in a recent list of The Top 20 British Heroes, along with Paul McCartney, Elton John, David Beckham, J K Rowling, Richard Branson, Ricky Gervais, and at the top, Sean Connery.
Proving that it’s not only the Kansas City Star that places Ireland within the UK, but many British themselves, Moyles rightfully questioned the inclusion of Ireland’s Bob Geldof (from the quaint British town of Dún Laoghaire) at #5 on the list.
This brought Moyles’ radio show a flood of feedback from listeners, many of whom genuinely believe that Ireland is a part of Britain.
I honestly don’t expect Americans to know the constitutional make-up of islands thousands of miles away from their own country. Nor do I blame Americans for believing that Scotland is in Ireland, or screwing their faces up in pain when somebody says Wales? to them. But British people should know the boundaries of their own country - it’s even written on their passports in case they forget.
Alas my English boss wasn’t joking, or making a philosophical viewpoint, because the day after his prouncements on Irish Independence, as usual at lunchtime I produced my Irish Press only for the boss to storm out of his office demanding the inflammatory paper be put away and never produced at work again.
My protests of, But it’s the Press, not the Independent, made no impact. Okay, I said, selling out, you can have the Six Counties - I just want to read the paper. And why do you want the other twenty-six all of a sudden?
He was not a happy man. Thing is, it wasn’t all of a sudden for him. Nobody told him about Irish Independence, or he missed that day at school, and the news coming from me seventy years after the event just didn’t sound very official.
So he had a great British holiday, in Cork, I started buying An Phoblacht/Republican News, and the Irish Press Group went out of business.
See Also:
• Irish Sneetches
• Ban the Irish Language
• Irish and British Passports: FIFA Go Mad
• Ireland and/or Eire
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Don’t worry; English bosses use think that Poland is located in the Soviet Union with white bears walking on the streets. We are NOT responsible for a tragic level of British comprehensive;)