Online: Staying Irish Away From Ireland
As I approach my eighth aniversary of being in America some people keep telling me that I haven’t lost my Irish accent.
Actually, I have; I lost my Dublin accent on Hill 16 one rainy bloodied day in 1983. This accent I have now I stole from a woman in Mullingar. But thanks, anyway.
Nonetheless, I’m still actually Irish all these thousands of miles from home. I wear socks with my sandals in 115 degree heat, and there’s tea in me cupboard, but how do I do it? How do I retain identity with that little maroon passport with the harp on it? (Idea for Guinness, I know Breo didn’t work, and Guinness Light was decades before its time but why not make a dark red beer and call it Passport?)
How? Online. Back in a bout of earlier emigration I lived in England. Phone calls were twenty-three quid a minute so emigrants phoned home just once a year, usually in an emotional call on Christmas Day where they cried because of the cost of the call. Technology was different then. In fact technology itself had yet to be invented.
But now in the 21st Century, online makes it like you never left - although I should point out that right this moment it is -19 degrees centigrade here with a Real Feel of -28C, which quite possibly means I’m dead. I don’t remember it being this cold in Ireland.
So let me stick the kettle on, and you have a read of a list of the online world that keeps me Irish. In reverse order for dramatic effect.
20. Mulley.net If you read only one Irish blog - this is the one. Touching all facets of life in Ireland, while sitting proudly in the bigger online world, Damien keeps you up-to-date with things you need to care about, and things you’d forgotten you once had.
19. Met Éireann If there’s anything that will make you more homesick than that map with little clouds on it, it’s knowing that the phrase “Generally Dry” means “wet”.
18. Irish Sports Council Because yeah there’s better facilities wherever you are now, and sport is more organized, but here’s where you remember that doesn’t matter. And because Walk Ireland is an ISC initiative.
17. WordPress Because nobody writes you letters anymore, e-mail is so twentieth century, and instant messaging is too instant. Blogging is free. You blog, your friends blog, you get to keep up with each other’s lives, without losing the ability to ignore people. Blogger has greatly improved lately, but WordPress does it like nobody.
16. Irish Emigrant Keeping you so in touch you’ll be sick of Ireland and Irish people and wish you were an emigrant in a foreign land. Oh wait…
15. Flickr Tagging is two years old. Pictures are reputedly worth a lot of words, which is why your teacher gave you 500 lines and not a request to draw a picture. There’s a lot of photographs on the web, and a ton of photo sites. Some are bigger than Flickr, but none are as well organized and as social. Type “Ireland” in the search box, and cry.
14. Setanta Because you’re older and fatter and like Chauncey Gardener, you like to watch. Setanta are cruel, monopolistic, creeps, but remember it’s the Monday edition of the Irish Times that has the most overseas subscribers, not Saturday’s big edition with all its arts stuff. Because of sports. Chances are they aren’t playing as much gaa, hurling, and rugby, where you live, and when there isn’t a party for the natives you’re on your own supporting the national soccer team. With Setanta.
13. Scrúdú Because you’ve left school and Scrúdú is no longer a word to be feared. Embrace it and you embrace all things Irish. And all things claiming to be. Be narrow-minded; exclude the world.
12. ArchiSeek Nobody complains about plays and poems anymore, but stick a building up and everybody is an architect. Until you emigrate and don’t care anymore while you read your plays and poems. See what Ireland is building. Exercise your birthright and complain. You might even like some things.
11. Slugger O’Toole Mick Fealty’s world has serious political competition these days, but still nobody hosts better conversations and shows you why a nation (or two) can spend a century having “talks about talks”.
10. Last FM Because it’s not of Ireland but Web 2.0 can show you where musical tastes in Ireland are running quicker than a root through the bins in Dolphin Discs. Listen to what your friends are listening to. You know, the ones in Ireland. If you don’t like what you hear, just get new friends.
9. IrishBlogs.info Because you’re not reading only one blog, right? Stop working. Stop eating. Read 500 Irish blogs every day. It’ll feel just like you’re upstairs on a bus stuck at lights that have changed six times without you advancing past them. For an emigrant this is a good thing. Think of it as a Quality Bus Corridor of the web.
8. Podcasting Ireland Because reading is not enough. No other country talks like we do. This is not necessarily a good thing, but if you want to avoid assimilation into your new fancy schmancy nation of residence, listen to what people more on the edge than bloggers are saying.
7. Bebo Because you already have a Bebo page, or because you’re just too old to understand. Nothing says you’re Irish like a Bebo page.
6. TG4 RTE’s new design is very impressive, but all grown up now, everybody’s favourite Irish language television channel makes you believe you can actually speak Irish. And you can watch. Web TV.
5. Irish Politics You might live in Australia but isn’t it great to know what’s going on in Cavan-Monaghan?
4. YouTube Because who knew your childhood memories were being recorded for broadcast decades later, to be shown in the same place as yesterday’s news, sport, comedy, and music, and all coming at you in addictive little microcosmic modules.
3. IrishBlogs.ie One page, one Ireland. At home and away. The Irish Times finally got its long overdue overhaul, only to find the rest of Ireland had moved on. It’s not necessarily pretty, but tá sé part of what we are.
2. Eire.FM Straight in at number two, it’s every single radio station you would listen to in Ireland, on one page, and with the player embedded. Phantom, RTE, BBC, Midwest Radio, Tipp FM, Live Ireland, Today FM, NewsTalk 106. etc. etc. Why go anywhere else?
1. Skype Because phoning is free. Because phoning means video. Because Christmas isn’t about crying anymore. And because you can phone your Irish Mother more times than she wants you to.
See Other Lists (While Your Boss Isn’t Looking):
• Offline: Homesick Cures for the Irish in America
• 10 Songs I Learned In School
• What Do You Paint? (FAIQ #12)
• Irish Inventions and their Inventors
• 10 Things I Never Heard Before Moving to America
• Hallowe’en in Ireland: A Quiz
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Jaysis, I’m not even half-Irish, going by this list. Cheers, that’s a good list of references to have.