Opening with a quote from Klee Benally hooked me and I’m glad it did! A great ramble and a reminder to get back to the doing posthaste. I look forward to more!
Well written! I totally agree. I do think its worth adding that liberation first must occur within the individual through a reckoning of what it means to be human and confrontation with the suppressive attachments to ideas and people which go against it
There is no 'first' in reality though, so it's more of a 'concurrent process' thing, but still more complex than that. Everything is always in motion with endless feedback. We are constantly made and remade by cultures and the land. But yes individual transformation is a necessary and historically overlooked process for any movement that isn't doomed to recreate 'the shit'.
Jimmy this is great writing, so important. I think we have a friend in common (Áine!) and I've long admired your work. I do a walking tour of Dublin based slave owners - would love to chat these issues out more with you some time.
What is your email Jimmy? I'm hoping to do one in June. A lot of the Sinners discourse has been frustrating so feel like I need to do it again and soon!
I’ve been looking at the history of how colonisation was implemented in Ireland, and the push back strategies from which I think we can still learn. Sadly after the establishment of the Irish state most of the better ideas for uncoupling from the Empire were jettisoned (Pearse in particular imo had some excellent ideas) but in recent years we had gone all out and drank the Kool Aid.
My knowledge of Pearse goes little further than his rabid Catholicism but tbh I've always considered Connolly an outlier compared to others involved in 1916. Yeats writing about the greasy fingers in the till sums up a lot of the attitudes of the day imo (and attitudes of 2025!).
A recent article from historian QUB Jack Crangle has been knocking about in my head a lot recently, especially as a GAA fan. Forgive the long quote but I think it's instructive:
"Despite putative solidarity with Black nations, Irish nationalist identity was predicated on an exclusionary, white conception of nationhood. In the late nineteenth century, Ireland's burgeoning home rule movement flourished partially through cultivating a distinctive form of cultural nationalism through arenas such as sport, literature, dress, language and music. Institutions such as the Gaelic Athletic Association were constructed to actively distinguish Irish cultural practices from those of Britain, asserting a coherent cultural identity to accompany political nationalism.
Central to this ‘Gaelic revival’ was the notion that the Irish were a discernible ‘race’, one that should be rooted in its own sovereign territory. This belief in cultural and racial distinctiveness informed Ireland's post-independence nation-building project, culminating in a state crafted around an identity that, according to Gilmartin, excluded ethnic minorities due to its reliance on ‘ethnic belonging’ and ‘historic ties to place’. Independent Ireland, therefore, emerged with a ‘new-found sense of whiteness’ in which racial specificity was actively asserted and championed. This perception of Ireland's white distinctiveness sometimes descended into overt racial prejudice. As Brian Hanley outlines, during the revolutionary period, several senior Irish diplomats were openly anti-Semitic, sometimes accusing Jews of hostility to Irish independence. Notions around the nature of Irish nationhood, therefore, arguably fostered and reinforced ideologies of racial exclusion, with hegemonic whiteness and ethnic distinctiveness firmly rooted in collective understandings of the country's history."
I have just read this very interesting article, and I totally agree with it. The only thing I would add is that the Irish are doing this , not out a supposed superiority over other colonised races but the reverse, a sort of version of I’m not Like Other Girls a subaltern coping strategy. It’s a form of self reassurance, a type of artificial self esteem masking feelings of inferiority.
In my view it’s complicated, in the one hand we really do have empathy for other colonised races- Geldof was not wrong when he identified this but on the other hand we are utterly blind to the ways that our privilege as a recently elevated subaltern has made us complicit in oppression. We are so busy congratulating ourselves on climbing to the top table that we fail to see that it’s built on the bodies of the wretched of the earth, just as we used to be….
Opening with a quote from Klee Benally hooked me and I’m glad it did! A great ramble and a reminder to get back to the doing posthaste. I look forward to more!
Well written! I totally agree. I do think its worth adding that liberation first must occur within the individual through a reckoning of what it means to be human and confrontation with the suppressive attachments to ideas and people which go against it
There is no 'first' in reality though, so it's more of a 'concurrent process' thing, but still more complex than that. Everything is always in motion with endless feedback. We are constantly made and remade by cultures and the land. But yes individual transformation is a necessary and historically overlooked process for any movement that isn't doomed to recreate 'the shit'.
Very true! I do think reality has ordering. We walk before we run, etc
So many good things here and captures what I've been trying to say for 8 years. Thank you so much, going to try to link this up everywhere
Well rambled, and probably more coherent than it feels. Thanks for this.
Not rambling at all. Perfectly concise and true. Thank you.
as an American with Irish roots your ramble is refreshing and much needed 👏🏼👏🏼
Yeah gis us rambles all day please
Jimmy this is great writing, so important. I think we have a friend in common (Áine!) and I've long admired your work. I do a walking tour of Dublin based slave owners - would love to chat these issues out more with you some time.
Thank you Maeve that's very kind. Walking tour sounds amazing, I'd like to attend that some time - & love to chat.
What is your email Jimmy? I'm hoping to do one in June. A lot of the Sinners discourse has been frustrating so feel like I need to do it again and soon!
jimmy@gaelicreexistence.com
I’ve been looking at the history of how colonisation was implemented in Ireland, and the push back strategies from which I think we can still learn. Sadly after the establishment of the Irish state most of the better ideas for uncoupling from the Empire were jettisoned (Pearse in particular imo had some excellent ideas) but in recent years we had gone all out and drank the Kool Aid.
My knowledge of Pearse goes little further than his rabid Catholicism but tbh I've always considered Connolly an outlier compared to others involved in 1916. Yeats writing about the greasy fingers in the till sums up a lot of the attitudes of the day imo (and attitudes of 2025!).
A recent article from historian QUB Jack Crangle has been knocking about in my head a lot recently, especially as a GAA fan. Forgive the long quote but I think it's instructive:
"Despite putative solidarity with Black nations, Irish nationalist identity was predicated on an exclusionary, white conception of nationhood. In the late nineteenth century, Ireland's burgeoning home rule movement flourished partially through cultivating a distinctive form of cultural nationalism through arenas such as sport, literature, dress, language and music. Institutions such as the Gaelic Athletic Association were constructed to actively distinguish Irish cultural practices from those of Britain, asserting a coherent cultural identity to accompany political nationalism.
Central to this ‘Gaelic revival’ was the notion that the Irish were a discernible ‘race’, one that should be rooted in its own sovereign territory. This belief in cultural and racial distinctiveness informed Ireland's post-independence nation-building project, culminating in a state crafted around an identity that, according to Gilmartin, excluded ethnic minorities due to its reliance on ‘ethnic belonging’ and ‘historic ties to place’. Independent Ireland, therefore, emerged with a ‘new-found sense of whiteness’ in which racial specificity was actively asserted and championed. This perception of Ireland's white distinctiveness sometimes descended into overt racial prejudice. As Brian Hanley outlines, during the revolutionary period, several senior Irish diplomats were openly anti-Semitic, sometimes accusing Jews of hostility to Irish independence. Notions around the nature of Irish nationhood, therefore, arguably fostered and reinforced ideologies of racial exclusion, with hegemonic whiteness and ethnic distinctiveness firmly rooted in collective understandings of the country's history."
I have just read this very interesting article, and I totally agree with it. The only thing I would add is that the Irish are doing this , not out a supposed superiority over other colonised races but the reverse, a sort of version of I’m not Like Other Girls a subaltern coping strategy. It’s a form of self reassurance, a type of artificial self esteem masking feelings of inferiority.
In my view it’s complicated, in the one hand we really do have empathy for other colonised races- Geldof was not wrong when he identified this but on the other hand we are utterly blind to the ways that our privilege as a recently elevated subaltern has made us complicit in oppression. We are so busy congratulating ourselves on climbing to the top table that we fail to see that it’s built on the bodies of the wretched of the earth, just as we used to be….
https://open.substack.com/pub/allthatssolid?r=2sx8q2&utm_medium=ios