Archive for the 'Irish culture' Category Page 3 of 4



Do Irishmen love Hitler, or is it just an ignorance

Last Sunday I went to Duncanon reenactment fair. Among the Vikings, Normans, English 19th century infantry, the most numerous groups were soldiers from the 2nd World War. There was a quite big group of G-Is, but the biggest was a reenactment group of German SS.

Ireland from a Polish Perspective
People on the photo are not a nazi and shouldn’t be considered as nazi.

We have reenactment fairs so for me there was nothing new to see both Amercian, German, or Soviet (there was a few), but there is one thing which makes me wonder. Why all those Irishmen want to reenact SS - not real soldiers but the troops in charge of genocide, crimes against humanity, killing Poles, Jews, burning the villages etc?

SS it was the Hitler’s elite force, but it wasn’t army elite, and for sure they weren’t a human elite. They were taught to kill all “untermenchen” to wipe them out from the world, no matter they were to kill children, women or old people. They were also in charge of mass executions of Poles, Jews, Russians, and even German civilians in the end of the war (men who avoid joining the Volksturm).
I just wonder, what is so attractive to Irishmen to pretend being a murderer, a man who kills kids, women, men, who can shoot the mother and her child with cold blood.

Do they admire persons like Jurgen Stroop who was the butcher of Warsaw ghetto?

The second thing that struck me the most, was a number of Irish families with kids, wearing SS / Gestapo hats, especially hats of the SS guards of concentration or death camps (like Auschwitz, Birkenau, Gross-Rosen, Buhenwald etc.). Those guards were mostly former murderers. They were killing prisoners with cold blood, they were brutally forcing people to go into the gas chambers. They were also in charge of supervising and looking after gas chambers and crematoriums in all concentration camps.

I can understand that it was re-enactment, it was a family fair, but for the fcuk sake it is frightening to see kids with their parents wearing hats of the most brutally, most inhuman force in the history. Where is the craic, or maybe it is good craic for the Irish men?

There was also the exchange trade market for original or just reconstructions of uniforms etc. They were selling mostly SS hats or uniforms, or swastikas armbands. Is it a picture of family fair? Kids, parents and nazi symbols?
Do they admire Nazi German war criminals or do they just so ignorant? One thing seems to fits the picture perfectly. De Valera was the only president of neutral country who sent the condolence letter to the German Nazi government after suicidal death of Adolf Hitler.

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Contamination

Recently, in almost every Irish newspaper I could read about problem of water contamination, illegal dumping of litter, and the issue of keeping Ireland tidy.

The most troubling news are concerning water contamination in Galway, and polluted waters of Lough Corrib that is a water supply for Galway. The picture that stroke me the most was a photo of dumped household wastes in the river Suileen which is linked with a main drinking water resource. A river full of black rubbish bags, Coca-Cola and Lucozade empty bottles and many other rubbish and waste produced by a consumption.

I think it would be an excellent black PR for those companies to see big billboards with the photos of dumped wastes in a water supplies. Always Coca-Cola? or maybe always e-Coli, a microbe related to the human and animal sewage, that could be find in almost every water tap in Galway and Kerry?
In the local Carlow newspaper (The Nationalist) I found a terrifying article about rotting carcasses of fox, chickens and other animals dumped in the cardboard boxes just on the edge of the road close to the estate.

Carlow Town Council is deliberating on cutting all of the trees and bush around the Liberty Tree fountain, which is central part of the town, due to the large amount of waste, they are also thinking about setting up CCTV cameras in the most often littered parts of the town.

Year ago, I found bottom of the Barrow river full of dumped wastes, Tesco’s troleys etc.

What is going on? Is this an effect of consuming style of life, a kind of hedonism which sneaks into the Irish life? Is Ireland becoming dirty and polluted country? It seems that the run for earning more money, and having more goods, better and faster cars, especially fancy jeeps and pickups (with the higher level of CO2 emission) made some Irish people completely insensitive on environmental issues.
To prevent any comments in a way “go back home”: I don’t claim that Poland is clean, but I can see rising level of environmental awareness over there.

People of Ireland, where do you go from here?

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To hear, to listen to and then to die, this Friday

Once (almost a year ago) I mentioned how I took an interest in Gaelic (which I used to treat as a “Celtic”) culture and tradition both in Ireland and in Scotland and thus interest in both countries in general. Later this interest expanded on whole British isles, then it resulted in my archaeology passion.

The first and most important contact took place more than 20 years ago, during a deep economical crisis of the last years of communism in Poland. At that time, Polish television (then we had only two channels) broadcasted BBC TV series “Robin of Sherwood” with a brilliant soundtrack by Clannad.

Since that time I have been listening to Clannad music and I have been trying to learn as much about Ireland and Scotland (to be honest I used to be more interested in that country) as possible. In the late 80ties and early 90ties of 20th century I was gathering tapes illegally copied and sold in the music shops. The first Clannad albums on cassettes I bought or just obtained were “Legend”, “Magical Ring”, “Dulaman”, “Macalla” and “Atlantic Realm”.

They are still quite famous in Poland and commonly known due to the “Robin, the hooded man” - main theme of the Robin of Sherwood.

Broadcasting “Robin of Sherwood” and playing Clannad music in Polish radio in the mid 80ties took a massive impact on many open minded Poles. Since that time many Polish bands playing traditional Irish, Scottish , Welsh music have been founded and open minded people became interested in so called Celtic music and culture.

Thanks to Clannad I discovered a book of tales from magical world, and with every album I bought I was turning the pages of it. Thanks to Clannad I have fallen in love with Gaelic languages (Gaeilge and Socttish Gaelic), and during my many trips to Scotland (in the 90ties) especially its western and northern parts I had Clannad on my headphones almost all the time.
Of course, they had better and worse times and albums, and some traditional songs I prefer in versions performed by other bands, for example Alasdair MacColla (or Alasdair Mhic Colla) performed by Scottish band Capercaillie.

After more than 20 years I have my ticket for Friday’s Clannad concert in Dublin. I am looking forward to see them live for the very first time in my life.

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Pancake or Doughnuts? Thursday or Tuesday?

I have just realised that we have some confusion in the calendar of similar holidays.

Yesterday - in Polish calendar - we had Doughnut Thursday, during that people are eating great amounts of Doughnuts and sometimes even cook them at home.

Polish “Doughnut Thursday” resembles “Pancake Tuesday” or as it is called in Scotland “Shrove Tuesday”

But… :) in Poland “Pankake Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday” is called “Ostatki” (the Lasts) and it resembles Irish (or American) Hallowe’en. When children disguise themselves as a ghosts, deaths, pirates etc., and walk from door to door singing songs and getting sweets, cakes and money sometimes.

There is some confusion, don’t you think? :)

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Crime in Ireland. Garda needs to be armed.

A couple of times I mentioned Polish troublemakers in Ireland and growing numbers of Poles involved in crimes, fights and acts of vandalism. It seems there is no change for better or bad, but the problem touch not only Poles but all non-nationals from new EU countries, Russia, Ukraine and so on.

The aggressive individuals stand out especially during the weekends after the payday. You can find them in the bigger pubs and in the nightclubs (I am glad that they are not visit a smaller pubs). Groups of muscle men with the faces of ?Äúsmartarses?ÄÌ. Some of them wear red t-shirts with Polish white eagle ?Äï they don’t care that being drunk and aggressive has nothing to do with patriotism and it is rather an insult to their compatriots. They are going to the nightclubs to meet girls (doesn’t matter Polish, Russian, Czech, Lithuanian o Irish) and to provoke ?ÄúIrys??w?ÄÌ (Irishmen in a Polish slang in Ireland) to show them who is the master here in Ireland. In the opinion of the aggressive Poles (or other Eastern European emigrants) ?Äï we are the masters and Irish are fools or dumbs. As I wrote almost year ago, non-national troublemakers don’t speak English enough to be understood properly , that usually prevents of fight. Usually… but not always, because Irishmen scallywags are not better (or worse) than Polish troublemakers, and if they are insulted they won’t let you wait for the reply. That’s why sometimes, in the passing of time, more often, we can see fighting in the front of the nightclubs. Last time I saw it on Friday night in Nenagh in the front of Maximus nightclub. There were Irish fighting versus some Easter Europeans. The two Garda officers that arrived at place were scarred and they were trying to talk to the fighters.

There is not only a problem with non-nationals. There is high crime rate among the Irish community itself. Let me mention a gang war in Limerick which is probably one of the most dangerous places in Ireland if not in the whole European Union (at least in my opinion). The explosion of the consumption of drugs make the gangs strong and very active. Most of the Poles in Limerick hadn’t met such problem before they left Poland. We don’t have people shooting shotguns on the streets in the areas almost completely off the jurisdiction of Garda and town authorities.

In some parts of Poland we have high level of crime, and mafia structures, but not gangs like in Limerick. Many of them (some of my friends too) were attacked at their places by a young gang members just because they tried to prevent them of i.e. pissing in the garden. Of course there is no witnesses and the investigation got stuck in place though the attack was recorded by cameras of the nearby gas station.

In my opinion there is a growing problem of crime caused by both Easter European emigrants and Irish themselves. It is probably the effect of the high consumerism ?Äï consumption style of life of nationals and its dark side ?Äï a growing drug market. It is also an effect of the clash of the native and alien cultures, especially both native and alien troublemakers.

The thing that made me think the most is a visible lack of Garda forces, especially in the towns like Limerick, and some areas of Dublin. I don’t know if Garda has something like American SWAT units, but it would be a good solution for some problems. The gang areas of Limerick and of other town are not so big, they are rather small, so the military action of Garda special forces should solve the problem, or at least prevent the gang members of committing crimes. If there is no forces like SWAT, then why don’t the government use the Irish Army against the mobs?

Another question is a role of regular Garda officers in the small towns like Carlow, Nenagh etc. There is a number of fight during the night at weekend. Maybe police forces should be armed to be respected by drunken troublemakers, because at present the picture is both funny and grim. Garda officers fear the troublemakers and they don’t fear Garda at all.

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