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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Nov 5, 2009 14:36:48 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 5, 2009 17:07:18 GMT
The IRISH FAMILY early in 2008 relayed claims from American pals that Ron Paul had really won the New Hampshire republican primary but that the vote had been rigged in favour of McCain. It's part of the cultic milieu, I think - they want to live in a little world of their own and discount any awkward realities as fabricated by malevolent forces. Welcome to Gnosticland.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 11, 2010 12:25:08 GMT
I am going to do a series of posts on R.M. Douglas' recent book ARCHITECTS OF THE RESURRECTION about Ailtiri na h-Aiseirighe (Manchester University Press, paperback 24 euro). This was a far-right political group in1940s Ireland which enjoyed a brief success in attracting activists but collapsed - partly because its adulation for the European fascist powers was discredited by events, but mainly because of its erratic and autocratic founder/leader Gearoid O Cuinneagain, who refused to take advice or adapt his message. I think it has certain parallels to the "Catholic party" fiascoes noted on this thread, but there are also certain differences which are related to the difference in political culture between 1940s and 2000s Ireland. It is also relevant to the earlier discussion on this thread about the relationship between certain "Catholic traditionalist" movements and neo-fascism. First of all I will summarise the book and the history of Ailtiri; then I will discuss how it grew out of certain utopian strands in nineteenth and twentieth-century Irish Catholic thought, finally I will speculate on what we can learn from its story. Starting tomorrow.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 12, 2010 17:15:47 GMT
Ailtiri na h-Aiseirighe (architects of the resurrection) was a splinter group from the Gaelic League founded by Gearoid O Cuinneagain (c.1910-90), who came from a middle-class background in Belfast. O Cuinneagain had been a civil servant but resigned after he was refused extended study leave to go and learn Irish in the Donegal Gaeltacht; he later worked as an accountant and tax consultant and ran his own magazine. By the late 1930s O Cuinneagain had drifted into the pro-Nazi political underworld and was affiliated to various pro-German and potential quisling groups. He left these in 1940 (shortly before they were rounded up in the police) with the intention of infiltrating the Gaelic League and forming a "hitler Youth" organisation within it. He first of all founded Craobh na h-Aiseirighe, which drew attention to itself by its emphasis on youth and high-profile publicity stunts (the Gaelic League was dominated by aged veterans). In 1942 O Cuinneagain and many of his followers broke away to create their own political movement, Ailtiri na h-Aiseirighe. It drew a good deal of initial support from young enthusiasts, and established a branch network in the south and south-east (particularly cork), in North leinster, and in Dublin. Ailtiri maintained (though its public statements were muted by wartime censorship) that the Nazi victories in western Europe showed that some form of fascism was the way of the future, and that by mobilising the nation through personal dedication and political propaganda they could achieve all the aims of the independence movement - an Irish-speaking Ireland, ending partition, economic development and prosperity - and create an ideal Catholic social system which woud be copied by the whole world. It presented itself as embodying the vocationalist Catholic social teaching of the period -though in fact its emphasis on mass mobilisation through state power was directly opposed to vocationalism, which had a bias towards stasis and favoured a weak state. For this reason it failed to win clerical support. It was also viciously anti-semitic and, like many Irish nationalist commentators of the period, believed the Irish economy had been held back by a sort of bankers' conspiracy which refused to make credit easily available for economic development. (We could really have done with a conspracy of that sort some years ago.) It tapped into a sense among the generation which had grown up after independence that the older generation were a set of exploded volcanoes, that the country had failed to fulfil its potential, and that they should be given a chance; Ailtiri seemed to many of its young admirers to offer a solution to Ireland's problems. The late Justice Seamus Henchy was briefly an Ailtiri member, as was the future Labour TD and ceann Comhairle Sean Treacy, and Oliver J Flanagan (who tapped into many of the same discontents - including, I am sorry to say, the antisemitism) had links with them. Nexdt - why Ailtiri failed to sustain itself
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 15, 2010 18:26:40 GMT
Before going any further I should insert a few clarifications which I should have put in at the start; I am not holding up Ailtiri and its nazi ideology for any sort of admiration or acceptance or imitation or expressing regret at its failure. My purpose in discussing it is to illustrate how well-meaning idealists looking to put the church's social teaching into practice can be seduced into fascism under the mistaken belief that this offers a short cut to the Kingdom of God on earth and how such idealists can be exploited and have all their commitment, idealism and sacrifices thrown away by arrogant and egoistic leaders who think they know everything and who are more concerned with self-glorification than with building a sustainable movement. The story of Ailitiri is also worth recalling as a warning against nostalgia for pre-1958 Ireland, for clearly much of their success refleted a feeling that the new state had failed to live up to expectations and that drastic action ws necessary to deal with its manifest shortcomings and apply Catholci social doctrines.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Feb 3, 2010 15:44:44 GMT
This is an interesting twist in the thread and I would like to hear more, Hibernicus.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 4, 2010 13:26:46 GMT
I'm under a lot of work pressure at present - I'll get abck to it next week.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Feb 9, 2010 15:29:46 GMT
Meanwhile Blueshirt boy wonder George Lee has thrown in the towel after 8 months. A poor commentary on Enda Kenny's judgement with a predictable media lionising a guy with no track record worth talking about.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 15, 2010 14:36:20 GMT
Benedict has a point. Be careful what you wish for, though; this may lead to a stronger Labour element in the next government. Ivana Bacik is alleged to have the ambition of being a "reforming" Minister for Justice - given the extent to which the church has screwed up and made itself unpopular in this country, don't think it couldn't happen. Ivana herself may be too arrogant and self-righteous to get into the Dail, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar aggressive secularist agenda pursued by some government in the near future. Here are some interesting comments from Theodore Dalrymple, from his forthcoming book THE NEW VICHY SYNDROME, in which he argues European civilisation is in decline because it has lost confidence in any transcendent purpose to existence, while retaining the converse (and without religious belief, unearned) sense that humanity is somehow special. Dalrymple is a "wistful atheist" of the sort who thinks God doesn't exist but wishes He did, as distinct from the aggressive atheists we seem to get here: Via Mark Shea (read the comments) markshea.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-like-theodore-dalrymple.htmlamconmag.com/article/2010/mar/01/00014/EXTRACT Perhaps it is Ireland that offers the most startling example of secularization because it was a late starter. Late starters, however, are often apt pupils; they catch up fast and even surpass their mentors. When I first went to Ireland [he has written elsewhere that this was in the mid-1960s, when he was a medical student], the priest was a god among men; people stood aside to let him pass. No respectable family did not count a nun among its members. As for the Archbishop of Dublin, his word was law; the politicians might propose, but he disposed. In the historical bat of an eyelid, all that has gone, beyond any hope (or fear) of restoration. It would hardly be too much to say that the Church is now reviled in Ireland. I suspect that if you performed a word-association test using the word “priest,” it would more often than not evoke a response of “pedophile,” “child abuser,” or (at best) “hypocrite.” The extremely low birth-rates in Spain and Italy, the lowest recorded in any modern society, suggest that the populations of these traditionally Catholic countries do not pay much attention to the teachings of their Church. Recently in Belgium, I saw an old convent where the remaining nuns were all in their eighties and would never be replaced. When they die, their convent will presumably be turned into luxury apartments for unwed professional couples with no children. God is dead in Europe, and I do not see much chance of revival except in the wake of catastrophe. Not quite everything has been lost of the religious attitude, however. Individuals still think of themselves as being of unique importance, but without the countervailing humility of considering themselves as having duty toward the author of their being, a being inconceivably larger than themselves. Far from inducing a more modest conception of man, the loss of religious belief has inflamed his self-importance enormously. EXTRACT ENDS He goes on to argue that while some people find transcendent meaning in non-religious sources (scholarship or political activism) most Europeans have lost any sense of a purpose wider than themselves, and wonders if the same might happen to America. I dislike the view that religion should be upheld as a bulwark of civilisation, because that leads very easily to the "noble lie" idea - we find this in the attitude of a lot of the French Right towards Catholicism, for example. There is also the added thought that for much of our history we Catholic Irish were the barbarians, feared and hated by the defenders of Anglo-American WASP civilisation as the Muslims are now. Any thoughts? I'll try to get back to the Ailtiri soon.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 16, 2010 12:07:34 GMT
A little comment as I try to work my way back to the Ailtiri. O Cuinneagain's pronouncement that Ireland could create an ideal Catholic-Gaelic social system which would shape world civilisation for a thousand years was not as odd in its day as it seems in retrospect. Recently the IRISH TIMES reprinted an editorial on a De Valera speech from about 1934 or 1935, in which that paper (which was then semi-Unionist) objected to De Valera's belief that Ireland must cut itself off from the British Empire - but what struck me was the reason De Valera gave for doing so. He said that God had preserved Ireland for a great destiny and that she could give an example of Christian civilisation which would be an example for the whole world, and that it was in order to be free to realise this destiny that she must break with Britain. Similarly, the idea that Irish Catholicism had survived the Penal Days like the Israelites in Egypt or the Jews in Babylon because God had set us apart as a chosen people is fairly common in nineteenth and twentieth-century Catholic clerical rhetoric - I think Deirdre Manifold, whom I heard recently is very ill, can still be heard uttering traces of this. Part of this reflected the fact that it WAS very unusual in early-modern Europe for adherence to one religion to survive to such an extent under a monarch of another religion, and that nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ireland did see an unusual degree of popular Catholic observance. Part of it was also, I think, a specific reaction to the violence and poverty of the period, both at home and in Europe; the idea that the First World War and its horrors and traumas were the product of a civilisation that was fundamentally corrupt and driven by amoral power politics, which was brewing fresh horrors, from which Ireland had only horrors to expect and from which she should preserve herself if at all possible, had a good deal of emotional force. Similarly, I am inclined to think that the great upsurge in popular piety in the 1920s and 1930s reflected a desire to purify the nation of the horrors of war (or to evade the memory of what had been done in its name, if you care to put it that way). Both Cosgrave and de Valera justified their policies by a message of self-sacrifice; a sense that Ireland had been through so many sufferings over decades or generations and that if only the people would stand firm now the reward of all their torments was at hand (together with a related mixed message, that these hopes had already been achieved to some extent and the people didn't realise how well off they were). The Ailtiri picked up on this message and argued first of all that - as the people could see was true - the hopes had NOT been realised, Ireland was still impoverished and economically dependent on Britain, not least for emigration - and second, that if these hopes had not been realised it was because the people and in particular the old generation had not wanted them enough, and if only the new generation were absolutely determined they could still be realised.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Feb 16, 2010 15:18:32 GMT
I would like to react to Hibernicus' penultimate above. A few months ago, we saw Fine Gael as almost certainly leading the next Government. Now, it is not so clear. I believe the government will run its full term to 2012 (if for no better reason than neither Fianna Fáil nor the Greens are interested in having a pre-mature general election). Anything can happen in two years.
One possibility is a Fine Gael led government in which Labour is much stronger. In this case, what Hibernicus suggests is a possibility. I agree that Ivana Bacik is unlikely to be in the cabinet anytime soon, but that doesn't mean there are not more effective secularists in Labour. Another possibility is a Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition (which would mean Fine Gael is in very big trouble). The same caution applies - indeed in spite of the former Seanadóir de Burca's hissy fit, Fianna Fáil are usually in a position of implementing their junior partner's philosophy, whether that is red (Labour 1992-94); blue (Progressive Democrats 1989-92; 1997-2007) or green (Greens 2007- ).
Blueshirt weakness is no good thing.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Feb 16, 2010 15:50:04 GMT
I just read the article from Theodore Dalrymple quoted by Hibernicus. I have to say I like Dalrymple's stuff and this one does not disappoint.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 18, 2010 12:47:03 GMT
ANother point that strikes me about the Ailtiri is that quite a few of them had professional skills. O Cuinneagain was an accountant and tax consultant who gave up a good job in the ministry of Finance to go and learn Irish. The father of the novelist Hugo Hamilton (whose book THE SPECKLED PEOPLE is a horrendous description of Ailtiri ideology in practice; Hamilton senior, whose wife was German, brought up his children to speak only Irish and German and tried to stop them speaking English, sometimes beating them if they didn't conform; they were also sent out in lederhosen, which made them the butt of all the local bullies) was a skilled electrical engineer employed by the ESB to handle highly complex machinery. Like other twentieth century totalitarians, they seem to have dreamed of having a blueprint for society that could be imposed as straightforwardly as a scientific blueprint - of fitting society into a pattern as if hman beings were bits of machinery. There are also, I am afraid, analogies between their view of themselves as infinitely correct and entitled to impose their vision by any means necessary, and of criticism or opposition as inevitably wrong or malevolent and unworthy of toleration, which resemble certain features of Irish Cahtolic eduction in the period which we have been hearing a lot about lately.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 9, 2010 15:34:37 GMT
Another glimpse of Ivana Bacik. The SUNDAY TRIBUNE yesterday was speculating on who might be Ireland's political leaders in 2020, and one possibility it suggested was Ivana as Minister for Equality and Law Reform in a FG-Labour coalition. Given the extent to which church-bashing is becoming a positive vote-getter (to a considerable extent through the clerics' own fault) don't think it couldn't happen.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 13, 2010 15:52:57 GMT
If I believe the Phoenix, Ruairi Quinn checkmated any immediate chances Ivana has of a Dail nomination in Dublin South East, so she may have to go back to the drawing board.
A lot of Labour party people don't like her. A higher proportion of people outside Labour agree with them. I know I do.
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