Five Minutes of Magic

What's the hardest place in Dublin to get an appointment?

Walkinstown, of course. (Because they only do walk-ins there.)

Walkinstown is also renowned for the spontaneous public celebrations that occurred there after Ireland reached the quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

You can watch five minutes of it here. God bless Daithí Ó hAirtnéada, who had the foresight to film it in those pre-mobile phone days.

It's hard to convey just how crazy the country went over the 1990 World Cup. It seems to have been one of those unique moments in social history where conditions are just right to bring about an unprecedented and unrepeatable phenomenon.

The Walkinstown celebration might be the most famous, but there were similar scenes all around the country. 

I had little if any interest in the tournament as it began, but I was gripped with excitement as it went on. It was really contagious. As you can see from the video, there are as many women celebrating as men. Everybody got in on it.

I was an avid soccer fan (and player) for about five years after that, although my interest slowly diminished over the next five years or so. These days I don't follow any sport, although I sometimes feel mildly ashamed of this. I think it's good for people to play and follow sports. I wouldn't go as far as to say that everybody should, though. There are lots of other good things to do, after all.

But people who refer dismissively to "sports-ball" or "twenty-two men chasing a pig's bladder around a field" seem like unimaginative killjoys to me. You could apply such a reductive description to any activity human beings perform for its own sake-- which would leave us with a depressingly utilitarian existence. (Yes, I've made this argument often on this blog. Apologies to long-term readers.)

At the time, I didn't realize how unique Italia '90 (as it was termed) would remain. There has never been anything like it since. I was Ireland's first World Cup. We qualified again in 1994, with many of the same players, and actually beat Italy (who were eventually runners-up) in the first game, before getting knocked out in the second round by Holland.

Home come the heroes...

But it wasn't the same, probably because it wasn't as spontaneous. There was incredible hype beforehand (for months!) but it just couldn't live up to the magic of the first time.

The uniqueness of Italia '90 in Ireland transcends sport. I've never known any national event like it, or even close. It has always remained my ideal of national togetherness, national consciousness. Perhaps because I didn't experience John Paul II's visit to Ireland, when a million people went to see him in the Phoenix Park. (Well, I actually did. I was there. But I was only a year old, so I wasn't taking much in.)

One of the things I like about this video is that Walkinstown is such an ordinary suburban sort of place. I firmly believe the suburbs have to be enchanted.

The early nineties in Ireland were a special time in themselves, actually. I've written a blog post about it here. (One of my many posts that got no comments.) It wasn't all good, of course-- the Church took a real hammering-- but it certainly had a distinctive character, and a certain excitement.

I talk about Italia '90 so much that someone bought me a badge of the Italia '90 logo, last Christmas. I wear it all the time. (At least, whenever I put that coat on.)

(The only public event that even remotely resembles Italia '90, in my experience, is all the hype and discussion around the Lord of the Rings films at the start of the millennium. Everybody seemed to be watching them and talking about them. It was also the beginning of my time in UCD, which makes it more memorable to me. Obviously, though, this wasn't unique to Ireland, and didn't have the same quality of a communal event shared in real time as Italia '90. But it was still very special, and seems even more special in retrospect.)

A Nice Notice for this Blog

In a blog post which begins by mourning the sad death of a blogger called Zman, and then turns to theme of blogging in general, Professor Bruce Charlton has some nice things to say about this blog:

As an example of a recent example of the kind of blog post I like best; here is (non-famous) blogger Irish Papist; with a very personal and honest, free-associational development of ideas on the theme: Everything comes back to religion.

As often said: writing is thinking (or it can be); and here you can sense IP thinking as he writes; and share his excitement at the insights as they emerge from the exploration.

I've been sampling Irish Papist on-and-off for several years - long enough to have decided he is a Good Bloke; and from this assumption I find that he produces a stimulating post every so often, that seems to set off associations and notions in myself.

Well! Not only did that please me greatly, but it may have been literally an answer to a prayer. This morning I asked God for something to happen, today, that would encourage me.

I first heard about Professor Charlton on Edward Feser's blog (which I still follow) and I then bought his book Thought Prison, about political correctness. (It can be read online here.) It's amazing how few books have been written about political correctness, even all these years later. Thought Prison actually took political correctness very seriously, instead of treating it as some kind of joke or freak. I've followed his blog on and off since then.

His thoughts on blogging are very interesting, and indeed timely. The Chesterton and Friends blog recently had a post mourning (or at least commenting on) the disappearance of most Chesterton blogs. Blogs seemed so terribly voguish not so long ago and they are already passé.

Professor Charlton says: "There has to be some kind of basic affinity with the blog persona - but especially with the person we infer behind that persona. I say infer, because we don't need to know much specifically about the blogger "in real life" - so long as what we do know is honest and unpretentious."

I personally think this is true, not only of blogging, but of all reading. The author's voice is what draws me.

He goes on: "Blogging benefits from a careless attitude of freedom, and the ability to shrug-off those times when posts don't take-off or just don't gel."

Amen! The almost throwaway nature of blogging is something I cherish. Anything goes in the pot. I suppose its progenitor is the newspaper column, such as the "As I Please" column written by George Orwell, or the Keith Waterhouse columns I read as a kid (in book form), or "Cruiskeen Lawn" by Myles Na Gopaleen, which is legendary in Ireland. And Chesterton, of course.

Blogging is especially valuable for sidelights, or what I might call "second order" considerations-- for which I have an appetite which may be unhealthy. To take an example: I can't tune into a debate (whether a recent debate or one stretching from the dawn of civilization) without also getting interested in the debate itself, aside from the truth or falsehood of the issues at question. I get fascinated in the contours and dynamics of the debate.

Somebody once rebuked me for this, comparing me to the spirit in Lewis's The Great Divorce who is unwilling to enter Heaven because he would prefer to theorize forever. And I accept there is a danger of this.

But this interest in "second order" matters seems natural enough to humans. I remember being surprised, in my teens, when I would read Tory politicians' memoirs and find them to have a great affection for House of Commons customs, characters, and camaraderie. I'd rather assumed that Thatcherites would see Parliament as a sort of necessary evil, like government itself. I feel the same surprise when agnostics and atheists have opinions and preference about the Catholic Church or the Church or England. But I find this endearing rather than frustrating, myself.

JFK in Ireland...1945!

John F. Kennedy came to Ireland as a reporter in July 1945, fifteen years before his election as President. I write about it in this week's Ireland's Own.

Rules for Conversation

Here are some rules for conversation I've come up with, over years of floundering in the conversational ocean. I have no expertise or authority in this realm whatsoever.

They mostly start with "Don't". Maybe this is negative but I don't care.

1) Don't try to prove how funny, clever, or well-informed you are. I've come to the conclusion that most conversation falls into this category, at least between people who don't know each other that well. This despite the fact that most of us fall into a median zone of all these characteristics. And if you rise above that level, well, why do you need to prove it?

Nothing is more irksome than somebody continually trying to be funny or witty. Most people are funny when they're not trying.

Go to the other extreme. If somebody mentions an arcane or obscure fact, and you already knew it (and can even outdo your clever-clogs interlocutor with an even more obscure, related fact) don't let on. Just smile and nod and act impressed.

2) Don't use the royal "we" or talk about your kids incessantly.

3) Don't bring up your own accomplishments. Even from considerations of egotism, this is good policy. It's surely much better to eventually get a reaction like this: "I say, old boy, you never told me you'd single-handedly foiled a terrorist attack..."

4) Don't make everything about you, and don't make your own experience the yardstick of everything someone else says to you. If somebody has rhapsodised about their favourite TV show for twenty minutes, for God's sake don't say: "I don't watch much television myself..." Or if somebody tells you about a Facebook meme, don't say: "I'm not on social media myself, it's probably marvellous for some things but I never quite got it..."

I know you really, really want to do this. But don't.

5) Don't back someone into a conversational corner. There are some phrases which just kill a conversation. Like: "Well, it's whatever you're used to, isn't it?". Or: "I suppose everybody has their own opinions on these things." Conversation should open up, not close down.

6) Be giving of yourself in conversation. Nothing is worse than talking to someone who, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde:

Has set a seal upon his lips

And made his face a mask.

Unless you already have previous reason to be hostile or suspicious towards somebody, try a little self-abandon. You don't have to tell them your deepest, darkest, most intimate thoughts. But let them in a little bit.

7) Be easily impressed, but not gushing.

8) Never use words such as Kafkaesque, Manichaen, or Foucauldian.

9) Don't assume someone agrees with you on subjects which are, at least to a foreseeable extent, matters of controversy. This might put them in an awkward situation of either introducing a strain into the conversation, or swallowing their opposing point of view.

10) Don't probe for personal information. This should go without saying but doesn't.

11) I honestly think that classic advice holds good: Just be yourself. Most people are perfectly likeable underneath all the pose, performance, and insecurity.

Everything Comes Back to Religion

"Nearly all that I loved I believed to be imaginary; nearly all that I believed to be real I thought grim and meaningless."

This C.S. Lewis quotation (from Surprised by Joy, my favourite book) pretty much expresses my view of the world before I accepted Christianity. I was an instinctive sceptic and agnostic, but I wasn't at all happy about that. I had virtually no interest in scientific progress, although I enjoyed science fiction. I was interested in ghost stories, folklore, traditions, ceremony, ritual-- everything that was, in fact, giving way to "progress". Even as a child, I can remember feeling depressed that there was nowhere left on earth to explore. As soon as I was old enough to know the word, I started (pretentiously) calling myself an obscurantist.

That everything gets worse (or at least, less interesting) was, to me,...well, I was going to write "an article of faith", but it wasn't even an article of faith, in truth. It was just a fact. I didn't think about this much. It was pre-reflective.

Even today, now that I believe in God and the miraculous and the supernatural, I'm still haunted by this worldview. Or at least, something very similar to it.

The world itself, without the supernatural and the religious, doesn't seem satisfying to me, or ultimately that interesting.

Take history. I've started reading the book pictured above, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada by Mark A. Noll. After some time reading secular history I grew increasingly bored with it.

The more you dig down into secular history, the less interesting it becomes. The story of mankind is the story of power politics, the quest for status and prestige, for supremacy. And, where it's not power politics, it's basically utilitarianism. We are all utilitarian most of the time. People stopped telling stories around the fire because the TV was more convenient-- and, frankly, more entertaining. I hate Aldi and Lidl and Tesco, but I give them my custom because I can't afford not to. And so on.

Take nationalism as another example. I'm a nationalist, in the sense that I strongly believe the nation should be preserved and cherished. But really, the emergence of a national culture is generally an accident of history. People developed a distinct culture because of geographical barriers, or some such mundane explanation. There's nothing mystical about it. Perhaps asking people to cling to their national cultures, in the face of the overwhelming pressure of globalization, is like asking people to avoid supermarkets for family-run firms.

They might do it for a while. The Gaelic Revival is proof of that. But, as the Radiohead song puts it, gravity always wins. Whatever aspects of national cultures will survive (if any) will ultimately depend on their price-tag of inconvenience. Sentimentality will go so far and no further. Many people will eagerly sacrifice their lives for their fatherland. But very few indeed will sacrifice their convenience, or their hunger for novelty.

When nations emerge for reasons other than an accident of history or geography, it can generally be traced to religious reasons, even if not directly-- as, for instance, with modern Israel and the USA.

I've recently written about Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama thought that history had, in a sense, ended with the end of the ideological battle between the West and the Soviet bloc. Democracy and capitalism now reigned supreme, even if wars might continue.

But how much of the conflict in history has ever been ideological, anyway? Very little, I would suggest. It's overwhelmingly been about power politics-- not under the surface, but on the surface. I'm reminded of the infamous reply of the Athenians when the neutral islanders of Melos complained about being invaded, during the Peloponnesian Wars: "The powerful take what they can, and the weak yield what they must." Might it be said, in fact, that the Cold War was an anomaly in being ideological? What was ideological about the Napoleonic Wars, or World War One, or indeed most wars?

I believe, contra revisionists, that Brian Boru was fighting the Danes to defend the Christian faith and Gaelic civilization. But why was most of his career spent fighting all the other Gaelic petty kings?

I'm especially baffled by the nostalgia of Catholic integralists for the political order of Christendom. What was it except an incessant dogfight between kings and aristocrats, using peasants as ammunition? Aside from the Crusades, it very specifically wasn't about religion because-- as intregalists always approvingly emphasise-- everybody was Catholic.

I'm not denying there are exceptions to this primacy of power politics in conflict. It really seems to be the case that the American Civil War, to a great extent, was fought for the sake of freeing slaves. People from all over Europe volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War, for whatever side they believed in. But the exceptions are just that, exceptions.

And the great exception is, of course, religion. There have been religious wars, even if power politics generally played a role in these as well. Personally, although I hate all war (as does every ordinary sane person), I've never understood why fighting over religion is wrong in principle. Religion seems as good a reason to fight as any other, and better than most.

The point I'm making about history applies to everything else. Literature, for instance. It seems obvious to me that literature quickly descends to decadence and triviality when it ceases to be nourished by the religious impulse, however distantly it is receiving that nutrition. I don't have the energy to make that argument right now. Probably most of my readers already agree.

"Life is first boredom, then fear" wrote Philip Larkin, somewhat famously. In history, I suggest, the order is reversed. We've had millennia where life was mostly fear for most people-- fear of starvation, sickness, or violent death. In developed societies, this is now changed to boredom, whereby we live comfortable but humdrum lives, in commuter towns and office blocks, and entertain ourselves by watching stories about fear and violence.

This is a huge overstatement, of course. I don't even think it's true, ultimately. But there is a certain truth to it. Without religion, the human story is a pretty paltry thing.

Work Day and Holiday

I've been reading train-related ghost stories recently. It's really been getting me in a railway spirit. I haven't been on a train in years. (Light rail not included.)

Anyway, it reminded me of this poem that I wrote some years ago. I can't remember if I published it here before. It's not on the blog now. It describes a real experience I had.

I've written hundreds of poems, but I'd say I'm actually happen with a dozen at most. This is one of them. It was published a few years ago in The Lyric, a traditionalist verse magazine in the USA.

I am quite proud of this poem because I think the question in the last stanza is an important one. Who has the best perspective on a place, a situation, or anything else? An insider? An outsider? Somebody else?

I think this applies to a lot of things. For instance, Catholic Ireland used to be seen (arguably) in a rather romantic and sentimental way by the Irish themselves. Today (inarguably) it's seen through a filter of cynicism and disillusionment. Which is right?

It's not a perfect poem by any means. The second verse is a bit awkward. But "holiday fizz" is good, I think.

I also like poems that take a very ordinary experience and find meaning and poetry in it. That is the idea behind the Suburban Romantics manifesto.

Anyway, here you go. 

(Whenever I offer poetry or anything to do with poetry-- online or in an interpersonal situation-- I brace for apathy. I was at a coffee morning on Thursday and I ventured to express my views on the decline of poetry to a colleague, since she had recently given a presentation on a poetry-related theme. After a few minutes of listening to my captivating theories, she announced she was going to get more coffee and didn't come back. Oh well. I keep trying.)

Work Day and Holiday

I sat alone on a morning train

And savoured the landscape's novel glory.
A new world gleamed past the window pane
And seven free days stretched out before me.

We came to a town, and suddenly
A crowd of commuters filled the carriage
En route to office and factory,
To lab and station and school and garage.

Soon each was lost in a mobile phone
A laptop, a book, or a magazine.
A handful, glued to their earplugs' drone,
Stared out at the vista so often seen.

I sat there, robbed of my holiday fizz,
And thrust in the role of the raw outsider.
But which of us saw the place as it is--
Was it them? Or me? Or both? Or neither?

Another Win for the Culture of Death

The House of Commons in the UK has narrowly voted in favour of "assisted dying" for terminally ill people.

What is there to say about this? The arguments have been well-rehearsed. My friend Angelo Bottone has an excellent article on the inevitable creep of euthanasia laws once they are established. The slippery slope is not only real but demonstrable.

Euthanasia is deeply disturbing. There seems to be a foundational, cross-cultural, cross-ideological consensus that one of the main purposes of society (even its overriding purpose) is keeping people alive. When there is an earthquake or a wildfire or a terrorist situation, expense and effort is no object when it comes to saving lives-- every last life.

Similarly, suicide is universally seen as a bad thing, something to be prevented. We have suicide hotlines, counselling services, suicide watch in prisons, and so forth.

How long will this consensus exist in the shadow of euthanasia? There is only an academic difference between the proposition: "I will help you kill yourself because you want to die", and "I will help you kill yourself because I agree that your life has ceased to have value."

What is the value of life, anyway? Once you start to quantify it, you are in very dangerous territory. It either transcends all such calculations, or it's already on a scale of more and less valuable.

A very dark day. God help us!