Ivy Day 2024

Happy Ivy Day 2024!

Ivy Day is the annual commemoration of Charles Stewart Parnell, the "uncrowned king" of Ireland who came close to winning Home Rule. He died on this day in 1891.

Every year since then, there's been a commemoration at his grave in Glasnevin cemetery. It used to be a big deal (a long time ago), but it's a pretty subdued affair now. There's a speech by a dignitary, a wreath-laying, and a piper playing a tune or two.

As my readers will know, I'm mad about the traditions, especially neglected and minor traditions. So for many years, I meant to attend the Ivy Day commemoration, but never got round to it. Last year I finally did, and this year I attended a second time. So it's a bona fide personal tradition now.

This year, the speaker was the Taoiseach, Simon Harris. For this reason, I thought there might be more of a crowd, but there wasn't. There was probably around fifty people there.

I actually wrote an article on the history of Ivy Day for this month's Ireland's Own. You can read the first few paragraphs here. (Or you can subscribe and read the rest of it, and all my other articles, including my Irish priests series which now includes thirty-five priests.)

Here are some pictures and a very amateurish minute or so of video from today's event.

Back to the Seventies

 

I've just finished reading The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics by Bruce Schulamn. It held my interest from beginning to end. I don't think there's really more of a compliment you can pay to a book, unless it's that you return to it.

I've been fascinated by the seventies all my life. Here's a blog post I wrote about the atmosphere of the seventies. Are such musings of interest to anyone else? Maybe not. But that's the benefit of a blog; you can write about things that might or might not be of interest to other people.

I love everything about the seventies. I love the music: Led Zeppelin, Slade, Horslips, Wings. (Actually, three of those bands happened to break up in 1980!) I love the movies: Shaft, Airplane! (I know it was released in 1980), The Wicker Man, Halloween, The Color of Money. (And let's not forget the best Carry On films, like Carry On At Your Convenience.) I even love the interior decoration, which is possibly the most detested aspect of the seventies now-- apart from disco, that is.

Speaking of disco (which I personally like), here is the funniest paragraph from the book: "The anti-disco frenzy reached its peak in Chicago on a hot July in 1979. Desperate to revive sagging attendance at home games, the White Sox sponsored Disco Demolition Nite at Comiskey Park. Before a game with the Detroit Tigers, the master of ceremonies detonated a mountain of disco records piled up on the stadium floor. Thousands of white teenagers flooded onto the field; the resultant riot lasted for two hours, causing much damage, many injuries, and isolated incidents of mayhem in the surrounding black community. The White Sox forfeited the game."

In a way, the seventies are topical right now. The event that determined the course of the decade, more perhaps than anything else, was the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the OPEC oil embargo of Israel's allies. The price of oil shot up and, even after the embargo, it remained high. This brought an end to the unique economic growth of the post-war world. Today, of course, Israel seems to be once again at the centre of world history.

The nineteen-seventies also saw the rise of the religious right in America, and a general flourishing of interest groups and identity politics. Black nationalism, "white ethnic" nationalism (like Chicano nationalism), gay rights, feminism (and anti-feminism), and other interest groups began to distinguish themselves from the mainstream. In some ways, I find this sort of climate congenial, even though I haven't much fondness for some of the social movements involved (like feminism). Pluralism appeals to me, as long as it's operating within the context of a shared culture (which I think America has always had).

The book has little to say about Ireland, which isn't too surprising. Or Catholicism, rather more surprisingly.

Nor does it (as far as I can remember) mention the book I'm reading now, The Exorcist (1973), or indeed any of the horror sensations of the decade: The Omen, Halloween, The Amityville Horror, or the rise of Stephen King to literary superstardom.

But, on the whole, certainly a book I would recommend to anybody with even a passing interesting in the decade of glitterballs, earthy tones, and stagflation.