This little rant may well piss off a few people, but I don’t care because it’s long overdue.
I hate the Irish.
Now let me get a couple things out of the way before I go any further. I don’t hate Irish people in the same way as some people hate Jews, for example. In fact, the few actual Irish people I have met, I love and find wonderful.
And by “Irish”, I’m not including people named Shaughnessy whose ancestors came over to the United States to escape the Potato Famine of the 19th century. In other words, I don’t dislike Irish-Americans to any greater or lesser degree than anyone else: each individual is judged on their merits. (That I find most people irritating anyway is a topic for another time.)
Nope: I’m talking about Ireland — or “Eire”, as they call it, with that irritating spelling affectation of throwing too many vowels into a simple word. Here’s why.
They’re a bunch of fucking Communists.
I don’t know how many people reading this are acquainted with the political stance of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) or its political face Sinn Fein (“shin fen”)*, but I took the time to study it many years ago, and it’s essentially Das Kapital with a Gaelic accent. Don’t get fooled by all that “One Ireland” blather they put out about reunification of the island under one flag; that’s just the maskirovka to disguise the IRA’s real intentions for the Irish state: pure cold-blooded totalitarianism of the Stalinist ilk.
Here’s a recent post about that, describing the political stance of the current asshole running Ireland:
- Tried to impose hate speech laws.
- Made Irish people second class citizens under law by introducing hate crime laws.
- Flooded Ireland with immigrants.
- Admitted breaking the economy in 2008.
- Doesn’t believe in Irish sovereignty.
- Imposed the longest lockdown in the EU.
- Activated nationwide digital surveillance of the entire population, which remains ongoing.
Remember, this asshole and his political party were elected to power by the Irish electorate, and there’s no evidence to suggest that they’ll be tossed out of power anytime soon either.
In addition to all the above, let’s not forget that the Irish have a long record of anti-Semitism — it’s as ingrained as Catholicism — and it’s reached its apogee with their current support of Hamas. As Simon Sebag-Montefiore puts it:
The Irish government has become the most active and noisy critic of the Jewish state in the entire Western world. It is much more hostile than much of the Arab world itself.
And on case you think that the Irish government is not representative of the people of Ireland, allow me to disagree:
A survey in June by the news site The Journal found that 76 percent of Irish people believed the EU should impose economic trade sanctions on Israel over the conflict. Protesters at rallies in Dublin told AFP they feel empathy with Palestinians due to Ireland’s centuries-long history resisting British rule.
Oh sure: “We’re all victims of colonialism!” is the standard trope of neo-socialist Third World nations everywhere. It is precisely the same reason why South Africa (also run by a bunch of “former” terrorists) supports Hamas.
As far as I’m concerned, however, this anti-Semitism is just another reason for me to dislike the Irish.
In that wonderful movie The Commitments, one of the characters excuses the Irish band’s playing of R&B music with the statement: “Why shouldn’t we play Black music? The Irish are the niggers of Europe!”
I hate to break it to you, Paddy, but if you are the niggers of Europe, it’s because you created that situation for yourselves (unlike, say, South African Blacks who were oppressed simply for the color of their skin). Why else the “no dogs or Irish” signs in places like Boston and New York during the mass immigration waves of the Victorian era?
And can anyone find justification for Catholic/Protestant sectarian strife in Ireland? That’s even more inexplicable than the Muslim/Jewish violence — or maybe it’s the same; I find it difficult to understand people who might actually get violent over what is to me the same as the Coke/Pepsi animosity (essentially the same stuff, just different packaging).
The fact of the matter is that the Irish are basically a thoroughly unpleasant lot, and all the “Kiss me I’m Irish” / St. Patrick’s Day / “luck of the Irish”-type propaganda is pure blarney — or to give it its real name, bullshit.
By the way, speaking of St. Patrick’s Day, the aforementioned saint didn’t drive snakes out of Ireland for the simple reason that there never were any snakes in Ireland to begin with. Just another piece of Irish bullshit, like four-leaf clovers being a lucky charm.
Finally, let me go on record as saying that Guinness is horrible-tasting sludge, Bushmills / Jameson whiskies are just cheap derivations of Scotch, soda bread tastes like cardboard and Irish stew is an oily abomination which should be avoided at all costs. Don’t even get me started on boiled corned beef and cabbage.
And I’m sure the country itself is beautiful, as long as you don’t mind the constant chill, wind and rain.
*The IRA/Sinn Fein combination is best illustrated by a comparison to the Hamas/CAIR relationship: the first is a bunch of murderous assholes, and the second is the “public face” of the same murderous assholes.
The classical music was quite lovely, the musicians very accomplished. I stood, entranced, and watched them for the entire time they played — well over an hour, as I recall.