On watching the results of the assembly elections
coming in on television I found myself swearing
at the box and using foul language as each politician
was spoken to. I daren't record in writing the
swearing and foul language used because the editor
would censor me even though The Blanket
stands for freedom of speech. As I live on my
own the offensive language was contained within
my living room. Instead I have expressed my feelings
about the elections and the politicians in the
Gaelic swear phrase as given in the heading. Since
the bulk of The Blanket readership haven't
a word of Gaelic among them I can swear to my
heart's content in Gaelic and I won't be understood
so there will be no negative feedback to the editor
about my swearing.
To
put the matter simply I am browned off with six
county elections that solve nothing, give nothing
new but are a rehash of the same old sectarian
blabber-mouth discussions that go by the name
of politics in the six counties. In English I
say I am browned off with elections and sectarian
politics but in Gaelic I could put the matter
more strongly by saying, Tá mé
dubh dóite de thogháin sheichteacha
agus den pholaitíocht sheichteach.
However I am not the first person to be burnt
black with Irish politics. Yeats is too burnt
with Irish politics in The Second Coming,
written in January 1919 shortly after the 1918
General Election. Late Sinn Fein hailed this election
as a great victory at the time, but Yeats in the
poem is burnt black about Ireland following this.
He sees clearly the disaster in this election
in that the centre is lost and the country is
polarised into the extremist camps of Republicanism
and Union Jack Unionism. In Ireland history repeats
itself and gives nothing new, and nothing is learnt
from past disasters. So the polarization of 1918
is again re-enacted in the six counties in the
dismal Assembly Elections. All Early Sinn Fein
can do is swear about it in Gaelic.
To
dig deeper into this, the roots of this disaster
go back to the stupid and misguided rebellion
of '98. In reaction to that the constitutional
centre was torn out of Ireland by the removal
of the Irish parliament and replaced by an imposed
unwritten and undemocratic 1801 Act of Union in
which the constitution in Ireland was skewed to
the right. The Crown was hijacked by the Protestant
right, and in Ireland was seen as a Protestant
Crown for Protestants. This role of the monarch
continued into the 20th century in the six counties
and remains so to the present.
If
the Irish problem is to be solved this anomaly
can be corrected in a reformation of the Crown
in the National Government of Ireland Act, which
will give a written democratic constitution, which
is acceptable to all. In this way politics in
Ireland can be made rational and of the ideological
right, centre and left and would no longer be
rooted in paranoid feelings of ancient wrongs
and ancient fears. With a written UK constitution
in Ireland, which can be interpreted rationally,
sectarianism will wither and die, and sectarian
Republicanism, Nationalism, and Union Jack Unionism
will fall into total abeyance.
It
has been said of Gaelic that it is a great language
to make love in and to swear in. There is some
truth in that. Indeed when it comes to the art
of love making Gaelic puts the Kamasutra to shame.
It is for that reason that Federalism Unionism
Early Sinn Fein champions the revival of Gaelic
in Ireland and recommends that Gaelic be again
spoken throughout the land. However this recommendation
has nothing with Nationalism but has all to do
with sex.
As
for swearing in Gaelic, with the revival of Gaelic
on the island the people should unite and chant
to all sectarian politicians, north and south,
Republican, Nationalist, and Union Jack Unionist
in chorus:
