tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978152.post3542433043370012051..comments2023-10-18T05:38:08.545-07:00Comments on . . . With Both Hands: Kevin Myers: Gallantry and Grace/Orange and Greenpathickeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01051997614374510451noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978152.post-13184042624820063612009-12-11T08:17:20.313-08:002009-12-11T08:17:20.313-08:00Liam A cara!
Well crafted and as a well planted k...Liam A cara!<br /><br />Well crafted and as a well planted kick in the lads as ever Christy Ring would dream of doing. <br /><br />Great insight lends to great disagreement and even greater the benefit to our language and behavior.<br /><br />. . .Or as the young lads might offer around the neighborhood - <br />Up the 'Ra! Cabbage andspuds indeed/pathickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01051997614374510451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978152.post-415197386535066222009-12-10T10:34:33.062-08:002009-12-10T10:34:33.062-08:00I like Kevin Myers - mostly. He's feisty, ind...I like Kevin Myers - mostly. He's feisty, independent of mind, sharp of wit and the only politically incorrect opiner in Ireland where the public discourse is as flat as Kansas and as conformist to Liberal Orhtodoxy as a Harvard faculty colloquy.<br /><br />Agus san ráite, he is to Ireland what a few decades ago a retired Poona colonel in his Eastbourne bathchair was to India. Ah, those days of tiffin, relaxing with the memsahib after a chukka of polo before being carried in one's litter to the Royal Durbar to meet the Prince of Wales to congratulate each other on bearing the White Man's Burden with such understated Anglican fortitude. <br /><br />I bhfocail eile, in all that's dear to an Irishman's heart, dear old Kev is as West Brit as Bishop Whately's gaiters! His garage is stuffed full of tins of red paint so as to return our post boxes to their natural hue come the happy day when we'll repudiate such bloodthirsty mass-murderers as Patrick Pearse and Tom Barry who led us so far from the path of enlightenment as to repudiate our betters, make that bettahs.<br /><br />His enchantment with the Clancys is because in his eyes they doffed their greasy peasant forelocks and acknowledged their true avocation as cannon fodder in England's wars. It is, in other words, pure noblesse oblige. His genuine admiration for Todd is of a different order. He is the pure-bred Saxon hero, the Anti-Sinn Féiner, for what were de Valera and his spittle-flecked crew but merely grubby little Gaelic hobbits who didn't know their place. And did I mention bloodthirsty mass-murderers? Michael Collins! One's blood freezes at the very name, old chap. Positively freezes. Why during that damnable Rising one couldn't get a hansom to one's Club for a whole week!<br /><br />Dickie Todd's parents fled Dublin because the lumpenproles had pushed them from their stools apparently. Well, I'm from Cork. On the corner of the main thoroughfare, Patrick Street, and the Grand Parade there was once a business called Woodford Bourne's - a wine merchant. In my grandmother's (1893-1981) youth they advertised a vacancy in their window with the injunction "NO CATHOLIC NEED APPLY"! This in the third city of Ireland (after Dublin and Belfast) with a Catholic population of approximately 90%-95%. <br /><br />If the ending of such a social dispensation inspired the sterling Todds to quit their island home I for one would cheer them from the dock. In this respect, thank God, it's not "Tiocfaidh ár lá" but "Tá ár lá tagtha le fada." This, of course, is what get's the royal blue Myers' knickers in such a twist.<br /><br />Kevin can have his tiffin, I'll stick to my boiled spuds and crubeens. <br /><br />Up de Valera.<br />Up the Republic.liamascorcaighhttp://chrismatthewsotherleg.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.com