Gaeilgeoiri Nazis.
They had a ‘swaistica’.
And a final bearla solution.
Sibling of Daedalus writes:
“Above is is the symbol of Ireland’s only indigenous fascist party, Ailtirí na hAiséirghe (Architects of the Resurrection), established by ‘disaffected accountant’ Gearoid O’Cuinneagain and Gaelic League members in the early 1940s.
Among the stated aims of the movement were the criminalisation of English, discriminatory measures against Jews, and the conquest of Northern Ireland. The movement fizzled out following the end of the Second World War, but during its brief existence numbered among its members broadcasters and writers Brian Cleeve and Breandan O’hEithir…”
Dea-uair.
Cartoon via IrishElectionLiterature
UPDATE:
Finian McCann adds:
Seen in Knocknacarra in Galway. Fada over the s. Na Ailtiri na hAiseirghe are turning in their Nazi graves somewhere….
…brilliant headline…maith thu Bodger
+ a haon
Not really. It’s an obvious pun and it also assumes the Irish language has an affinity with Nazism (despite almost all Irish political parties being proud to use Irish). And, not every symmetrical symbol represents Nazism. Visually, symmetry and repetition in icons and symbols proves to be more memorable which is why millions of businesses and institutions use such icons, the Christian cross being a very old example. This symbol is likely to be derived from the Celtic Cross.
Oh grow up!
Let me guess, should I cheer up because it might never happen?
yes that too! your perpetual whingebag mien does make me laugh though :)
Arrah don’t be so dáiríre – it’s a brilliant headline and made me laugh. It doesn’t suggest anything about Irish, only about Iri-gee.
“only indigenous fascist party”
apart from the Blueshirts
Weren’t they an off-shoot of the British group?
No, they started as the National Army after the Civil War, and developed fascist ideas once Eoin O’Duffy took over. Previously more socialist than fascist.
Expect a strongly worded letter of complaint from Sinn Fein.
The Blueshirts weren’t really fascist. They used the uniforms, symbolism, salutes etc. of the fascist parties in Europe at the time, mostly because that’s what the successful political movements of the time looked like, but ideologically they weren’t fascist. They were more conservative Christian than anything else.
…and went to fight on the side of the fascists in Spain, and supported Mussolini.
and really, why would you adopt the uniforms, symbolism, and salutes of the European fascist parties if you didn’t like what they were doing?
…and proposed abolishing democracy and replacing it with a one-party state with themselves as the single party.
…and were perfectly happy at the time to compare themselves with continental fascism:
“the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and that the Hitler shirts were victorious in Germany, as, assuredly, in spite of this Bill and in spite of the Public Safety Act, the Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State”.
John A. Costello, future Fine Gael Taoiseach, during the Dáil debate on the Wearing of Uniform (Restriction) Bill, 1934.
“The Hitler shirts.” That’s hilarious.
@Corvo…. that’s gas, just because they were incompetent fascists doesn’t mean they weren’t :)
This country really is a shambles, we can’t even do facism right.
we are pretty good at the other crappy stuff though!
‘disaffected accountant’ I can almost see him seething away in a little office.
Yea got be aware of those ” disaffected accounts” crazy mother f#%£ers
Breandán Ó hEithir’s ‘A Begrudger’s Guide To Politics’ still one of the best and funniest books I’ve ever read about Irish politics. Oddly, there’s not a whiff of Gaelic mystic fascism in it .
Ó hEithir had moved a long way away politically by that time – I think there’s a swipe in the book about AA wanting a version of Salazar’s Portugal “as if we didn’t have enough of it in our own house” (not sure of the exact quote).
AA had originally emerged from an activist branch in Conradh na Gaeilge (Craobh na hAiséirghe) which may have been how Ó hEithir got involved in the first place..
Here we go …
Yep, they were loony tunes.
No, I have absolutely no regard for them, sneaking or otherwise.
Wingnuts.
It is hateful how the crazies like these are often taken to be representative of everyone who seeks to persuade for the promotion of the Irish language and the unification of the island as an independent nation.
I would hope no-one is attempting to make that inference. This is, after all, a historical curiosity, though the fact that it was a non-starter could be indicative of the viability of such ideas amongst the Irish-speaking communities, to their credit.
Uh, i dont think anyone else was making that leap
Just getting my reaction first :-)
That leap has been made with this update: “Fada over the s. Na Ailtiri na hAiseirghe are turning in their Nazi graves somewhere….”. Connecting valid concerns of today’s Irish speakers with crypto fascist wingnuts of yesteryear.
Ah now Últach me aul flower, don’t let some comment like that cause any upset.
The party was a nazi party, so to say the members were “turning in their nazi graves” is perfectly acceptable because they were nazis… crap, incompetent Dad’s Army nazis, but nazis nonetheless.
The Irish bit is superfluous to it and anybody with a decent head on their shoulders can see that, as I’m sure you can :)
No problem with calling them Nazis which is what I’m pretty sure they were aspiring to. It’s the connecting them to a present day issue that Irish speakers have with officialdom (indifference to getting Irish right, “shure its only Irish”) by adding the picture of a sign with inaccurate Irish and calling it an update. Complaints from Irish speakers today are not an update to Irish speaking fascist weirdos from way back (although, clearly, some of us are way out on the eccentricity spectrum, and many of us I don’t like personally).
Your hair-trigger defensiveness is doing more harm than this wacky historical footnote.
Me or Clampers?
Yours, in fairness. I do take your point about linking present day Irish speakers’ complaints to their less-democratically minded forbears – but really, it was just a joke in the context of the earlier post. Ailtirí na hAiséirghe clearly had bigger fish than mere misspelt signage to fry. And for the record, the careless attitude to Irish in signage and elsewhere annoys me too.
Ah now, they’re no forbears of mine. They were a wacky offshoot of some of our forbears, granted, but they went up a dead end. Fair enough to make a joke, but also fair enough, and hardly oversensitive, to gurn about it. Don’t see how my gurning could do much harm.
Oops, *forbearers. I’ll get the hang of it yit.
Well, it might in that it could reinforce the perception among certain people (not me of course, my actual best friends are Gaeilgeoirs) that Irish language enthusiasts are prone to being overly sensitive, defensive, humourless and indulging in a persecution complex.
Nobody really thinks that. Do they? Do they?! DO THEYYYY?!!!!!
Don’t let them get to you Ultach, Clampers has issues.
I might think of some gaelgoirs as being a bit like that, only some though, but not you Últach :)
Are you deliberately calling him Últach every time to wind him up?
In any case I think that, yes, there is a tendency to characterise Irish speakers as feeling as if everyone has it in for them. And some of the eyerolling is deserved, and some of it is completely unfair. There is also the desperate attempt made on occasion to prove superiority by virtue of speaking Irish alone. Massively not helped by those that smugly throw around the term ‘monoglot’ (the Gaeilgeoir’s equivalent of ‘feminazi’). None of this to be taken as a direct reference to yourself of course (#notallgaeilgeoirs). And you should react whatever way you want, regardless. But seeing as you’re concerned about perception. There it is.
Not at all… Ultach is his (? 99% sure he’s a he) name, that’s why I use it…
I like hearing from him on these threads. He’s passionate about the language, I’m not particularly… that’s pretty obvious though.
When he gets going his comments are usually, if not always, worth a read….. I think so
It was just the fada you were going to the trouble of giving him. I now understand it was a well-meant gift.
+1
haha you really like to get your retaliation in first don’t you?
Like to think I’m more reactionary than retaliatory.
Óstán Chois Fharraige is náireach.
What’s shameful about the Connemara Coast Hotel. Is it their langoustines? Their curtains? Their carpark?
Nice. “Langoustines” made me laugh aloud. Or, as Clampers would have it, áloúd.
I have had issues in the past with langoustines in Western Galway eateries.
Fada of the s means you pronounce it ‘spekis,’ so that would read Ospekistan Cois Fharaige.
There was a music teacher called Gearoid O’Cuinneagain in my secondary school, I wonder if they were related…
The end of which barrel was this pile of tripe scooped up from?
Troll is still troll even if it uses a real person’s name.
“The conquest of Northern Ireland” – more like liberation.
I for one wouldn’t find the criminalisation of English liberating.
Our founding fuhrer DE Valera couldn’t accept the 6 counties when offered
(during the emergency) because 100,000 unionists just wouldn’t vote for him.
There aren’t enough irish speakers in this country to support a Speak Irish Day
Let alone form a political movement
+1
Go back and read your history. The 6 counties being ‘offered’ was a hollow gesture designed to undermine DeValera because Churchill knew it was an impossibility without the consent of the Unionists. It was never going to happen in exchange for the use of Irish ports.
And that folks, is what is called an opinion, one stated as though it were a fact in order to counter an earlier opinion.
Hi, just back from reading history. So without the support from the Unionists, the Jewish community in Ireland at the time, the English speakers and German spies who didn’t speak Irish there wasn’t much in the way of a campaign except an old signboard mostly in English.
+26
“How do you get the fada on the capital o?”
“Ah sure stick it on the s, no one will notice the difference.”
It’s Alt Gr then the vowel. I didn’t know that til recently and it’s fierce handy.
éúííóóóááááá
Thing is, though, it won’t put a fada on a consonant, so you can’t make that mistake. I have no idea how to put a fada on an S in order that I could make the same mistake and stick it to the man.
Ah Irish language fascists, they failed politically but their legacy lives on…. I can understand assisting the small Irish language communities in the Gaeltacht. But that is as far as it should go. Frankly, I find the Gaelic Language Lobby – ‘clique’ (often Dublin based and with a strong vested interest) an aberration. They’re like a tail wagging the dog and expecting the poor mutt to cough up…and be grateful!
Perhaps, it takes an outsider to point out that the second most spoken language in Ireland is Polish and the third is probably Russian. In our ‘oh so inclusive society’ we make the children of the immigrant population waste their schooling years learning a moribund language which is of no use to them – when it might help if tuition was redirected towards teaching these children how to read and write the languages they already speak at home (Polish, Russian, Lithuanian etc) Languages which can be of economic benefit to the whole community in the years ahead – useful for commerce and trade with our partner countries in Europe.
But no…that won’t happen, after all the children of non-nationals even if they’re born here are not ‘Irish’
Consider the following, an Irish child doing their homework might ask for assistance from a parent who may or may not be able to assist them with Gaelic, having been forced to study it when they were children too. But the child of an immigrant does not have that benefit. That’s highly unfair both on the child and on the parent too. God knows our immigrant population contribute more per capita via their taxes then the small and well placed Gaelic language brigade.
Now I have heard the bullshit from the Gaelgeoirs that if you study Gaelic (stop calling it Irish…after all the Scots call it Gaelic too) you will be better at modern languages. This is pure apocrypha and spin from the likes of Conradh na Gaeilge which is not born out by any empirical evidence or objective research.
The Gaelic language lobby is well able to look after itself and its own interests (which usually involves imposition at one level and disproportionate expense on the taxpayer at another with no economic gain!
By the way, what’s the Gaelic for Sturmabteilung?
Oh, here comes someone who does make the inference. Thanks.
I for one am glad that the Iriish language has a strong lobby. We had a whole decade or so where we prioritised economic gain over all other values and the results were not pretty, so I am glad there are still one or two corners of public life where we do something purely for it own sake. I would also support Polish and other rising immigrant languages being taught in schools. Learning languages is not a zero-sum game and the more the merrier. We should foster strong cultural connections with the countries from which our immigrants originate. There’s a loyalty and friendship that can arise from that which money could never buy.
Children who come from a country where they speak something other than English have no problems with the Irish language, they don’t have the type of hang ups you have. It’s just another language that they have to learn and they are always far better at it than the locals because of their attitude. I know from experience.
Your argument about it being financially beneficial etc is rubbish. It’s not always about money.
Also how do you propose teaching these languages? Teachers already teach 10 subjects at a primary level, teaching languages is not that easy to just pick up.
“Children who come from a country where they speak something other than English have no problems with the Irish language, they don’t have the type of hang ups you have”
Rubbish and ill-informed.
You have no evidence to support this other than a bland statement that you pass of as fact. From my reading of your piece, I suspect you have a vested interest in maintaining compulsory Gaelic.
The manner in which Irish primary education is organised is dreadful and falls far below best international practice. In Ireland you still have this crazy approach where one teacher (no matter how bad) is assigned to one class, when best international practice involves rotating teachers in the same manner they do in secondary schools.
As it stands each primary school teacher is required to be proficient in Gaelic because it is compulsory (ridiculous) What I suggest is removing compulsion and redirecting resources elsewhere. This will involve rethinking how primary school teaching is delivered. As it stands, subjects such as science and modern languages are totally neglected at primary level in Ireland, which is not the case in Germany, France, and Scandinavia.
By the way, there is no shortage of graduates with modern language proficiency and teaching qualifications (many of who are non-nationals) who can deliver stand alone classes for a couple of hours a week in primary schools throughout the country.
I have extensive experience, what do you have to back up your ideas? We already spend too much time and money looking at ‘best international practice’ when we should be trying to develop our own solutions for our own problems. You can’t just copy elements of another countries system, you have to copy the entire makeup of their society if you want to achieve the same results. We’ve copied many educational approaches from other countries before and they have failed miserably.
I will admit, I do have a vested interest and that is based on my belief that the Irish language is culturally valuable. It’s everywhere around us, from place names to surnames and even in the way we express ourselves through English. It is the thing that differentiates us from other places and helps us have different and unique characteristics as a nation. It enriches us as a people. I was educated through Irish in secondary school and all I can say is that for me it was an brilliant experience. What was your experience? Perhaps it was negative and this is why you don’t appreciate what the language has to offer. Apart from that I have nothing else to connect me to the language, I’m not profiteering from it as you imply.
How would you propose changing the system in two, three and four teacher schools, which are a central element of rural life? I suppose you’d close them all down and ship the children via buses to large urban schools. Then they could be herded around from teacher to teacher until they’re shipped home again. You are the one that knows nothing about the Irish education system, this is obvious from your simplistic and generalised opinions. There are very good reasons why children in Irish primary schools have one teacher and these are based around caring for the children emotionally as well as educationally. That’s what a lot of foreigners really appreciate about the Irish system when they come here. Primary is not like secondary, you can’t just bring in teachers for an hour or two a week and expect success, you can try and lots of schools have, but ultimately it is never very successful.
I don’t know what your talking about when it comes to science. Science is taught in primary, I agree that it could be better resourced and better facilities could be developed but it is taught and is a subject.
The fact is that parents can bring their children for additional lessons in anything they want outside of school time. If a ‘modern language’ is what they’re into then good for them. But it’s up to the state to provide a well rounded and relevant education, which it does for the most part and Irish is essential to that because it connects us to our history, whether you like it or not.
The revised Irish language curriculum is excellent in primary school, it’s attitudes like yours, which parents and teachers often impose on their children is what’s doing the damage. If everyone was a bit more positive and enthusiastic about Irish we’d be living in a far more confident and mature country.
what an uafasach rant
It’s just something I’m passionate about. Is there something wrong with that?
As I mentioned before…a vested interest and not an objective assessment. You challenge them and they always revert to type.
Now explain why it is so difficult to rotate teachers according to subject in primary schools? Why is it so difficult to have primary teachers with modern language skills deliver lessons at different times during the day….?
You say best international practice has got us into trouble. Now there’s a laugh! Was it not a deluded ‘Irish’ (or should I say Gaelgeoir) solution to compel every school child to learn a moribund language- lunacy in the first place?
On the subject of place names, is it not amazing how places which never had a Gaelic settlement (village, town and city) miraculously acquired a Gaelic name in the last fifty years?
Why haven’t you answered any of the questions? You just attack without participating in the conversation. It’s easy to throw insults, maybe you should have a look at how our system is organised before you comment.
Thank you, Louis, thank YOU. I see the error of my ways now. What was I thinking? It’s obviously much besser to haben eine sprache in unseren reichen. Willst du be ár fuehrer! Swoon!
*bualadh bos fadálach*
Lots more Ailtirí na hAiséirghe leaflets etc here should anyone be interested.
http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/category/ailtiri-na-haiseirghe/
Thank you very much Irish Election Literature.
Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism. At least it’s an ethos.
haha. dude