The Irish Novel: Whither Protest?

“Between my finger and my thumb /
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.”
  Seamus Heaney, Digging

It occurred to me on Thursday night, at the Irish Book Awards, that the process of selecting winners in the various categories was akin to what’s going on with Ireland itself these days. Contrary to my post last Thursday, most of the categories weren’t decided solely by public vote; it was a combination of public vote and the decision of a judging panel. These days, in Ireland, we tend to vote for something - a change in government, say, on the promise that the new government will prove less subservient to the unelected mandarins in Brussels, Frankfurt and New York - and then, once the vote is in, a ‘judging panel’ sits down to decide what’s really good for us. Or, more accurately, what’s good for French and German banks.
  Anyway, Thursday was an interesting day, the Book Awards aside. Thursday was the day we heard that the forthcoming Irish budget, to be announced in early December, had been circulated to the German parliament, in essence so that it could be ratified in Germany before being presented as a fait accompli to the Irish people. Thursday evening, meanwhile, was when the NYPD moved in force against the Occupy Wall Street camped at Zuccotti Park.
  Back at the ranch, or more precisely the Concert Hall in the RDS in Dublin, the best and brightest of the Irish publishing industry had gathered to celebrate the best and brightest in Irish books.
  I couldn’t help wondering what exactly it was we were celebrating.
  In part, we were celebrating the election of Michael D. Higgins as President of Ireland the previous week, President Higgins being a very well respected poet as well as a politician of impeccable credentials (impeccable, of course, if you’re of a left-leaning bent yourself, which I tend to be). His election is being heralded as something of a sea-change in Ireland: that having a man of culture and letters, and a man with a long-cherished aisling (dream, or vision) of how Ireland should be, is A Very Good Thing.
  We were also celebrating the lifetime achievements of Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, a friend and peer of Michael D. Higgins, and a man whose writing career was born as the Troubles kicked off in Northern Ireland. Is it stretching the point to describe Seamus Heaney as a poet of protest? It’s at least fair to say, I think, that his early poetry reflected the turbulent world in which he grew up, never more so than in 1975’s bleak vision of politico-religious schizophrenia, ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’.
  As for the rest of it, well, there were a number of well-meaning speeches on the subject of the quality of Irish writing, and how writers, publishers and book-sellers alike are all struggling to keep their heads above water in these turbulent economic times. All of which is very true, of course, but the question begs to be asked: to what end are writers, particularly, struggling to stay afloat?
  In other words, what are we saying? Are we saying anything, or nothing?
  Last Thursday, as I say, was a particularly interesting day, but the economic downturn has been making its effects known in Ireland for at least four years now. Those effects are pretty much the same here as everywhere else: those at the lower end of the economic scale are being brutalised at the expense of those who can afford to insulate themselves, and further capitalise on misery.
  Now, I do appreciate that a novel takes some time to write, but surely four years should be enough time for authors to have developed some kind of coherent philosophy in opposition to the brutalisation of Irish society.
  The winner of the Crime Fiction award, Alan Glynn’s BLOODLAND, being a ‘paranoid thriller’ about what happens when supposedly exclusive worlds of business, politics and crime converge, can be read in part as a protest against the current global crisis, and the effect it has on the ordinary person in the street.
  Otherwise, there was a marked absence of protest, anger, rage.
  Is it not the duty of the novelist to reflect the world he or she inhabits? Is it perhaps true that, in a time of crisis, readers are more inclined to seek out escapism? Is it the case that protest is only acceptable long after the event, as a historical footnote? Are protest, anger and rage simply unmarketable in the current climate? Should that even matter?
  Publishing in Ireland is facing the same range of issues that face publishing all over the world, and there are no simple solutions. And it’s perfectly understandable, I think, that people will always be far more concerned about losing their jobs, their income, their means of supporting their families, than they are about any kind of philosophy of protest.
  By the same token, I think there’s a fairly straightforward economic chain of cause-and-effect between publishing people - writers, publishers, book-sellers - losing their jobs, and the public not being able to afford to buy books in the quantities it once did, largely because of the mismanagement of the economy by a gilded elite of bankers, regulators and politicians that would be laughable were it not costing lives.
  Where’s the anger about that? Where’s the protest?
  I thoroughly enjoyed my night out at the Irish Book Awards on Thursday night, mainly because I got to meet so many excellent people, writers, publishers and book-sellers. But given the black tie context, and the glasses of champagne, and the faintly hysterical air of self-congratulation, it was hard not to think of the upper deck of the Titanic, and the string quartet playing diligently on.
  Perhaps that was entirely appropriate: as a whole, the Irish response to the brutalisation of our country, of the erosion of our economic sovereignty and national dignity, to the stories of children reduced to eating the cardboard box of Cornflakes, has been supine. ‘Ireland is not Greece,’ our politicians tell their overlords in Frankfurt and Berlin, although there really should be no need, given that the ordinary Greeks have at least made their fury known, at home and abroad, through mass protest, strikes and a violent rejection of shouldering a debt that was largely created by the gamblers, spoofers and charlatans who like to refer to themselves, without irony, as ‘Masters of the Universe’.
  And perhaps said spoofers are right to call themselves that. After all, in the last week or ten days, the markets have essentially been responsible for the replacement of democracy with technocracy in Greece and Italy; and, had Enda Kenny been so bold as to reject the notion that a foreign parliament and its funding machine should have the right to inspect Ireland’s economic blueprint before the Irish people had a chance to do so, very possibly Ireland too.
  In that context, I suppose, the Irish Book Awards last Thursday night were a microcosm of Ireland itself. The establishment busily celebrating its democratically elected winners, and yet casting anxious glances towards the volatile markets, unsure of which way the wind will blow. Whatever you say, say nothing.
  I say, fuck that for a game of soldiers.
  I say, we’ll be celebrating Jim Larkin’s lock-out in two years time.
  I say, it’s only five years to the centenary of the 1916 Rising.
  I say that with power comes responsibility, that Irish writers have the power, and the responsibility, to protest. To say what needs to be said.
  “Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.”
  If you haven’t already gone blind from laughing at my naivety, I’ll be so bold as to offer an excerpt from ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, from pg 170, on the subject of democracy and capitalism, and the possible consequences when the latter is allowed to erode the essential human rights of the former. To wit:

The theory of democracy holds that the most wretched is rightfully equal in status to the most powerful.
  This is history.
  This is bunk.
  Democracy is political theory reaching back 5,000 years to the pyramids for inspiration, an apex dependent on a broad foundation for its very existence. It is the few bearing down on the millions, and the millions feeling proud that they have provided an unparalleled view of the universe for the few. Democracy is a blizzard of options so thick it obscures the fact that there is no choice.
  The cradles of democracy, London and Philadelphia, deployed genocide as a means of social engineering, in Australia and North America respectively, a full two hundred years before Hitler and Stalin began their pissing contest in Poland.
  It is no coincidence that democracy evolved in tandem with the industrial revolution. Democracy and capitalism are symbiotic parasites. Democracy’s truth is not one man, one vote; it is one man, one dollar. Democracy’s truth is the abrogation of the individual’s rights in favour of collective procrastination, while those running the show exercise censorious control on behalf of the nervous disposition of the collective will.
  Democracy’s truth is Frankie suspended on half pay pending an inquiry.
  Democracy has replaced religion as the opiate du jour. Democracy is the ostrich with its head in the sand and its ass in the air, begging to be taken in traditional pirate fashion. It is the subjugation of the people, by the people, for the people. It is the inalienable right to purchase your personalised interpretation of liberalised slavery. It is the right to sell your soul to the highest bidder. It is the right to pay for the privilege of being alive.
  In Ireland, for historical reasons, democracy is truth is one man, one mortgage. It is also one woman, one mortgage. Most often, given the size of the mortgage, it is one woman and man, one mortgage.
  For some reason most dictators fail to realise that the trick to democracy is to have the slaves buy and sell themselves. The trick is to incentivise slaves to invest in their slavery, to pay for their own prisons, shackle themselves to brick and mortar.
  The trick to democracy is in ensuring the slaves’ capacity for self-regulation is not taken for granted. The trick is to maintain the healthy tension between democracy and capitalism, so that one does not undermine or overshadow the other. The trick is to ensure the slaves’ investment retains the illusion of value. Failure to do so will result in the slaves questioning the worth of their dollar and / or vote. The answer to this question is delivered in blood.
  Masters of the Universe, do not say you weren’t warned.
  Frankie, the half-pay sop notwithstanding, is man paralysed by the conflicting impulses of rage and terror as he contemplates a future boiled down to an uncertain tomorrow. Charged with adrenaline, at the very limit of his chain, he is braced for fight or flight. But this unnatural condition cannot hold. Rage and terror will cancel one another out, leaving a vacuum that nature abhors and an empty vessel full of noise.
  What sound will emerge? What fury?
  Frankie, my friend, my pawn, my hero: now is the time to signify. Now is the time to reset the dial. Now is the time for absolute zero, to raze the pyramids to the sand and start all over again.
  My line for today comes courtesy of Miguel de Unamuno: A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age; he dies of being a man.

Suffer, Little Children

Taoiseach Enda Kenny crossed the Rubicon last Wednesday, when he made a powerful speech in the Dail about the Cloyne Report and the Vatican’s attempt to frustrate the latest inquiry into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic Church. He did not mince his words. To wit:

“The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation’ … Far from listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal with St Benedict’s “ear of the heart” . . . the Vatican’s reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer … This calculated, withering position being the polar opposite of the radicalism, humility and compassion upon which the Roman Church was founded.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  As it happened, Tom Phelan’s NAILER arrived in the post on Wednesday, and on the face of it, the novel couldn’t be more timely. Quoth the blurb elves:

Ireland, 2007. In the midland counties of Laois and Offaly, two former members of the religious Order of Saint Kieran, which once ran Dachadoo Industrial School for boys, are murdered within weeks of each other, their bodies found nailed to the floor. Detectives Tom Breen and Jimmy Gorman are assigned to track down “Nailer,” as the killer is nicknamed. They warn local clerical outcasts that Nailer may be working off a list. The editor of the national newspaper The Telegraph, delighted Ireland seems to have its own serial killer, dreams of a huge spike in revenues. Meanwhile, investigative reporters Pauline Byron and Mick McGovern are put on the story. As Nailer continues to kill, Pauline surmises that he may be getting revenge—or justice—for something that happened in Dachadoo decades earlier. As the past is uncovered and the pursuit for Nailer heats up, the shocking truth about the Church-run industrial schools is revealed.

  Tom Phelan, incidentally, is a former priest, which may well give NAILER a potent authenticity. More to follow …

Those Dying Generations: Why I’m Voting Stephen Donnelly, Independent

It’s election day here in Ireland, as you may or may not know, or care, but given the traumatic events of the last couple of years, and the collapse of not only the Irish economy but the trust of the Irish nation in its political class in particular and authority in general, it’s arguably the most important Irish election since the foundation of the State. I genuinely believe that today marks a fresh start in Ireland, which might be an odd thing to say when it appears from the polls that the centre-right party Fine Gael, currently on 40%, is headed for an overall majority.
  In essence, though, Fine Gael is doing little more than replacing its doppelganger, the centre-right Fianna Fail; and maybe I’m wrong, but my sense is that this administration, even if it runs the full five years, will go down in history as a holding government, a bridge between the worn-out politics of the post-Civil War generations and a political outlook that governs with one eye on the future rather than the past.
  In the Wicklow constituency, where I’ll be voting, Independent candidate Stephen Donnelly (above, right) seems to me to come closest to encapsulating the coming change. His policies, as detailed below, are by turns brash, ambitious, naïve and heartfelt:

Give banking debt back to the banks.
Renegotiate the IMF bailout.
Start a National Reconstruction Bank to fund job creation.
Attract investment for jobs in Wicklow.
Improve education standards for our children.
Reform the political system - change the people and change the rules.

  Leaving aside the moral aspects of Irish taxpayers having to fund the IMF / ECB bailout, which is largely linked to the gambling debts of an elite gang of financial incontinents, I believe that the banking debt and the bailout will have to be negotiated as a matter of course, on the very simple basis that you can’t get blood from a stone. As I understand it, the mood in Europe is one that it makes no sense to run Ireland into the ground and get no money at all out of the country; better to ease the conditions and make sure that there’s some kind of constant cash flow being milked.
  The idea of a National Reconstruction Fund for job creation is a laudable one, even if it’s largely a retread of the old IDA, and I’d wonder where said funding might come from - presumably from telling the IMF / ECB to take a walk.
Attracting investment for jobs in Wicklow is again laudable, although it smacks of insularity and the parish-pump politics that has bedevilled this country for generations now. Meanwhile, it’s impossible to argue with improving education standards for children.
  It’s in the reform of the political system that I think Stephen Donnelly and his fellow independents will matter most in the new Dail. For the most part, Independents have a bad name in Irish politics right now, largely due to the pork-barrel antics of the likes of Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry, which at one point last year led to a major European newspaper running a picture of the gombeen-looking Healy-Rae in his flat cap under the headline, ‘Is This The Man Holding Europe To Ransom?’
  I’m hopeful that Stephen Donnelly represents an entirely new kind of Independent. I’m hopeful that - the ‘jobs for Wicklow’ policy aside - he’s one of a new breed that will be inclined to work for the good of the country as a whole, not just his own constituency and voters. I’ve argued in the past that too many elected Independents would be a bad thing in terms of their potential to destabilise any government dependent on their whims; now, with Fine Gael headed for an overall majority, or more likely a coalition government with Labour, a rash of Independents buzzing about Dail Eireann might well be exactly what this country needs.
  Because what this country needs in terms of true political reform is a brand new political party, one that has no ties to the Civil War, that owes no debt to either big business or the unions; one that is young, brash, naïve and ambitious, and preferably left-leaning, an anti-Progressive Democrat party to counter-balance the centre-right politics of what has historically been a Fine Gael-Fianna Fail hegemony.
  There have been a few abortive attempts to establish new parties in recent years, and there are a number of embryonic parties running candidates in this election, but the nature of Irish politics is such that it’s very difficult for a new party to gain traction with the electorate unless, as was the case with the PDs, they’re a disaffected rump of an established party.
  What may well trump Irish political history is the election of a record number of Independent candidates, enough of whom will share a common cause to establish not just a technical group in the Dail to provide it with speaking rights, but a platform on which can be established a coherent political party in its own right. It won’t happen overnight, of course, but given the number of credible Independent candidates going forward for election, it’s certainly a possibility.
  And so I’m voting for what I believe to be the most credible local Independent candidate, Stephen Donnelly. Where previously Independent TDs such as Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry had the capacity to destabilise the Dail and hold Irish democracy itself to ransom by their pork-barrel demands, a group of organised Independents have the capacity to destabilise the Irish political system itself, to prove that the tired old men (and they’re mostly men) and their tired old ideas have run their course. At the risk of sounding ageist, I’m voting for Stephen Donnelly not just on the basis of his policies but because he is young, and because for the first time in my life I’m not voting for myself, but on behalf of my three-year-old daughter.
  To mangle Yeats entirely, this is no longer a country for old men. The country of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, of Labour and Sinn Fein, is with O’Leary in his grave, even if Enda Kenny and Michael Martin, and Eamon Gilmore and particularly Gerry Adams, have yet to realise they’re little more than the living ghosts of ‘those dying generations’, the death rattle of insularity, petty vengeance, violence and power for its own sake, the last gasp of a political system that has given us ‘leaders’ of the calibre of the snake-oil salesman Bertie Ahern and the venally corrupt Charles J. Haughey.
  “Age and guile,” as PJ O’Rourke once said, “beat youth, innocence and a bad haircut.” Except Stephen Donnelly has a bald head on young shoulders. The future is surely ours.

To Vote Or Not To Vote? I’m Glad You Asked Me That Question, Bob …

We had local and European elections in Ireland last week, while I was washing my hair.
  Shame on me, right? Men and women fought and died so that I could have the right to vote.
  If you don’t vote, you’re not entitled to complain.
  Etc.
  Okay, so here’s how I see it:
  If you do vote, you’re not entitled to complain. If you vote, you’re simply perpetuating the same old rubbish – bland policies that are minute variations on centre-right economics, dreamed up by the scions of political dynasties that have little to recommend them bar their longevity.
  If you want to complain, you have to be prepared to sacrifice your right to representation, stand outside the system, and piss into the tent.
  Because if the best this country has to offer as leaders of its two main political parties are Brian Cowen and Enda Kenny, then there’s a good chance the problem lies with the system itself.
  And if a tent can’t take a good pissing-into once in a while, we’re probably best off without that particular tent. God forbid you’d be camping out some night and the weather would turn rough …
  Here’s the thing:
  You wouldn’t let someone run a McDonald’s without a degree in management. Right? You wouldn’t let someone run a football team without a coaching badge.
  So why do we elect people to run the entire country who haven’t spent so much as a wet afternoon studying political theory?
  Now, you might be sitting there thinking that that’s elitist and anti-democratic. Not everyone gets to go to university and get themselves a fancy degree. In fact, most people don’t.
  Maybe that’s why there’s a resistance in this country to intelligent politicians, while the cerebrally-minded likes of Alan Shatter, Garrett Fitzgerald, Alan Dukes and John Bruton spent the vast majority of their political lives in opposition. And maybe it’s just because they were all Blueshirts, I honestly don’t know.
  Anyway, the point is this: I don’t want ‘most people’ running the country. I don’t want you running it, and I certainly don’t want me. I want the best and the brightest. And I definitely don’t want someone performing heart-surgery on me or mine on the basis that his or her father was a heart-surgeon.
  So here’s a modest proposal. The current government, being composed for the most part of the morons who squandered the wealth of the Celtic Tiger and are now penalising the people for their venal pandering to vested interests, should do the patriotic thing and resign en masse for the good of the country.
  President McAleese should then dissolve the Dail forthwith and turf everyone out on their ear.
  Any TD who wants to apply for re-election can do so, but only after obtaining a degree in political science, a degree that should ideally encompass (in no particular order) ethics, management, economics, accountancy, ethics, political theory, and ethics.
  Just so the politicos don’t miss out on their perks and junkets, the course will include mandatory internships attached to another country’s political system, preferably Sweden’s.
  Of course, this leaves us with a minimum of a three-year gap before there’ll be sufficient graduates to go forward for election, so we’ll have to throw ourselves on the mercy of the EU and apply for a form of bridging government.
  A degree in political science being the bare minimum required, anyone wishing to apply for ministerial posts should continue their studies to gain a master’s degree. This, however, can be achieved by attending night-school and / or the Open University while serving as a TD.
  This might affect the running of a politician’s constituency office, of course, and result in far fewer drink-driving charges being quashed. Still, we’ll just have to hope it’ll all work out for the best.
  Sure, it’ll be chaotic for a couple of years, and the rudderless country might well be devastated by a combination of political stagnation, EU meddling and economic recession …
  Oh.