How do we do it??

We are a very small island, with a tiny population, on the western periphery of Europe, Yet in areas like music, theatre, dance and, literature – we have exerted an influence on the world which is hugely disproportionate to our size. This evening I want to concentrate on one aspect of that influence – our huge success in the written word. It has been said that Ireland is not so much a country as a state of mind. It embodies many, many contradictions and it takes great delight in doing so. Irish people tend to accept the ridiculous as the norm and the norm as ridiculous. It’s this very cogent form of lunacy that has given us our national literary and theatrical riches and our larger than life characters. We have been characterised as crass, unruly, lazy, inhibited, resentful, small-minded and bigoted – but we’re also spiritual, poetic, mirthful, imaginative, elemental and pure. Our colonial past is also a great help. We had "attitude" long before the American Blacks discovered it. I firmly believe that the reason we have excelled at writing is that that our writing comes from the spoken word. Let me quote from the English author and critic VS Pritchett. "It is often said that in Ireland there is an excess of genius unstained by talent; but there is talent in the tongues" Indeed, Oscar Wilde boasted that Irish people were the greatest talkers since the Greeks – and he should know a lot about talking. The author, Alan Bestic, said that the reason the Irish have such a reputation for wit is obvious: "We use far more words than most nations, and somewhere along the line, some of them must be witty, even by accident" There’s the true story of the American visitor who went into a Dublin Pub and said to the curate - "Hey bar-keep, let me have some of that famous Dublin wit" - and the barman, without batting an eyelid said - "Certainty sir, would you like it dry or sparkling?" As I’ve said the Irish have a great oral tradition - and when they get to write some of it down - it’s pure dynamite. Alfred Nobel, the man who actually invented dynamite, recognized this a long time ago - which is why we win so many of his prizes. Apart from such known authors as Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Sean O’Casey, James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, William Butler Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan - I could go on! We also had writers like Peig Sawyers a woman from the Great Blasket island whose books have been translated into ten different languages - Just think, a simple woman living on the most westerly island off the most westerly island in Europe and her philosophical views on life match those of Plato "Life is a short period of time between two great mysteries - the mystery of us coming into this world - and the mystery of us leaving it!" PROFOUND! The great writing tradition has also helped the ordinary man to appreciate literature. There’s a story told about the Paddy who applies for a job on a building site in England and the foreman decides to test him out - "Paddy can you tell me the difference between a joist and a girder?". "Begob" says Paddy, "that’s a tough one ----- wait, I’ve got it! Joyce wrote Ulysses and Goethe wrote Faust!" The working man has featured regularly in Irish Literature - both as a character and as a consumer. Listen to Miles na gCopaleen’s tribute to the pint of plain - i.e. Porter - the drink of the working man at that time - When things go wrong and will not come right, Though you do the best you can, When life looks black as the hour of night - A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN. When money’s tight and is hard to get And your horse has also ran, When all you have is a heap of debt - A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN. Sometimes the Irish wit has turned to invective. There’s the story of John Millington Synge who was staying in digs in Pearse Street at one time when the landlord’s sister made amorous advances towards him. He didn’t like the lady and he didn’t succumb. Well, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, she was most upset and she had her brother throw him out onto the street. Synge, stung to the quick, wrote an immortal curse/poem about her; "Lord confound this surely sister, Blight her brow with blotch and blister, Cramp her larynx, lung and liver, In her guts a galling give her." Ouch !! I suppose that of all the Irish writers Brendan Behan was the man, who, in recent history, most caught the imagination of the British public. One of his claims to fame was that he was the first person ever to use the F... word on the BBC Interestingly enough, he was being interviewed by another Dublin man that evening - Eamon Andrews. Eamon asked him - he said "Brendan, are you a religious man?" and Brendan said "When I’m sick, I’m very very religious - and when I’m well, I don’t give a F...!" He described himself as a daytime atheist! Behan was a great man for the one-liners and for slagging the media who were always trying to catch him out. They said, "Brendan, what do you think of Canada?" and he replied, "Ah, sure it’ll be a great place when they have it finished" He was once being interviewed by an American Reporter who, among other things, asked him - "Mr. Behan, can you explain the difference between Prose and Poetry?" Brendan thought for a minute, then said, "right, here we go - " There was a young fellow named Rollocks Who worked for Ferrier Pollocks. As he walked on the Strand With his girl by the hand The tide came up to his ...... knees. Now that’s prose. If the water had got any higher, that would have been poetry! I could go on all night. How do we do it? How do we continue to do it? Most recently we have Seamus Heaney with his Nobel Prize and Frank McCourt with his Pulitzer. We have a Rathmines poet getting an advance of £1m on his first book and 6 Tony nominations for Druid. Assume that my hypothesis is correct; that our ability to write, flows from our ability to talk - then continued success can be achieved very easily. If we want to keep wowing them in the aisles; if we want to continue to enthrall the world with great writing then the answer is simple. We must never lose this great oral tradition of ours. We must never allow television, tabloids and tedium to rule our lives. We must tell tall tales and allow our imagination and our dreams and our fantasies to flow. We must palaver and parley and prattle in order to produce more poets and playwrights. We must never lose our humor, our natural cynicism, our curiosity and our innate desire to embellish and to enhance. We must simply continue to be ourselves!