Dear Erin: Why do Irish people love to get annoyed about ‘Oirish' films?
Donald Trump
on social media is that the reality is now so extreme no parody is possible.
Almost exactly 20 years ago, one Nathan Poe made such an argument about people who deny evolution. 'Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is utterly impossible to parody a creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article,' he wrote. This is known as Poe's Law.
Anyway, all this is by way of explaining how I – along with others who should know better – briefly fell for a recent jape that didn't quite include a 'winking smiley'. A few weeks ago, ads began appearing on buses for an upcoming
feature
called Dear Erin. 'She was the
Irish
goodbye he never forgot,' the tagline read.
Peter Coonan
, in cloth cap and collarless shirt, writes a letter at a table that also holds a pint of stout and a glass of whiskey. One hand is bloodied. Shamrock spills from a breast pocket. Somehow a rainbow makes it into the collage.
A moment's digging unearthed a trailer for the ghastly thing. 'My greatest love? A simple Irish boy from a simple Irish town,' a female American voice trills over glissando strings. Maybe he has now forgotten her? Of course not. Coonan, sitting in his booze-stacked snug, begins a letter with 'Dear Erin' before continuing: 'I've played that night over more times than the Finnegans fought the O'Malleys.' After a bit more shameless blarney, a shadow falls over our hero and we hear, in that same American accent, an uncertain 'Paddy?'
READ MORE
You might reasonably conclude that only a fierce eejit – no cuter than a donkey's behind – would fall for such a load of aul' cow's muck. But context is all. What was the advertisement doing on the side of a bus? What would Peter Coonan, a
Love/Hate
alumnus of some distinction, be doing in something that didn't quite exist? This wasn't a post on XformerlyTwitter. There was real money behind it.
Moreover, this is surely a case where Poe's Law applies. The deluge of Micksploitation never stops: Far and Away, PS I Love You, Leap Year, Laws of Attraction, Wild Mountain Thyme. No stereotype is too insulting for visiting Americans to exploit. So, for an hour or two, I, and a few other film boffins on the social, could be forgiven (give us a break) for falling into the trap.
The parody was a fair one. The clues were right there. What trailer for an apparently imminent title – 'coming this summer' – fails to include a precise release date? Squint and you will see that Paddy's letter is addressed to 'ERIN, AMERICA' – too broad for even the dimmest begorrah aesthetic. I cannot claim to be the first to spot that 'Hugh Forbes', the film's alleged director, shares his name with the character played by Maureen O'Hara's brother in The Quiet Man. We soon all decided that it was a stealth advertisement for something or other. Would Erin soups do such a thing?
Not on this occasion. It transpired that the campaign was financed by
Epic The Irish Emigration Museum
. A longer video, released later, has Coonan break character and snort: 'I'm sorry but who f**king writes this s**t? How are we letting people away with this?' The
museum's website
, going in big, offers essays on 'the impact of Hollywood stereotypes of Ireland' and 'how to de-stereotype … 'Oirish' films'. This follows (another clue) a campaign from the same organisation that, with predictably hideous results, asked AI to create images of a typical Irishman.
Fair enough. The strategy worked. At least one column in at least one national newspaper has now mentioned the prank. The worthwhile question is less why Americans (sometimes still the British) keep doing this – lazy sentimentality? – than why the nation remains so eager to get annoyed about it.
It is a little over a year since we all went ballistic over a harmless Netflix title called
Irish Wish
. Yes,
as I then wrote in this place
, the Lindsay Lohan vehicle was silly. But was there any need to publish all those 12,000-word treatises on its supposed crimes against the national psyche?
[
Planning to hate-watch Lindsay Lohan's Irish Wish? Micksploitation addicts should prepare for disappointment
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]
There is no easier way of attracting Irish attention than releasing something that shamelessly ploughs the Micksploitation groove. The Epic campaign is correct to bemoan the more egregious tropes. But let us not pretend we wouldn't miss these things if they went away. Baloney such as Wild Mountain Thyme and Irish Wish make us feel noticed. They make us feel righteous. They allow our hearts to beat a little faster. If Americans didn't do this to us we would have to do it to ourselves. As we have just done.
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[ From the archive: Daring to dream of an island of equals Opens in new window ] Geraghty went straight into work after school, including a stint as an RTÉ cameraman, before becoming a full-time union official in 1969. He also married the late Irish Times journalist Mary Maher: they later separated, but remained friends until her death in 2021. (Former Siptu economist Rosheen Callender has been his partner for many years.) Parallel to this, he was involved in politics, first as a member of the Workers' Party – he stood unsuccessfully for the European Parliament in 1984 – and then its post-split iteration, Democratic Left. He represented the latter in the European Parliament in the early 1990s, when he came in as substitute for sitting MEP Proinsias De Rossa. He did not stand for re-election, however – it was agreed he would return to Siptu. Apart from an unsuccessful Seanad run for Labour in 2002, he largely eschewed party politics. Though he believes the labour movement needs both a political and industrial arm, he is clearly frustrated by the fractures in left-wing politics. 'There's a lot of splitting hairs of politics,' he says, pointing to the rivalry between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats. 'My own view is I don't want to get involved in that,' he adds. 'I was never a sectarian in my political outlook. I always worked with everyone in the union – there were great shop stewards who were Fianna Fáil-ers. I suppose my philosophy would have been that you've got to embrace all.' His all-encompassing attitude that 'trade union voices should be heard anywhere decisions are made' was put to the test when, in the depths of the crash in 2009, he was approached by the late Brian Lenihan, then finance minister, to join the board of the Central Bank. 'I said, 'you must be joking, I've no time for bankers and I've less time for them now',' Geraghty recalls. But after relenting under Lenihan's persistence, he was appointed as chair of the risk committee. He still remembers Central Bank official delivering a stark assessment of the debt accumulated by Irish banks. 'She had a white face,' he recounts. 'I said, 'give it to me straight, what is the situation?' Now, I'd been reading all the journals and papers saying €64 billion [in debt], and she said, 'it's closer to €120 billion'. That was a frightening situation – I couldn't sleep that night, I wondered was I mad taking this on.' What I see is that they're dehumanising all of us. It's not just Gaza; they're making this standard acceptable. It's the depths of depravity — Des Geraghty As it turned out, Geraghty remained on the board until 2019: 'I was confident enough in the period I was there that good decisions were made.' But while he says he learned a lot about banking, he still views economics on a human scale. 'Economic thinking tends to be dominated by classical economists, bankers, financiers, and they're all about the bottom line, but I've always argued that's a very narrow concept of economy,' he says. 'Every penny you give in social welfare is channelled into the economy – it's spent in the local shop, on clothes and books for school. Economy is about how people live, the bottle of milk that you buy in the morning.' This chimes with his wider outlook. 'I like the slogan the Greens came up with: think globally, and act locally. We have to understand the world we live it, and act locally, with the sense of the community we're in.' But for all his idealism Geraghty is aware that not everyone shares his vision of a shared society. 'I found in housing [he was previously chairman of the Affordable Homes Partnership] that I was taken aback by objections to housing projects in local authorities,' he says. 'It usually was an objection to traffic, but at the end of the day people in secure houses are never that wild about new people coming in. So the real threat comes from people who are insecure, and the real problem in fascism is the people who are insecure. And that's egged on by people who have vested interests in that – Brexit was a classic example.' Similarly, Geraghty is alive to the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland. He understands some concerns about the impact of immigration in rural areas. 'I can see an ordinary, logical argument that the State needs to do better, without filling out the local hotels,' he says. 'But the basic thing is we have a responsibility to provide as best we can.' Des Geraghty: 'I think that music, poetry and song was the anchor that kept the spirit of the Irish alive over centuries.' Photograph: Nick Bradshaw He firmly believes Ireland has 'enormously benefited' from migration: his 2007 book 40 Shades of Green celebrated the contribution of immigrants, in line with his view of national identity as 'a jigsaw of many pieces'. 'We're a mosaic of these identities, and we shouldn't be afraid of them,' he says. 'We need to thrive on difference.' These days, his activism is international in focus. He is vocal about Israel's destruction of Gaza, while calling out European inaction on the issue. 'What I see is that they're dehumanising all of us,' he says. 'It's not just Gaza; they're making this standard acceptable – Putin has done the same thing, bombing cities. It's the depths of depravity.' [ A father in Gaza: Our children are dying as the world watches. We don't want your pity – we want action Opens in new window ] Still, Geraghty sees reasons for hope. He lauds Ireland's 'communitarian instinct', evident in the charity sector and grass-roots action on patient rights and homelessness. Likewise, he remains inspired by Ireland's cultural life. 'Seán O'Casey said something very interesting, that culture is the way we live,' he observes. 'Culture isn't something out there, it has to be part of your own existence.' It's advice Geraghty has always taken to heart, whether previously serving as chairman of Poetry Ireland or appearing this month at the Masters of Tradition festival in west Cork. 'I think that music, poetry and song was the anchor that kept the spirit of the Irish alive over centuries,' he says. 'Music can bring people closer to their own homeplace – pride of place is very important if we're going to deal with the environment – and it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive to anyone else.' Such idealism speaks of Geraghty's principles, but also his personality. He cheerfully greets people who come up to him during our encounter, and even when discussing dark subjects, he looks on bright side. 'My optimism is rooted in my experience with human beings,' he says. 'I think human beings fundamentally have the potential to be either good or bad. We've the potential for humanity and greatness and creativity, or we can go down another road of dog-eat-dog and doing down other people, where you encourage all the worst features. I don't like competition as a philosophy. I think people are at their best when they're co-operating, when they're sharing, when they're not trying to beat other people.' Des Geraghty appears in conversation with Martin Hayes at the West Cork Music Masters of Tradition festival on August 24th
