Postcards from the Edge

‘Oirish’ jokes are a thing of the past. Now the English are the targets as Ireland profits from the Brexit shambles, says Mary Kenny

When I first came to London back in the glorious 1960s, there was a fashion for ‘Irish’ jokes.

The dint of these jokes was that Irish people were quite amusing, but a bit simple. I didn’t object to such drolleries – at my convent school, Mother Margaret Mary taught us ‘Don’t be chippy, girls: nobody likes a person with a chip on their shoulder’ – but I did think them a little patronising. Otherwise, Irish matters were largely ignored.

In France, where I had lived for two years, the only thing they seemed to know about Ireland was L’homme Tranquille. I considered The Quiet Man a somewhat primitive story about John Wayne asserting his dominance over Maureen O’hara in the matter of a dowry – including a distasteful scene extolling wife-beating – but the movie had (and still has) cult status.

All has changed: no more ‘Oirish’ jokes now (with the possible exception of TV’S ghastly Mrs Brown’s Boys). Ireland is a gleaming, modern, liberal economy to which a hundred City of London firms have recently migrated, and half the Brits I know seem to be digging up an Irish granny to apply for an Irish passport. Everyone knows how to pronounce the word ‘Taoiseach’ (although isn’t ‘Irish Taoiseach’ a tautology, like ‘Jewish Rabbi’?)

The Brexit process may be widely perceived as a shambles, but it has hugely increased Ireland’s profile and status. From Estonia to Sicily, there is an awareness of Ireland’s key role in British and EU policies. The Irish border has proved to be the single greatest vexation in the Brexit debate, but it has also focused minds on Ireland’s identity and opened up fresh discussions about moving towards a united Ireland of some sort – perhaps basing north-south relations on the harmonious model of the Irish rugby team. From an economic point of view, this would make sense.

Instead of jokes about the charming backwardness of the Irish, there has been a tsunami of Brit-bashing in Dublin, led by Ireland’s dominant public intellectual, Fintan O’toole, in which the English are castigated as racists, fascists, xenophobes, blockheads, reactionary imperialists and general varmints. It’s payback time, and the roles are reversed. Funny how things turn out. In the old days of the Irish joke, there was a reverse Irish joke which pleased me for its literary allusions. English foreman hiring a Kerryman on a London building site: ‘Now, Paddy, we know you Oirish ain’t got much education – d’you know the difference between a joist and a girder?’ ‘I do, sorr,’ says Paddy with deliberation. ‘Joist is the autor of Ulysses and Girder is the autor of Faust.’

Another striking outcome of the Brexit chapter of history is the emergence of women in the political field.

At times, Arlene Foster seemed the most powerful politician in the UK, as the Brexiteers indicated that everything depended on the DUP’S pleasure.

And there is a long roll-call of political females who became much more prominent because of Brexit. In no particular order, we saw and heard a lot more of Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan, Esther Mcvey, Amber Rudd, Andrea Leadsom, Yvette Cooper, Nadine Dorries, Angela Eagle, Anne-marie Trevelyan, Anne-marie Morris, Suella Braverman, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Claire Perry, Penny Mordaunt, Joanna Cherry, Rachel Reeves, Priti Patel, Kate Hoey, Jenny Chapman and Antoinette Sandbach, not forgetting the Lib-dem Layla Moran who gained some notoriety for having clopped her ex-boyfriend across the kisser.

There are always feminist campaigns to get more women into politics – but it’s often events rather than planned initiatives that open up political opportunities.

The Irish-american poet, essayist and undertaker Thomas Lynch was a guest at the delightful Ennis Book Club Festival earlier in the spring. Lynch has drawn many reflective ideas on life and death from his professional work burying (and cremating) the departed.

When the subject of assisted dying arose, Lynch said, to much merriment from the audience, ‘Assisted dying is like assisted masturbation. Once there is “assistance”, there’s a relationship. It’s about two people.’

The poet-undertaker thinks death should be savoured as an experience, not recoiled from under anaesthesia.

Politically correct linguistic note: waiters in France are no longer addressed as ‘garçon’ – calling an old chap doing his job at Les Deux Magots ‘boy’, is regarded as demeaning. The word now is ‘serveur’ (feminine: ‘serveuse’). This change took place a while ago, but I’ve only recently noticed – so, a ban on old phrasebooks.

Actually, I’ve generally been so terrified of the superior airs of French waiters that I’ve always addressed them respectfully as ‘monsieur’.