History trumps democracy?

Let me start by saying that I think the author of this article, the anonymous 'Bagehot', has some salient points.

However, as with a few other journalists, there seems to be a bias. Perhaps it's just an innocent misunderstanding. Nevertheless, certain aspects of the article make my teeth grind. Call me nit-picky, if you will...

The author starts off by highlighting violent behaviour by Loyalists in a neighbourhood which has long been a 'ghetto' area - an area of poverty, conflict and deprivation. An area which was mixed, and then extremely physically divided near the very start of the Troubles, into a Roman Catholic area and a Protestant area. Mary, the journalist's only declared source for the piece, lives on the Roman Catholic side. Not to diminish the aggravation she undoubtedly suffers, but there is no equivalent source from her opposite number, despite the writer's claim to have met others.

Still, in the 21st century, an equation is made between unionism and Protestantism. I don't particularly identify with Protestantism, or religion in general. I do, however, identify with my own ideas of unionism.

The Orange Order used to refer to the Orange Walk. The media, many years ago, started calling it a "march". They referred to "the marching season", giving it a much more negative air. Notwithstanding the fact that the bands and walkers often have a psuedo-militaristic bent - just like the Republican paraders.

There's mention of the "union flag", rather than the older and more affectionate term, Union Jack.

As usual, the Unionist politicians are lambasted by a journalist for "flat rejection" of suggestions by a foreign politician.. as if said foreign politician would be such a seer that it should be incredible to reject any proposals he might make. Let's not forget the ham-fisted attempts at understanding of politicians from the USA recently, when they referred to the Republic of Ireland as "regular Ireland".

The writer also simplifies the region into a 'settler' (not too removed from the label 'invader' by many Republicans) versus 'native' story. Somehow the 'natives' all manage to be Roman Catholic, and the settlers all of various Protestant denominations. Genetically speaking, however, there is no gene for Roman Catholic or for Presbyterian. Before Luther, and for a long time afterwards, we were all Roman Catholic.

The tone is negative and foreboding. Lack of mention of any strife caused by Republicans (or "Roman Catholics" if you prefer) or aimed at Unionists (or "Protestants" if you prefer), foists this negativity squarely onto the shoulders of the Protestants.

Even though the writer mentions integrated schooling, there's no mention of the fact that mixed education has been becoming more prevalent in Northern Ireland. There's no mention of the fact, either, that very few religious schools in Northern Ireland are Protestant - the vast majority are Roman Catholic Maintained Schools, which have always been part-subsidised by government. State schools in Northern Ireland, mostly attended by children of Protestant backgrounds, are secular.

The overall message from Bagehot does make sense though, to a certain extent. The cohesion of those from a Roman Catholic background, for example. Part of the reason for this is the fact that there is no such single religion as 'Protestantism': there are only denominations that happen to be Protestant. Church of Ireland (essentially Anglicanism) and Presbyterianism are subtly different from one another, and sometimes markedly different from someone from a Methodist or Baptist background in Ulster.

Bagehot talks about "privilege" and, certainly in the past, those amongst the higher classes in Northern Ireland were privileged. But at the start of the Troubles there were just as many underprivileged people of Protestant backgrounds as there were of Roman Catholic backgrounds.

'Protestants' are indeed pretty much "rudderless", but they're not dwindling at a particularly high rate. The birth rate of Roman Catholics is still slightly higher, and that of the various Protestant denominations are more 'normal'.

The article cites the parades (and only approximately two of the thousands of annual Orange-flavoured parades are particularly contentious) as one of the "ancient quarrels", but doesn't mention once the current violent activities of the 'dissident' Republican groups, or Republican 'Gaelic' supremacism which pervades and antagonises relentlessly.

Getting back to what really matters though, as opposed to the old religious argument: the numbers of people who would support any given particular ideology with regard to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.

As per usual, the knuckle-dragging, short-sighted and reactionary Loyalists are sure to screw things up for Unionism. But the Union remains intact, according to the most professional and well-regarded opinion poll, the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey. The 2012 results are as follows:

	%
To remain part of the United Kingdom, with direct rule	12
To remain part of the United Kingdom, with devolved government	50
To unify with the Republic of Ireland?1	16
(Independent state)	5
Other answer (specify)	2
Don't know	14

Credit for tables to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey

So that's 64%, in all, in favour of some form of continued union with the rest of the country.

To put it another way, only 16% of the people of Northern Ireland would like to unite with the Republic of Ireland.¹ There are apparently the same proportion of people who are unsure, or have a different ideology than the two main ones, as are desirous of a 'united Ireland'.


Looking at the results with the religious factor included paints a striking picture:

	%
	Catholic	Protestant	No religion
To remain part of the united kingdom, with direct rule	6	18	15
To remain part of the united kingdom, with devolved government	34	68	50
To unify with the Republic of Ireland?1	33	2	8
(independent state)	7	3	8
Other answer (specify)	3	1	1
Don't know	17	9	17

Forty percent of people who identified as being of a Roman Catholic background apparently desire the status quo. Only one-in-three Roman Catholics desire a united Ireland.

65% of those who don't consider themselves either of the two main religions in Northern Ireland is a figure very close to the 64% of the overall Northern Irish population. Significantly fewer of them would like to consider splitting the country up and joining another, however, at only 8%.

The Economist article suggests that Northern Ireland has been lavished with investment by the government (and by foreign money). Northern Ireland had in recent years one of the highest levels of GDP compared to other regions of the UK. It was still a negative number, but it was higher than Scotland, Wales and many regions of England. The only region with a positive GDP is London. It also suffered economically, for decades, due to the Troubles, which drove away foreign investment - the same kind of foreign investment that brought the Republic of Ireland out of a virtual third-world position, to become THE fastest growing economy in the world. It should be no surprise that when the recession hit a few years ago, the Republic succumbed to bankruptcy, as foreign investors tightened their belts.

Sinn Féin: not so much tempered by the conflict as
largely responsible for it

The article seems to brag about a party, Sinn Féin, who it describes as being "tempered in the conflict", ignoring the fact that the Ulster Unionist Party is a direct descendant of the Irish Unionist Party - also forged and tempered in the conflict. It ignores the fact that, relatively speaking, there already was peace and that the same party it brags about was responsible for engineering the conflict and dividing the people.

While much criticism can be levelled at the UUP and the Democratic Unionist Party, only recently have Sinn Féin embraced democracy and eschewed violent methodology.

They aren't 'heroes'. They are only doing, just now, what everyone else had been trying to do already. Hearteningly though, Roman Catholic attitudes have been shown clearly in the elections: Sinn Féin only attracted around an eighth of the electorate, or about a quarter of the Roman Catholic vote.

Since Sinn Féin and the IRA's efforts to become an actual democratic party, Roman Catholics have given their blessing - as can be seen in the fact that the party basically doubled their electoral standing.

Finally, the article suggests that ignoring Haas is wrong. Hass himself goes on about 'alienation'  potentially resulting in a return to the high levels of violence of the past. But who is being 'alienated'? Reading between the lines, given that the article mentions this "flat rejection by unionists", he appears to be criticising unionists.

But here's the thing: the people of Northern Ireland, have accepted Sinn Féin, and listened to them, despite all their protestations and their terrifying (read: terrorist), decades-long campaign.  If the Unionists have an opinion, whether it be rejecting a foreign diplomat's suggestions or otherwise, then they should also be listened to. And accepting any valid viewpoints or rationale they might have. Doing the reverse, and laying the blame all on one 'side' is nothing other than alienation.

All that being said, I don't particularly support the main Unionist parties. I think they're old and grey. I think their mentality is too entrenched in the past, too entrenched in religion and in the right wing. I have long said that it's time we had a unionist political party or movement which specifically seeks out the 'Roman Catholic' vote: the polling figures above seem to indicate that it could be a real possibility - around 40% of Roman Catholics currently support the Union, ideologically speaking.

I'm hoping that this new political party, NI21, is a step up to the challenge - a liberal and inclusive movement that supports the Union. One which Roman Catholics could feel they can vote for. I hope the many moderate 'Protestants' in the country are brave enough to ignore the fear of splitting and diluting the Unionist vote. Paisley has already done that damage, anyway.

I mentioned earlier, my own ideas of unionism. The root of 'unionism', it seems to me, is 'unite'. You cannot have a successful divisive unionism! Unionism needs to embrace ALL the people into its ideology. The idea itself is a good one, and I extend it to the current push for independence for Scotland. And to Cornwall and Wales.

Let's not split ourselves up into smaller, weaker statelets just because of some inaccurate romantic notions by Anglo-Irish writers and poets of the 19th century, or some fanciful notion of racial "Celtic" pride, or the idea that the English are the Evil, moustachioed, monocle- and cape-wearing Bad Guys.

When the 'English', in the shape of the Norman overlords, started building the nation state, the English peoples were probably treated every bit as badly as we Gaelic-lorded Irish had been. Yet why do we hear so little whinging about it from the English today?

It's the 21st century. Move on from the hatred!

¹I reworded the poll question, as it had originally stated "reunify with the rest of Ireland". Northern Ireland has never been in union with the Republic of Ireland, so it isn't possible for it to 'reunify' with it.

Losing a friend on the Interwebs

I honestly don't know if I'll keep this post, or expand it, make it more generic, or what. My motivation is closure, I guess. And/or an appeal to the person in question. I don't like to get personal on this blog: my personality and relationships; my location and my social status; even my age.. none of that really has anything to do with the type of content I had envisioned for here.

I pointed, perhaps to my regret, to a blog entry here, from my social media page.

I often wondered, in fact, whether I should even let my 'social media family' in on this. By keeping them separate I'd not run the risk of being surrounded by 'yes men'... or at least always being paranoid about that. By keeping them separate, I can continue to keep my social media page reasonably apolitical, and not chasing off potential friends, just because we disagreed on subjects X, Y or Z.

I broke my 'code'. I'm thinking of myself, in a rather sinister way, as Dexter Morgan now! My secret side that my sister has just found out about!

Here's the thing: although I had opportunity, I never met this person 'in real life'. I did, however, share some time and thought with her for short periods of time over the years. I respected her. She made me laugh. Lots. And she always knew about my 'secret side'. Basically, I guess, that I'm unionist. She isn't unionist. She always seemed quite the moderate though.

Just tonight, however, one of my entries on this very blog got her all in a tizzy. She accused me of being petty, and then went on to prove that she was, in fact, the petty one by 'unfriending' me on a popular social media site.

I have to admit to being slightly gobsmacked. I was surprised at her aggressive tone but, I guess when it comes down to it, this woman most definitely had planted her flag and drawn her line in the sand: just like most of us who are born unto the island of Ireland and inherit the sins of our fathers.

I seem to remember her being a Happier friend in times past. And one who seemed more tolerant and fun.

Here's where it gets a little more generic.

Should I care about this woman? After all, I never met her in person.

Well, yes. We had been pretty intimate for a time. There was a fair bit of mutual trust. Was it a big deal? I suspect it wasn't, for either of us. But I also suspect there was a fair bit of fondness over the years, for both of us.

We haven't been close enough that I'm heart-broken. But I'm saddened and disappointed nevertheless.

All because of the etymology of a word.

The thing is though - I was called petty and then, ironically, she severed our social media relationship. After only a few lines of discussion were exchanged.

To be frank, the woman has been hypocritical with me. She berates me for voicing a home truth, but she keeps a blog herself. She berates me and compares me with those kinds of people who, not so long ago, were protesting loudly in Belfast at the democratic decision to only fly the Union Jack from City Hall on certain days of the year.

At the same time, however, she writes in her own blog about how her country's football team (the Republic of Ireland) lost to Spain, and the supporters of the Republic still flew the flag. "We lost the match, and they flew the flag." Tearful, she was. "My heart swelled. I cried actually."

But my wee country - hell none of us are allowed to take any kind of pride in our flag without being thought of as a bigot. I'm not talking about the kind of 'pride' certain kinds of people have at the parades in the summer time. Every time the flag of Northern Ireland is displayed anywhere outside of parades, and for no reason other than the need to feel 'offended', there is a huge fuss and drama made.

My (former) friend is all right though, Jack. She can take pride in the flag of her country and not risk offending anyone, or attracting any kind of trouble. And that's great. I'm Happy for her. Most countries in the world have that freedom.

Northern Ireland has been through hell. Most of that hell was, frankly, brought on by ourselves. Yet we've survived and even managed to flourish, often punching well above our weight on an international scale in the arenas of sports, governance, liberalism, literature, economics, science and invention and many other areas I'm sure. Despite everything everyone (and especially ourselves) has thrown at it.

So am I proud to fly my flag?

You're damn right!

Am I proud to have spread a little culture, even if it is just a word, and that word ended up somehow being reclaimed and re-packaged?

You're damn right!

Dublin's a fair city. But Belfast is the home of good crack!

Facts and figures

Facts and statistics can be used to distort the truth, granted. Simply using a phrase such as "a mere 20% of people" versus "more than one in five" can spin the statistics toward a more positive result, depending on context. I'm sure I am guilty of this myself, though I do try to minimise this usage, I often have to use the mechanism of language to illustrate a point. Such is the nature of political writing. Call it propaganda, if you will, for I will not deny that the purpose of my writing is to inform and to attempt to influence peoples' thought and opinion. I digress.

My point is that Ruairidh Kee, a unionist contributor to a promising new website/blog I have discovered, called 'Open Unionism', suggests, "Altogether, the IRA killed more than three thousand people in Ulster, including some seven hundred RUC officers."

This is entirely inaccurate. In total, between the years 1969 and 2001, a little over 3,500 people have been killed as a result of the Troubles. Republican organisations have been responsible for a little more than 2,000 of those deaths (just over 58% of the total). The Provisional IRA have been responsible for over 1,700 of the total deaths. But they didn't kill more than three thousand people, and they only killed 270 of the 301 RUC police officers who were killed.

Often, I am critical of the pernicious propaganda of Republicanism, and of the inaccurate statistics which are often taken completely out of context or entirely invented. Or sometimes by genuine mistake or misunderstanding. In this case, I don't mind saying that the mistake appears to have come from a unionist.

I hope that the website (who have already edited the piece) makes the relevant changes, so that  nobody is ill-informed or made ignorant. For, though I am unionist and make no pretensions otherwise, what really irks me is black propaganda and inaccuracies used to spin, or often totally distort, the truth. I hope that wasn't the intent by this particular unionist, Mr Kee. Otherwise, his article and opinion seemed fair enough.

And, so I don't take away from his basic premise with my criticism, let me reiterate his rhetorical question as I finish this post:

"...if Martin McGuinness and the rest of his republican gang are really committed to the peace process, then why did they spend so long last week arguing against banning criminals for working in the Northern Irish Assembly?"

Well said, that man.

Cultural Imperialism

No, this post isn't about the USA and its form of cultural imperialism. Perhaps I will make a post about that some day, but this is about imperialism of Irish culture.

A question I have often seen asked is "What does it mean to be Irish?" or people asking the definition of being Irish. The Republic of Ireland has, rather under-handedly and rudely, attempted to hijack this for itself by creating its own state and then not only calling it after the island (Ireland) in which that state resides, but also suggesting that its nationality is "Irish".

This, of course, makes the equation for the romantic nonsense of Republicanism and nationalism a much simpler one for foreigners to digest. It goes like this: Ireland = Irish, so what are all those nasty Brits/Protestants/unionists doing there?

For some actual Irish people, both north and south of the border in Ireland, the definition of Irishness is, simply, a lack of Britishness. That strikes me as a rather weak culture, to define oneself by a negative.. by what you're not.

To some Irish people from Ireland then, the equation excludes them, as it becomes: Irish = Ireland - British.

Take, for example, fellow blogger Karin, from Karin's World. She wrote this blog about the ridiculous 'Irish Heritage certificate' that the Republic of Ireland's government is offering people. Of course I agree with the main thrust of her post, and the point she is making. Where I differ, however, is where she suggests that inability to speak Irish (presumably referring to Irish Gaelic specifically), lack of knowledge of Michael Collins or the "Eater Rising" [sic] and pronouncing the Gaelic word sláinte a particular way is somehow un-Irish.

The Easter Rising was hardly supported at all by the Irish when it happened. The people who took part in it were, in fact, spat at and jeered by Dubliners as they were marched out as prisoners on their way to jail for treason. However, it is seen today as being the antithesis of Britishness by many.

It certainly is a part of Irish history, but it is not the be-all and end-all of Irish history. I single out Karin's blog as I read it just recently, and it reminded me of this pervasion and insipid infatuation with all-things-rebel and/or Gaelic and/or Roman Catholic. These things are not exclusive to Irish people and nor are they, either separately or in combination, any kind of definition of being Irish.

In Karin's case, she should also probably remember that Ireland has many, many differing accents and dialects. She may have heard of the Ulster dialect of Gaelic, for example. We pronounce things differently to people in Leinster and Connaught.

The word crack is also an Ulster word, having made its way there from the Scottish-English border basically, centuries ago. Karin has been taken in by the very ideas she is posting negatively about in her blog: commoditisation of culture, and re-spelled the word crack as 'craic'. See also my post Bad Crack.

Bad Crack

The word crack ("craic") wasn't popular
in the south of Ireland until the 1980s

Elaine Walsh, who apparently lives in Dublin and writes for a website called 'Ireland Fun Facts' has dropped the ball on this one. I have no idea if the rest of her 'Facts' are as inaccurate as that one.

Walsh makes several erroneous claims on her page attempting to explain the word 'craic'.

She's correct about the pronunciation, ironically.

But she fails to point out that Christy Moore used the original English spelling of this English language word, in his song, 'The Crack Was Ninety On The Isle Of Man'.

Walsh claims, "Craic is a Gaelic word, with no exact English translation." Wrong again, Elaine. Craic is definitely a Gaelic word, but it has been borrowed from the English word crack. Therefore, it most definitely has a direct English translation - it was, in fact, translated FROM English in the first place!

Walsh claims that the GAELIC word "craic" doesn't appear in standard ENGLISH dictionaries. Nope Elaine, but the word crack, from whence the word craic stems, does!

The word crack is an old Middle English word with several meanings. Many, if not all, of the meanings are related. Scots, or Lallans, is a dialect of English. It contains words and grammatical structure which originates from languages other than English. It is a living and growing dialect. Gaelic languages, particularly Irish and Scottish Gaelic, are also living and growing languages. As such, a word for computer in Gaelic was developed: ríomaire. This may come from an already existing Gaelic word, ríomhaireacht, which means ‘calculation’.

Centuries ago, the word crack took on another meaning: to talk or gossip. The word comes through Middle English crak(k) from the Old English cracain derived from the Germanic verb kraken (noun krak). It was used in northern England and southern Scotland. It was from there that the word was probably introduced to Ulster from settlers who moved there and the later Planters.

As an evolving language though, many English words dropped out of mainstream usage. Many of these older words however survived in Ulster and continued to be used by the descendants of settlers and adopted by locals. Crack is one such word. It continued to be used in the Scottish/English border right through the nineteenth century.

James Melville was a Presbyterian cleric in Scotland who lived from 1556 until 1614. He kept a diary, which has been published. One entry of 1583, in part, reads:

Sa we go to dinner in Mr James Lawsone’s hous, wha with all his gheasts war exceiding heavie harted, and often-tymes could nocht contein, bot mix thair teares with thair drink. Onlie Mr Andro eat, drank, and crakked als merrelie and frie-myndit as at anie tyme, and mair; (Melville, 1583)

A note in the footer of the publication helpfully tells us what is meant by ‘crakked’: Talked or conversed cheerfully. Here we have one of the first recorded uses of the word in the sense that it is used today in Ireland, and in parts of Scotland and northern England. A word that has recently been adopted into another, more ancient, language.

The word continued to be used throughout the subsequent centuries. Sir James Semple (or Sempill) of Belltrees in Renfrewshire, Scotland was a poet in the mid-to-late sixteenth century. It was in the sense of gossip or talk that Semple used the word in one of his poems dated to c.1590-1610.

We Merchandis all that with our Merchand pakkis

Did trauell ay, fra Towne to Towne, to Fairis

Thow hes vs baneist. Tho hes vs fleit fra crakkis

We sit at hame na sail is to our wairis. (Semple, 1590)

In 1785, a poem by Robert Burns included the word, again in the same context of fun gossip and chat.

Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattlin tow,
Begins to jow an' croon;
Some swagger hame the best they dow,
Some wait the afternoon.
At slaps the billies halt a blink,
Till lasses strip their shoon:
Wi' faith an' hope, an' love an' drink,
They're a' in famous tune
For crack that day.

Walter Scott, in his book Rob Roy first published in 1817, used the word in the sense of fun, gossip or chatting, twice:

I shall look after this, Stanchells, you may depend on't—Keep the door locked, and I'll speak to these gentlemen in a gliffing—But first I maun hae a crack wi' an auld acquaintance here.— Mr. Owen, Mr. Owen, how's a' wi' ye, man? (Scott, 2001 p. 71)

[and later] Ane Captain Costlett was cracking crouse about his loyalty to King Charles, and Clerk Pettigrew (ye'll hae heard mony a tale about him) asked him after what manner he served the king, when he was fighting again him at Wor'ster in Cromwell's army;

A publication of this work in 2001 included a helpful glossary in which it states that crack means gossip (and crouse means proudly and cracking crouse means boasting).

In the 1960s, Barney Rush released a song called, ‘The Crack Was Ninety on the Isle of Man’. Christy Moore, when he released the same song in 1978 (as already mentioned), used the same spelling. It wasn’t until 2006 that a group from Dublin, The Dubliners, spelled it differently with their release of the song.

The 1971 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary has apparently traced its usage to even earlier:

crack- to talk loud, to boast, etc. 1460, Scot. and northern England. Also spelt crake.
crack- brisk talk, news, gossip, to chatter sociably. 1450, northern England and Scot.

The word became popular throughout Ulster. It was, in fact, rarely known or used further south. It was probably introduced to Ulster before or during the Plantation period.

For some Gaelic speakers, the claim that the word originated in that language is an annoyance. Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, a writer for the Irish Times newspaper, wrote that, “the constant Gaelicisation of the good old English-Scottish dialect word crack as craic sets my teeth on edge”, in his book ‘The Words We Use’. (Ó Muirithe, 2006 pp. 154-5) Irish traditional musician Fintan Vallely suggested similar annoyance by the use of the word 'craic' in 1999, in his book, ‘Companion to Irish Traditional Music’. (Vallely, 1999 p. 91) Vallely, who played music frequently both north and south of the border, states that he had never heard the word spoken in Dublin until the late 1980s.

Another journalist for the Irish Times, Frank McNally, said that “most Irish people now have no idea it’s foreign [sic]”. (McNally, 2005) By “foreign”, McNally means English, which is the de facto language of the Republic of Ireland.

Crack: Now a commodity re-spelled
and sold across the oceans

In the last two or three decades, the word crack, spelled in Gaelic as craic, has become so commonly used in Dublin that many people have started to believe that the idea or context of the word originated in Ireland and in Irish Gaelic specifically. The more stubborn amongst them believe that somehow their word ‘craic’ has somehow been hijacked by those nasty Unionists from the North. In fact, the word didn’t originate anywhere in Ireland, but its use in Ulster remained widespread, amongst unionists and non-unionists alike. So stringent have they been in their blind faith that the word must be Gaelic in origin, some have attempted to scour the lexicon for similarly spelled Gaelic words to exhibit their rationale. So much so that one such excuse even extended to the phrase ag buaileadh craicinn, meaning “to make love”. The rationale in that case was that ag buaileadh craicinn is a fun thing to do! However, neither craicáille nor craic appear in O’Brien’s Irish-English Dictionary, or O’Reilly’s in the 1800s or Dineen’s of 1927, or even in the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of the Irish Language in 1983.

Crack: Now a commodity re-spelled
and sold across the oceans

Irish myth is particularly marketable. Arguably, this has been the saviour of the Republic of Ireland’s economy, most visible in its form as tourism. The notion of drunken brawls in Irish pubs, of drunken, merrily-singing Irishmen, of leprechauns, freckles, the colour green, and of red hair has been sold and bought, bought and sold. In more recent decades, attempts have been made at reinventing Irish culture. But even such a spectacular as Riverdance is not without its flaws. Movies have started to create a more edgy stereotype of Irish males, one in which they appear to have a chip on their shoulder and an attitude to match – not so merry any more, but certainly with a readiness for a brawl. A perfect antihero for this era’s plethora of antihero-based movies. The suggestion appears to be that the Irish man is only that full of aggro because of what the nasty ‘Brits’ have done to him, or to his family. If it wasn’t for the Brits, he would have no need to be that tough, and he is, in fact, just a loveable, cuddly teddy bear with a wicked sense of humour when his guard is down.

He is full of the craic. Fun in a pub, chatter and gossip, are all, it would seem, traits only to be found amongst Irish people. Or perhaps in Irish theme bars. Nobody knows how to have fun properly, besides Irish people: they even have a word for that specific type of fun – a type of fun which transcends, and is culturally superior to (and at the same time ancient), that of any other collection of people.

Like the stereotyping, craic is a commodity that has been sold by Irish southerners to themselves, to the rest of the British Isles and to the USA and beyond. Buses advertise the word, spelled craic in Belfast, replacing the original English spelling with this adopted and commoditised Gaelic version. There isn’t much protest or argument from people in Ulster as it either fits their political point of view, or it’s considered perhaps a trivial matter or, more likely, because it wasn’t a word which was often written down. It is considered slang rather than a bone fide word, used regularly in everyday speech and not much at all in formal writing. Yet some writers from Northern Ireland, such as Brian Friel, have indeed used the word in novels and plays, and have spelled the word crack.

While the word became less used and more archaic in northern England, it was still being used at least until the late 1970s there, as evidenced by the use of a traditional English song as the theme tune to a popular TV show starring James Bolam, ‘When The Boat Comes In’. The song, called ‘Dance Ti’ Thy Daddy’, was released as a single by the BBC and the lyrics use the word crack (modified with a ‘Y’ for poetic reason) in the sense of fun and chat.

Come here me little Jackie
Now av smoked me baccy
Let wer hav a cracky
Till the boat comes in

The word seems to be used more often in the Republic of Ireland as a noun, whereas it’s used as both a noun and a verb in Northern Ireland and in Scotland and the north of England. The word craic appeared in an Irish-English Dictionary in 1987. This would seem to tally with Fintan Vallely’s experience with the word.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Urban Dictionary has mostly got it wrong too.


A music website even goes to the trouble of re-spelling the word throughout the original Barney Rush song, despite a copy of the sheet music on the same page showing us the original spelling.

You Can't Hear The Laughter Of Dead Children

The Sikh Archives, a blog, carries on it a story which suggests it is outraged by the phone hacking scandal surrounding the News of the World. It suggests that Rupert Murdoch's media empire has been "Subverting Democracy".

Now that may be the case - I reserve judgement for the minute. However, The Sikh Archives are completely hypocritical in the fact that they also carry a story in praise of a convicted terrorist who committed suicide.

Ironically, they title their article 'Our Revenge Will Be The Laughter Of Our Children', a quote from the terrorist himself. The terrorist in question, Bobby Sands, joined an organisation which murdered children.

Between 1969 and 2001, the IRA which Sands joined in the 1970s, killed 43 children 16 years of age and younger. The IRA killed twice as many children as any other single organisation during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Sands is lauded by the blog site as being some kind of hero. They particularly admire the fact that he wrote poetry. Tugs on yer heart strings, doesn't it? Even serial killers can write poetry.

They describe how Sands was, "recognized and adored all over the world". Perhaps. But it seems to me that he was 'recognised' and 'adored' in certain places in particular, and quite obviously for political expediency. I imagine many an ignorant US citizen, perhaps from Boston direction, 'admiring' and 'adoring' this convicted terrorist. Equally, I imagine supporters of the likes of the PLO 'admiring' and 'adoring' Sands.

Sands had a choice. Sands chose to subvert democracy. Sands was a scumbag.

People have, insanely, chosen to name streets after the scumbag.

How many of those people considered naming a street after an actual hero, such as Michael Willetts?

Sergeant Willetts protected civilians and police officers by using his body as a shield, after the IRA had bravely thrown a short-fused bomb into a police station in Belfast in 1971.

In a station in the city a British soldier stood
Talking to the people there, if the people would
Some just stared in hatred, and others turned in pain
And the lonely British soldier wished he was back home again


Come join the British Army! said the posters in his town
See the world and have your fun come serve before the Crown
The jobs were hard to come by and he could not face the dole
So he took his country's shilling and enlisted on the roll


For there was no fear of fighting, the Empire long was lost
Just ten years in the army, getting paid for being bossed
Then leave a man experienced, a man who's made the grade
A medal and a pension, some mem'ries and a trade


Then came the call for Ireland as the call had come before
Another bloody chapter in an endless civil war
The priests they stood on both sides, the priests they stood behind
Another fight in Jesus's name: the blind against the blind


The soldier stood between them, between the whistling stones
And then the broken bottles that led to broken bones
The petrol bombs that burnt his hands the nails that pierced his skin
And wished that he had stayed at home surrounded by his kin


The station filled with people, the soldier soon was bored
But better in the station than where the people warred
The room filled up with mothers, with daughters and with sons
Who stared with itchy fingers at the soldier and his gun


A yell of fear a screech of brakes the shattering of glass
The window of the station broke to let the package pass
A scream came from the mothers as they ran towards the door
Dragging their children crying from the bomb upon the floor


The soldier stood and could not move, his gun he could not use
He knew the bomb had seconds and not minutes on the fuse
He could not run and pick it up and throw it in the street
There were far too many people there, too many running feet


Take cover! yelled the soldier, Take cover for your lives
And the Irishmen threw down their young and stood before their wives
They turned towards the soldier their eyes alive with fear
For God's sake save our children or they'll end their short lives here


The soldier moved towards the bomb, his stomach like a stone
Why was this his battle God why was he alone
He lay down on the package and he murmured one farewell
To those at home in England, to those he loved so well


He saw the sights of summer, felt the wind upon his brow
The young girls in the city parks, how precious were they now
The soaring of the swallow the beauty of the swan
The music of the turning world so soon would it be gone


A muffled soft explosion and the room began to quake
The soldier blown across the floor, his blood a crimson lake
There was no time to cry or shout, there was no time to moan
And they turned their children's faces from the blood and from the bones


The crowd outside soon gathered and the ambulances came
To carry off the body of a pawn lost in the game
And the crowd they clapped and cheered and they sang their rebel song
One soldier less to interfere where he did not belong


And will the children growing up learn at their mothers' knees
The story of the soldier who bought their liberty
Who used his youthful body as a means towards an end
Who gave his life to those who called him "murderer", not friend

Sergeant Michael Willetts, hero.
Copyright Airborne Forces Archive 2007

While the lyric to this song by Harvey Andrews contains some artistic licence (Willetts did not actually lie on the bomb), what I'd like to ask the world is: where are the streets named after this man.

Willetts was a man who died saving the lives of others. He died selflessly and the children he saved from that explosion were able to laugh in subsequnt years. Sands, on the other hand, lived and died selfishly - he took to the gun because others disagreed with him. He starved himself to death because he felt he was somehow special or better than others.

Where are the Michael Willetts Streets?

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Amongst the first Real Time Strategy (RTS) games was Syndicate, developed by Bullfrog and released in 1993. The graphics were great (for their time), very immersive along with the sound, with full motion video cut scenes included.

Bullfrog ran a series on programming in a popular computer magazine, which gave novice programmers an insight into the techniques used in animation and programming elements of a graphical computer game.