Being an up-my-own-snot liberal leftie, I read the Irish Times. Never the Independent. "Nothing but a broadsheet tabloid" I sniff, preferring instead to read the Metro. At least they occasionally publish cute photos of cats. But the Jaffa Cake is job hunting and for reasons unfathomable, secondary schools throughout the land insist on publishing their vacancies in the Sindo.
I know I should bin all but the Business section. I know I shouldn't read LIFE magazine features over breakfast. Or at all. But like a bad blog, like a bad dog and a puddle of scutter, I can't resist a good nose. And what a stinker they had for me this week! Skip the pointless feature on the plus-size model who got an arse-lift and head straight to Donal Lynch's look into "the surreal world of Gaeilge" on page 22. It's stirring stuff.
LIP SERVICE says the bit that's not the headline in the corner. A clever pun! The pun fun continues with the headline COULDN'T GIVE A FOCAIL [sic] - a very witty pun on the word "focal" which, amusingly, sounds quite like like the word "fuck" in English. Richie Kavanagh would be proud.
De puns even dribble down to the sub-headline where Irish is referred to as "our 'first notional language'" ("notional" instead of "national"! Hilarious, right?) "It sounded like some kind of joke" begins his article. It reads like one, Donal. He goes on to resurrect as many bigoted clichés as his editor will allow, including (but not limited to) lambasting Padraig Ferriter (and presumably misspelling his name - maybe Donal Doodle's computer doesn't have fadas...) because he "blatantly" speaks perfect English and comparing Eamon O Cuiv (no pesky fada on his name either!) to Hitler. The piece is accompanied by a photo of Peig Sayers, postergirl for Gaeilge and "grist to the gravy train that is the Irish language". "Peig Sayers, witty feminist" wouldn't really be Donal's style.
The piece is full of dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean leí - so and so says that... that Irish children can't read good or learn to do other stuff good because they're too busy living DeV's wet dream, that Irish is a preserve of the urban middle class elite (thank you, David McWilliams), that the Gaeltacht is populated by béal bocht chancers and that "it's just jobs for the boys", that though the European Union have recognised Irish as an official language, Gaeilgeoirí don't have the linguistic expertise to make it viable, that TG4's presenters speak a "strange American-Irish hybrid that Europe turned its nose up at", that Irish was mainly spoken in the North "among IRA men trying to confuse British soldiers"and that "French and German are being slowly swamped and eroded by anglicisations" so "we may as well enjoy the huge advantage that native English gives us in the world". And not sit at home reading Foinse and watching Ros na Rún, presumably.
A completist in his rehashing of every other tedious feature ever written about Irish, Donal mentions that almost a million and a half people claim to be able to speak fluent or near-fluent Irish and that most people overestimate their ability to speak the language. Disappointingly, he doesn't venture to discuss why those million and a half people would be motivated to tell boastful, purposeless lies.
The high point for me is when Donal suggests a Gaeilgeoir tax. "With the boom well and truly over, Irish is a pointless little luxury that the State should let people pay for, if they want to."
Grand, so. Who should I make the cheque out to?
I know I should bin all but the Business section. I know I shouldn't read LIFE magazine features over breakfast. Or at all. But like a bad blog, like a bad dog and a puddle of scutter, I can't resist a good nose. And what a stinker they had for me this week! Skip the pointless feature on the plus-size model who got an arse-lift and head straight to Donal Lynch's look into "the surreal world of Gaeilge" on page 22. It's stirring stuff.
LIP SERVICE says the bit that's not the headline in the corner. A clever pun! The pun fun continues with the headline COULDN'T GIVE A FOCAIL [sic] - a very witty pun on the word "focal" which, amusingly, sounds quite like like the word "fuck" in English. Richie Kavanagh would be proud.
De puns even dribble down to the sub-headline where Irish is referred to as "our 'first notional language'" ("notional" instead of "national"! Hilarious, right?) "It sounded like some kind of joke" begins his article. It reads like one, Donal. He goes on to resurrect as many bigoted clichés as his editor will allow, including (but not limited to) lambasting Padraig Ferriter (and presumably misspelling his name - maybe Donal Doodle's computer doesn't have fadas...) because he "blatantly" speaks perfect English and comparing Eamon O Cuiv (no pesky fada on his name either!) to Hitler. The piece is accompanied by a photo of Peig Sayers, postergirl for Gaeilge and "grist to the gravy train that is the Irish language". "Peig Sayers, witty feminist" wouldn't really be Donal's style.
The piece is full of dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean leí - so and so says that... that Irish children can't read good or learn to do other stuff good because they're too busy living DeV's wet dream, that Irish is a preserve of the urban middle class elite (thank you, David McWilliams), that the Gaeltacht is populated by béal bocht chancers and that "it's just jobs for the boys", that though the European Union have recognised Irish as an official language, Gaeilgeoirí don't have the linguistic expertise to make it viable, that TG4's presenters speak a "strange American-Irish hybrid that Europe turned its nose up at", that Irish was mainly spoken in the North "among IRA men trying to confuse British soldiers"and that "French and German are being slowly swamped and eroded by anglicisations" so "we may as well enjoy the huge advantage that native English gives us in the world". And not sit at home reading Foinse and watching Ros na Rún, presumably.
A completist in his rehashing of every other tedious feature ever written about Irish, Donal mentions that almost a million and a half people claim to be able to speak fluent or near-fluent Irish and that most people overestimate their ability to speak the language. Disappointingly, he doesn't venture to discuss why those million and a half people would be motivated to tell boastful, purposeless lies.
The high point for me is when Donal suggests a Gaeilgeoir tax. "With the boom well and truly over, Irish is a pointless little luxury that the State should let people pay for, if they want to."
Grand, so. Who should I make the cheque out to?
