Thoughts on what it means to be Irish in the run up to Christmas.

A story is told of an appearance made by Bono on a US chat show a few years back. Some fifteen minutes into the interview, the question of celebrity, fame and the surreal nature of all that goes with it was raised. “Does it feel like home to you or is it like you’re in another dimension?”. Bono responded by describing his unease with some, though not all elements of stardom, and a tendency to live a “fairly under the radar life in Ireland”. “Because you can just pop into a pub and it’s no big deal?”. “Well in Ireland they have an interesting attitude to success. In America, you look up at the house on the hill, the mansion and say “One day that could be me”. In Ireland they look up at the mansion and go “One day I’m gonna get that bastard”.

The above, essentially a commentary on the ego, is about as close as one can get to what it means to be Irish. The ego is defined as “the self; the conscious thinking subject; one’s image of oneself”. At once integral to success and fulfillment and yet antithetical to their realization also, it’s a complicated thing. When faced with a challenge the first thing you’re told is ‘you can do it’ or ‘believe in yourself’. Drilled into us from day one, they’re not cliches for nothing. But, what happened when you did “do it”, as you were told? A warning. Don’t let it go to your head. The result is one hell of a balancing act that very few get right. Take the examples of Liam Gallagher, Lee Mavers of the La’s and Bono again. Talent was obviously important but crucially all three had the hunger, self-belief and ambition to achieve. In short, they had a healthy ego. And yet ego also proved to be the saviour of only one of them. Mavers, apparently locked in a struggle with perfection, never made a second album. Gallagher, convinced he was perfection incarnate, unfortunately made a third. Ok there’s been the occasional hiccup, but only Bono has really been able to ride that fine line. And what about Ireland?

Well in short, this country’s ego has been through the ringer in recent times. It’s in need of, if not therapy, a serious reality check. Go spend a year in New York City - the ultimate expression of, not just incredible success, but it’s reasonably peaceful co-habitation with failure - repeatedly being asked by bewildered Americans and New Yorkers, to rationalize Bono’s anecdote, and you’ll probably come to the same conclusion. But let’s do a brief psycho-socio-historical check up just the same.

800 years of political, cultural and religious subjugation? Check. Agitation, attainment of political independence and liberation? Check. Sort of. Accession of the Catholic Church resulting in unexpected extra 80 years of political and socio-cultural repression? Chee-yeck. Historically, the net result has been the national equivalent of Ross from Friends. In other words, a whinging loser, but one who always kept his sense of humour and a sense of value. Eventually, Ross found his groove and he and Rachel got it together. In the 1990’s Ireland did the same. The Economist’s ranking of it as “the world’s best country to live in 2005 in it’s “most comprehensive quality of life index ever”, and the 2005 UN Human Development Report’s ranking of Irish people as the second wealthiest in the world, says it all. But one thing Ross never got was cocky. Being such a loser for so long allowed him to appreciate what he suddenly had but never let it go to his head, and consequently he remained a solid bloke. It’s here, as the hangover of politico-religous guilt mixes with a newfound sense of freedom and confidence, that Ireland gets a little Jekyll and Hyde, and an explanation of Bono’s anecdote begins to form.

In many ways, we’re clearly very at ease with the success of the “Celtic Tiger”. If your jaw didn’t drop even slightly upon reading the statistics in the above paragraph, as it probably didn’t, you’ve proved this. Some would go further and say we’ve even openly embraced its hedonism. When spending reaches the point where national indebtedness amounts to €1.33 owed for every €1 you have, or when offensively absurd terms such as “retail therapy” get bandied about without a hint of irony, well, it won’t be long before Gordon Geko comes knocking. But when you juxtapose all of the above with our ranking of third most unequal society among 18 wealthy nations, or the recent announcement by the St. Vincent De Paul that its costs reached a record €33 million this year, that’s when you know someone somewhere has got to be taking the piss.

And secretly, we do, hence Bono’s comments. 880 years of having very little has left us with, if not quite humility, a reasonably healthy ego. Some see it manifested in the ‘craic’, others in less virtuous forms such as begrudgery. Where you won’t see it is in your new Apple i-Pod, Louis Vitton handbag or in the A & E getting your stomach pumped. None of this is to propagate the myth of a past in which a selfless nation was actuated only by concern for one’s brethren. Few people would ever claim for example that the General was often known to have slapped his thigh and said “ah begorrah to hell with it, let’s have a pint, there’s more to life than having lots of stuff”. Nor would I suggest we stop buying ’stuff. To paraphrase two famous writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “excess on occasion is exhilarating, it prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. But if moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime”.

So in sum, I’d say suggest you do one thing and ask yourself another. Get your credit ‘cord’, stroll down to Xtra Vision in Sandymount, take your i-Pod along for the walk and, given the season, rent a Christmas Carol and think about it. Then ask yourself, who do you think sleeps better at night, Liam Gallagher or Bono?