http://www.irishtimes.com/
It’s tempting to conclude that Irish culture has entirely lost its traditional touchiness. It is certainly true that a combination of confidence, a post-modern sensibility in which everything is viewed ironically and a degree of realism about ourselves (we do drink a lot, after all) has changed our ideas of insult. But it is clearly not true that our shoulders are now chip-free zones.
Last year, for example, the Government, via our consul general in the UK, formally protested to the Scottish administration over the singing by Glasgow Rangers fans of a song that includes the line, “The Famine is over, why don’t you go home?” The “you” are the fans of the rival Glasgow Celtic club, and through them, the descendants of Irish immigrants in general. A Rangers fan was subsequently prosecuted for breaching the peace for singing the song.
The Famine Song is actually relatively mild by the standards of some of the sectarian bile that pours out from the stands, but it was evidently judged to be especially outrageous because it mentions the Famine. What was forgotten is that it was Celtic fans who brought the Famine into it in the first place, by adopting the ersatz Famine balled The Fields of Athenry as their anthem.
Why is The Famine Song a matter of state, while The Simpsons is a good laugh? Because the point about the politics of affront is that what really matters is not who’s being insulted, but who’s doling out the insults.
This has always been the way on an intimate level – a friend making fun of you is slagging; an enemy saying exactly the same thing is an assault. We choose whether or not to be offended, and that choice, in a culture where accusations of insult are so damaging, is a kind of power. In our sophisticated mode Homer and Bart are friends of ours and can say what they like.
In our tribal mode, Rangers fans are not, and therefore can’t.
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