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The Irish For Is Ireland more progressive now because we didn’t have baby boomers?

Did you know that Nigel Farage and Keanu Reeves were born in the same year? It’s hard enough to accept that they are the same species, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.

This is the latest dispatch from our columnist Darach Ó Séaghdha, author of the award-winning and bestselling Motherfoclóir. Every Sunday morning, Darach will be regaling (re-Gaeling?) us with insights on what the Irish language says about Ireland, our society, our past and our present. Enjoy.

THE IRISH WORD glúin can mean a knee or a generation.

There are two men who have been in the news a lot lately who appear to have nothing in common – but they do and it is rather surprising. 

Yes indeed, John Wick 3 star Keanu Reeves (Keanu meaning ‘cool breeze over the mountains’) and the snake oil salesman Nigel Farage (farraige meaning ‘the sea’ – a body of water that he should get back in) are the same age, both born in 1964.

It’s hard enough to accept that they are the same species.

However, 1964 is an unusual year birth-wise in that it is frequently identified as the cusp between the last Baby Boomers and the beginnings of Generation X and these two men clearly landed on different sides of that generational crack.

You could say that made-up generational labels like Boomer (glúin an bhabaíbhorrtha in Irish), Generation X and Millennial (mílaoiseach) are really just astrology for sociologists and that other factors are far more important.

But time is money and generational conflicts around the world are fueled by economic differences exaggerated by the times children were blessed or cursed to be born in.

The idea that different generations have their own identity and common causes is alluded to in Irish: the 1916 Proclamation puts the struggle for freedom in this context “in every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty” and Dinneen’s entries for aos and díne advise that these words can refer to generations or tribes of people.

However, global labels aren’t a good fit here. In particular, the socio-political-historical-economic factors and unifying experiences that defined both boomers and Gen Xers in America and her NATO allies did not apply in Ireland.

A side effect of Irish neutrality was that there was no post-war generation, nor was there much by way of a Marshall Plan and city-rebuilding jobs boom with attendant inward migration in the 50s. Decades later it would thankfully mean that there was no wartime legacy for conservatives to sentimentalise and mythologise.

When Time Magazine made the boomers Person of the Year in 1966, they did so tellingly by naming them “The Inheritor”.

What were Irish people born in the 1940s inheriting?

Generation X is usually contrasted with the one before by growing up in smaller and different family units on account of their parents having greater access to contraception and divorce – again, things that were not widely available in Ireland.

However, this generation was in prime position to benefit from the Celtic Tiger, the Peace Process and liberalisations introduced on foot of EU membership and was less likely to emigrate than those that came before and after.

You could say that in many ways, these are Ireland’s real boomers.

Lyra McKee, who was murdered this April, wrote powerfully about her generation, the Peace Babies - the children born in Northern Ireland without a memory of the darkest days of the Troubles.

Hopefully, such tragedies will be things that my own children will only read about in history class and not see on the news, as they mock me for being old fashioned and I roll my eyes at how easy they have it.

I hope so. I really hope so.

Darach’s book Craic Baby is the follow-up to his acclaimed Motherfoclóir and is out now under the Head of Zeus imprint.

He runs @theirishfor Twitter account and the @motherfocloir podcast.

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    Mute kerrill thornhill
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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:21 AM

    >5000 Civilian dead, over 2000 kids. Collective punishment, denial of water, food & power – numerous atrocities & war crimes carried out with impunity. Scant reporting of the slaughter in western media, no calls for sanctions, no fundraisers or calls to provide arms to Palestinian resistance. Why do our media organisations deny Palestinians the same human dignity they gave Ukranians? or even advocate for the basic application of international law? just silently supporting genocide. The ugly underbelly of the EU & US is there for all the world to see

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:25 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: it’s shocking isn’t it, Israel targeting hospitals and civilian infrastructure, 2500 children dead for israels insatiable thirst for stealing land.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:33 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: what about the hundreds of thousands that putin has slaughtered?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:51 AM

    first of all, you only have Hamas’s word for the casualty numbers. Secondly, you do know a large slice of the Palestinian leadership WANTS its civilians to die, don’t you? They know the gullible West laps up images of babies being pulled from rubble and will put pressure on Israel. It’s win/win for them. Newsflash: Islamists like ISIS and Hamas love death like we love life – they are a death cult. They don’t think like you. Just look at memri.org if you don’t believe me. If this were purely a territorial dispute, the Palestinians would’ve had a state of their own long ago. They object to a Jewish state in Islamic territory, end of. You think they wring their hands about Islamic colonialism the way our friend Kerill does about Western colonialism? Not a chance. They are Islamic supremacist.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:58 AM

    Russia had been sanctioned relentlessly, thrown out of international financial systems, Russian individuals wealth was take from them. I personally organised a fundraiser making €1.5k for Ujranian refugees, my home village was 25% Ukranian (welcomed with open arms) at one stage last year. The West bombed Russian infrastructure, provided >$150bn in weapons & military support, it runs non-stop propoganda for Ukraine. Conversely, the West provides bombs for Israel to kill Palestinian refugees, it denies them food, water & electricity and our media dehumanisees them. Both people are resisting illegal occupation – other the white western supremacy, how do you explain this absurd difference in treatment?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 11:02 AM

    @Squarepeg 01: There are thousand and thousands of images and videos of the destruction of Gaza, buildings razed and dismembered children, which our media is dutifully ignoring – you’ve lost the plot if you think the deaths are made up… Palestinians have been living there for centuries – you clearly don’t understand the term colonialism is you think Benny Netanyahu from Philadelhia is the local to the region…

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    Oct 24th 2023, 11:37 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: to reinterate, Hamas WANT their citizens to die and in many cases stop them from following Israeli instructions to evacuate so that they WILL die. Jews have been living in Palestine for centuries, too. Towns like Hebron had an uninterupted Jewish presence since Biblical times until the pogrom of 1929. ‘Oh but Jewish immigration stepped up following the 19th century Zionist project.’ Sure, but Arabs immigrated to work for the British, too. How come they’re not called illegal occupiers?
    There is a moral difference between people killed as collateral damage and terrorist gangs going house to house, raping women, burning families alive, shooting kids in the head, murdering babies in their cribs, abducting >200 hostages etc.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 11:49 AM

    @Squarepeg 01: Your argument is primarily an emotive racist diatribe.. I know many Arabs and Palestinians – they are no different to us. The number of people killed would indicate that Israel is considerably more barbaric – unless you think Palestinians are non-human? There are clear international borders (1967) between Israel and Palestine – the occupation is clearly defined in law as illegal, as are the settlements. The solution to this conflict is respecting both parties, international law and a negotiated peaceful coexistence.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 12:14 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: you are living in a fantasy land. Both sides covet the land, but only one party wants peaceful coexistence, the other wants to annihilate all Jews from Palestine. What clearer proof of that do you need than Hamas’s rampage on Oct 7th, which you never seem to mention.
    Nothing racist in what I said. Of course, the Palestinians are as human as you or I, but I was referring to their culture, which is absolutely different from ours. I mean, it’s not like they go to much trouble to hide it. They glorify martyrs by naming streets after them and paying their families rewards. This world is just a stepping stone to Paradise. Did you not know this?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 12:46 PM

    @Squarepeg 01: Your racist depiction of Arabs is ridiculous, straight from the daily telegraph. As is your insistence that Palestinians want to wipe out Israel – Fatah agree to the legal boundaries, even Hamas changed their charter to recognise the 1967 international boundaries. If you think Israel can continue illegally occupying & ethnically cleansing Palestine without starting a regional war – you are mistaken. World opinion is firmly in Palestinians court, and against the genocide in Gaza – Israel is alienating every one of it’s friends by ignoring international law.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 1:24 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: The settlements may exacerbate the situation, but the deeper problem for Islamists is the existence of Israel itself. You and the millions of other pro-Palestinian Westerners can continue to bury your heads in the sand about the types of people you are supporting all you like, but doing so has consequences. If they destroy Israel, do you think the West won’t be next? 10% of France’s population is Muslim. Many major European cities are already hotbeds of jihadi activity – what do you think it will be like as the Muslim population approaches parity? Putting Mulsim grievances down to Western colonialism would severely mischaracterise the situation – a very large number of them want to live under some form of sharia law. This is a spiritual battle, for us and them.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 3:43 PM

    @Squarepeg 01: You are completely ignoring the internationally recognised legal position, rambling about holy wars & spiritual battles – weirdos thinking the bible/torah is a property register started this mess. How about respecting the internationally recognised border, that over 130 countries have agreed to, along with Palestinian leadership. Just enforce this border, demilitarise the region and bring in peacekeepers. No one will win in a war

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    Oct 24th 2023, 5:07 PM

    @kerrill thornhill: with every reply you make, the more obvious it becomes that you don’t really understand the people you are supporting. You’re secular. You mouth the left wing shibboleths of ‘colonialism’ and ‘occupation’ while mocking ‘weirdos’ who believe in the Torah and the Bible. Are you so unself-aware not to realise how strongly your Palestinian buddies believe in the Qu’ran? Why do you think they shout ‘Alahu Akbar’ when they kill the Kafir? It’s funny in a way. Saul Alinsky taught the radical left how to use the values of the West against its own institutions in order to bring them down. Hamas and other Islamists are using a similar tactic, only this time they are hooking into the intersectional oppression narrative of the Left. In other words, you are being played.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:07 AM

    Where is kerrill the Russian bot? Where are you with your deflection?

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:40 AM

    Last seen entering the Gaza strip in a hot-pants and gimp mask waving a rainbow flag.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:52 AM

    Good morning invisible man. I’m working, but will take a moment to share with you Bibis own published plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza below: EU/US politicians & media are aware of the plans, but have done nothing to stop this genocide – effectively controlled by military intelligence. They are blindly going along with a decades long campaign to dehumanise Palestinians, cover up their appalling treatment and normalise the llegal occupation. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/israeli-think-tank-lays-out-a-blueprint-for-the-complete-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza/?utm_content=buffera2434&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer

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    Oct 24th 2023, 9:56 AM

    If our media is too cowardly to report the thousands of dead children and the carpet bombing of schools, hospitals and churches – I consider it an obligation to speak out about it. An anonymous person accusing me of deflection or being a bot, is quite ironic. Have a good day

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:32 AM

    @kerrill thornhill: tell it to putin, I’m sure he cares.

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    Oct 24th 2023, 10:34 AM

    Lol! He heard you! Kerrill the gimpo!

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