Before I forget, there was an excellent piece by John Arlidge in the Sunday Times magazine on the weekend about Ireland, its economy and society, since the crash.
A piece on the Tiger that miaowed was waiting to be done and John, who used to work in Scotland for the Independent once upon a time, has caught the mood and the times brilliantly. It's worth digging out. Here's a link
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Arlidge's article, while a gleeful read for the English, was littered with cliched garbage about the drunken Irish and centuries-old colonial stereotypes - not to mention a hatful of factual innacuracies.
ReplyDeleteThe piece, which also appeared in Ireland (the ST has a very successful Irish edition), was greeted with absolute disbelief over here.
Ireland knows she has massive economic problems, but to suggest that the country's past economic success was concocted in a pub by a few eccentrics just shows the author's total misunderstanding of the country that he took such pleasure in lambasting.
The only "mood" which Arlidge's article caught brilliantly was the green-tinted, misty-eyed, post-colonial stereotyping nonsense that Irish peole have for the last two decades been fighting against.
It's not just British newspapers that have returned to propogating this type of piffle. Ever since Ireland's economy, in addition to those of some of its neighbours including the UK, hit the buffers, American newspapers have also returned churning out stereotypes from years ago.
Ardlidge's article was well-crafted - he's clearly a good writer - but it was in no way an accurate portrayal of Ireland, its economic rise and its current economic difficulties.
I live in Ireland, and I didn't recognise the country that Arlidge portrayed.