The Keane Edge
by Brendan Patrick KeaneRSS 
Recent Posts
- Exorcism of my inner Peter King
- Gas question: why give Ireland's enormous wealth away? the Norweigan alternative
- Bashing the Irish -- a break neck run down on Ireland's history of betrayal
- Stephen Fry to appear on Gaelic soap opera Ros na Rún
- Stolkholm Syndrome infects Dublin
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Below are pictures from NYU's open Lá Gaeilge, or Language Day, which brought together Irish teachers and curious students for seminars at Ireland House.
The organizers of the Lá Gaeilge events are Pádraig Ó Cearúill and Hilary Mhic Shuibhne. The idea has sprouted many others. 
Mic Shuibhne hosts another Lá Gaeilge at Iona College, and the practice is becoming common-place across Irish Studies departments at universities all through the United States. 
My brief interview with Roddy Doyle on the occassion of his book launch for The Dead Republic:
EVERYTIME RODDY DOYLE comes to New York, he breaks my heart. The last time he was here five years ago, I was over the moon with anticipation, and admittedly a bit raptured by lunar impulses. Doyle was talking on a panel at NYU with Frank McCourt and Colm McCann about James Joyce.
This event was supposed to sum it up for me, and converge many paths of my imagination. By the end of it, however, I was standing in the middle of a crowd of Joyceans calling Doyle's attack on the "middle class Joyce" an unfair cliché and one of many he was making that night. I was blunt, and my brief oration had a touch of the theatrical to it, but I was respectful and sincerely possessed with the need to talk back. It was spiritually akin to Doyle's attitude that night, where Joyce and the Irish language had become things he would slay for our amusement.
The British did not send a diplomat to attend Ireland's otherwise well-attended Famine Memorial in Mayo, because the precedent would have put British diplomacy around the world under enormous pressure. If the British had to face the Irish genocide, they could find themselves being put on the spot of culpability all across the planet.
That's why the British government was not in attendance at Croagh Patrick for the diplomatic event and commemoration ceremony held at the Murrisk Millennium Peace Park in Mayo on Sunday. The United States ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney was present, as was Australia's ambassador Bruce Davis. Those nations, as Britain might have done for that reason at least, attended in recognition of the Irish role that shaped them as model multicultural states in the "new world." 
Nations that send immigrants en masse to Ireland today were also present at the Famine ceremony, such as China, Nigeria, Eastern European nations--fourteen nations or so in all--indicating that some of Ireland's depopulation post-Famine, has been repopulated by immigrants from other countries that have much more massive populations in their homelands. Hopefully this is indication that these immigrant populations in Ireland will ascribe to assimilate to the founding principles of the Irish Republic, which places the Irish language as the first official language of the state, in order to reverse the damage Famine did to the Irish speaking populations in the west such as Mayo, where Irish is still spoken, and the memorial ceremony unattended by the British government took place.
The British government never showed up because Irish Famine memorials are just the place to start the precedent of truly dismantling the British Empire, and building up the post-empire world with something reparatory, and not just some new scheme from the IMF or World Bank which have grossly exacerbated post-colonial misery. Had the British attended, they might have been put on the spot by someone like Gaeltacht Minister Pat Carey who officiated the ceremony and is the institutional chief in the state's efforts to restore Irish to a place of esteem in a bi-lingual state, such as was done in Israel and Wales and Catalonia. An Gorta Mór, The Great Hunger would have caused ruination for Irish Gaelic culture, except that the Irish Republic was founded to give the language institutional support as English has long enjoyed, and Irish once enjoyed under native government, in the long and historic nation of Ireland.
November 22st 1963 is the day Jack Kennedy's presidency was ended with precision that left his wife covered in his own blood. She did not change her dress that day, and said "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."
We are haunted by those bloody images. In his death on that day in November, Irish American leadership was fated to a complex mythology where our greatest symbolic triumph becomes a Shakespearean tragedy mired in blood. 
That's why every glimmering second of his last moments on November 22st, 1963 are so sacred to Irish Americans of memory, and why these new fleeting images are so important to us.
The video that was released today of JFK and Jackie was taken on the eve of that awful day at a baseball game by Roy Botello, who's now 88.
The President and first lady were touring San Antonio, and stopped on-the-fly to hear some Mariachi music. Jackie spoke some Spanish and translated some of the song for her husband--the couple were laughing and smiling.
Chase Bank's recent promise that it would consider providing Irish Gaelic interfaces at its ATMs in Queens neighborhoods has excited many in Ireland who appreciate being recognized abroad, especially at a favorite tourist destination like New York.
Recent studies show that the Irish contribute enormously to New York's economy. As visitors, Irish travellers rank number 13 among all nations with more than a quarter million choosing New York City for vacation last year.
The images below were taken by Paul de Grae, Daithí Mac Lochlainn and Seán Ó hAdhmaill at Bank of Ireland ATMs.
Building Irish consciousness in a pop culture bent on fickleness is no easy task. So a group called ThinkIrish.ie is appealing to Irish consciousness on a self-reliance level, and focusing on the island's produce and industry. They're drawing people's attention to "Irishness" as an economic strategy.
Conradh na Gaeilge first wrote about "ThinkIrish" or "Meon Gaelaċ" in April, and compared it to Euro Gaelaċ, a movement to promote the use of Irish language in business and commerce.
You can read about the Think Irish campaign on their website or join up with them on Facebook. The not-for-profit group was founded by Jonathan Stanley and Alan Graham, who are interviewed by Darragh Boyle in the video below. The other video shows students going into foreign chains in Ireland, like Tescos, and putting ThinkIrish stickers on Irish-made products to draw consumers' attention to that choice.
This is the third set of audio clips I recorded from the show Ros na Rún, which you can watch in whole here on the Internet. By isolating phrases and imitating them, I'm picking up the rhythm of Irish, and my comprehension and pronunciation is improving. So, why not for you too? Listen to the audio. Imitate what you hear. And repeat until you sound like the native speaker. #1 in this series of audio clips can be found here.
Ceann eile na buachaillaí bána, a Shéamuis.
Another one of the "white boys," Séamus.
Kyahn elleh nuh bookullee bawnuh, a Haymush.
Here are some more audio excerpts I recorded from the show Ros na Rún, which you can watch in whole here on the Internet. By isolating phrases and imitating them, I'm picking up the rhythm of Irish, and my comprehension and pronunciation is improving. So, why not for you too? Listen to the audio. Imitate what you hear. The text below the audio is my best yankee guess. #1 in this series of audio clips can be found here.
So, caith tú amach iad?
So, you threw them out?
So, kah too amock eeud?
If you know me, you know I am obsessed with Ros na Rún, the Irish language soap opera on TG4.tv. Below are some audio excerpts I recorded from the show which you can watch in whole here on the Internet. By isolating phrases and imitating them, I'm picking up the rhythm of Irish, and my comprehension and pronunciation is improving. So, why not for you too? Listen to the audio. Imitate what you hear. The text below the audio is my best yankee guess.
Sin a bhfuil faoi.
That's all about it.
Shin a will fwee.
He was just another British Empire pawn, making his moves to steal something precious for the king. Elgin, whose name has given the English language a synonym for "vandal" and "thief," had a long imperious title and birth-name not worth repeating. The only name for which he is remembered is the one associated with the near-destruction of the Parthenon, one of the great monuments of Grecian civilization and all human heritage. He wanted to help decorate the newly christened "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," founded by Act of Union in the same year Elgin began removing the ancient statuary. A group that has been working to undo that wrong by a man whom Lord Byron called at the time "a dishonest and rapacious vandal," has expressed solidarity with the work being done to get the Gal Gréine out of a British war museum, and returned to Dublin, whence it was stolen in 1916. You can read about the Gal Gréine controversy here. 
Elgin came to ownership of the marble statuary, which he had removed from Athen's great temple on the Acropolis by dubious means. The marbles depict scenes from Greek history and mythology without clear description of their meaning. Some believe the frieze depicts the founding of the city of Athens, others that it represents a ceremonial procession associated with Elegian mysteries. Gods such as Zeus, Apollo and Poseidon can be can be read in the statuary. Elgin dismantled this great cite of human heritage in the first decade of 19th century, and was able only to haul about half of the Greek treasure to the expanding British capital.
Greece was under the foot of the Ottoman Empire at the time of the removal, and Lord Byron was among the great advocates of Grecian independence, which happened in a way in 1830 when the Ottomans were driven out. The legality upon which Elgin obtained the marbles was a supposed purchase he swore to have made with the Ottoman authorities, but which scholars such Professor David Rudenstine of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law concluded "is certainly not established and may well be false".
Building Irish consciousness in a pop culture bent on fickleness is no easy task. So a group called ThinkIrish.ie is appealing to Irish consciousness on a self-reliance level, and focusing on the island's produce and industry. They're drawing people's attention to "Irishness" as an economic strategy.
Conradh na Gaeilge first wrote about "ThinkIrish" or "Meon Gaelaċ" in April, and compared it to Euro Gaelaċ, a movement to promote the use of Irish language in business and commerce.
You can read about the Think Irish campaign on their website or join up with them on Facebook. The not-for-profit group was founded by Jonathan Stanley and Alan Graham, who are interviewed by Darragh Boyle in the video below. The other video shows students going into foreign chains in Ireland, like Tescos, and putting ThinkIrish stickers on Irish-made products to draw consumers' attention to that choice.
