Hibernian Anti-Semitism By G. Murphy Donovan
Ireland is no stranger to religious or racial hatred. Part of the trouble is geography. Nurtured by religion and isolation, island monocultures often breed narrow minds and asocial practice. Clerical pedophilia and chronic alcoholism might be two Irish markers. Vendetta and honor killings would be examples from other island cultures such as Sicily and Corsica. Ireland’s antipathy for English Protestants is surely a legacy of colonial repression and a Reformation that never came to the Emerald Isle. Absence of religious reform is something that Irish and Muslim worlds have in common. Irish cultural attitudes were surely influenced by English imperial overlords too who were for centuries the gold standard for presumptions of sectarian, class, and racial superiority. Not much of that history was lost on the Irish.
British influence may have been formative, yet a monolithic Catholic Church was dominant in Ireland for over a thousand years. Many Irishmen like to think of Eire as the land of “saints and scholars,” the most Catholic country in Europe. Many an Irish anecdote reveals, however, a darker side of Gaelic tribalism. The civilized way was thought to be, “Don’t get angry, get even.”
Indeed, another aphorism suggests the Irish make good soldiers because they will take any side of an argument as long as it ends in a fight. Brouhaha, blarney, boycott, donnybrook, Finnian, hooligan, kybosh, shillelagh, smithereens, paddy wagon, Irish wake, and whiskey are all Irish contributions to Anglo-American rhetoric, as is the word “phony.” The meme that binds linguistically might charitably be described as pugnacious chauvinism.
The latest fight in Ireland is about Jews, although the run-of-the-mill Finnian socialist is quick to claim that real issues are human rights, the so-called “occupation” of Palestine, or the oppressive policies of a “Zionist” Israel. Nonetheless, just as the Continent is plagued again by anti-Jewish hate, tiny Catholic Ireland is now thought to be the most anti-Semitic nation in the European Union. The evidence for Irish bigotry is overwhelming.