The truth hurts, no matter what language it's uttered in
Madame 'name and address with editor' hit the mark with her attack on the Irish, writes Declan Lynch
Sunday September 28 2008
You sensed that she had waited most of her life to write it. And she couldn't wait any longer.
The French woman (name and address with editor) who penned the letter in last week's paper headlined "The world does not love the Irish", used a piece by Brendan O'Connor to launch her attack.
And, in her agitated state, she missed certain aspects of the piece -- such as the tone, the content, and the entire point.
But be that as it may, it was soon clear that this wasn't really about one man and his article -- it was about all of us.
She was as mad as hell, about "Mr Paddy". And, leaving aside the madness and maybe a touch of the old racism as we read through this aggravated assault on "Mr Paddy", we also felt that strange sense of liberation which we feel when we are in the presence of someone who says the unsayable.
So while she might be faulted for a certain one-sidedness, a lack of "balance" in the old-style BBC sense, in her hydra-headed screed she managed to tell us a number of terrible truths which derive their power from the fact that they are so rarely expressed -- and never in such violent tones, and never, as far as I'm aware, by a woman from France.
Admittedly this is not your average French woman, because she happens to be married to an Irish man, but that just makes it more cutting: she knows whereof she speaks.
"Mr Paddy, sorry for disappointing you, but no, not everybody likes you," she asserts. And we die a little.
"As a matter of fact, it is pretty amazing how disliked the Irish are," she continues. And we die a little bit more.
She is withering about "the craic", and somewhere deep down inside we know she is not wrong.
"The usual topic is -- God, we are great! Everybody loves us. (Please God, let it be true!)"
No, she's not entirely wrong there either.
She finds the Irish accent vile, and she is entitled to her opinion. We hope that she is alone in this, but we somehow suspect that she is not, and that we are ever-so-slightly behind, say, the Italians and the Spaniards when it comes to the loveliness of our brogue. And this is what gives her ill-tempered missive its terrible power -- she is poking with a sharp stick at all our unspoken fears.
She monsters us for being "totally ignorant regarding the cultures of thousands of beautiful countries and regions all over the world. Most of these cultures include story-telling, playing music, singing.
"But again, silly us, we forgot, only the Irish sing and play music."
Harsh words indeed, but again, in our anxiety, we do tend to regard ourselves as being uniquely gifted, do we not?
She then takes a cheap shot at the chip which we have on each shoulder, for balance -- we are occasionally able to joke about that ourselves. But we would be less sanguine about this: "Even when it comes to business in France, you are known as not trustworthy. A lot of bullshit, yes!"
Ah, the bullshit.
She called us on it, and it would take one of our more formidable Senior Counsel to bullshit his way out of that one.
But she is even-handed in the sense that she deplores Irish women too, and not just Mr Paddy. "Why? Because they are vile. They believe that to be a good manager is to bully people. Very Irish!"
And this is as good as gets: "I am not saying there are no nice Irish people," she writes. But ... "but friendship can be difficult among people who begrudge the success of their neighbour ".
Can we deny it? Actually, she answers this for us: "(Don't deny it, even the Irish say it themselves.)"
But she is only warming to her theme.
To Mr Paddy who has struck it rich, she has this to say: "No matter what, Paddy, and don't forget it, no amount of money will hide the smell of dung which will always stick to your magnificent boots wherever you'll go."
And as Mr Paddy falls to the ground, clutching his wounds, cowering in the foetal position, she puts the boot in again: "And next time, don't mix up 'patronising you' with 'liking you'," she spits.
By now she seems to be enjoying this, in a Cruella de Vil-type way, laughing maniacally at poor Paddy, and he lying there in great pain.
Yet she steadies the ship somewhat, to make what is a fairly reasonable point: "A nationality is just an accident of birth, which means that when people say, 'I am proud of being Irish,' it is an absurdity. We do nothing in order to have a nationality. And to be proud of something you must achieve something, work at it, like when you succeed at your exams."
Clearly she feels that Mr Paddy has failed the exam, time and time again.
And towards the end, she lets herself go a bit: "Maybe that is why deep down you're so afraid of not being liked. You realise yourself how pathetic you are."
By now there is something of the merciless dominatrix about her, which Mr Paddy might even find vaguely attractive. Still, he is greatly troubled. He can take criticism, as long as it's constructive ... well actually, no, he can't take constructive criticism either, so, having taken such a hammering, Mr Paddy is distraught. But perhaps he will emerge from it somehow. He is getting his first taste of that they call "tough love" ... without the love.
See Analysis, Page 27, and Living Section, Page 4
