GREAT IRISH ICONS - 2006
By Kim Bielenberg It may be time for the postcard makers to go out and take some new snaps. Instead of capturing the icons of old Ireland - the donkeys, the round towers and the jaunting cars - they should be taking pictures of rows of bungalows, the Red Cow Roundabout and pub patio heaters.
The icons of Ireland sold in the tourist brochures and on the front of guide books are far removed from the country that we see all around us. They portray a country that is still fiddling at the crossroads and wrapped in 40 shades of green.
The British government-backed Icons Online project this week published a list of English icons that panders shamelessly to a nostalgic view of the country. It conjures up John Major's oft-quoted image of warm beer and cricket on village greens.
Although there was a nod to popular culture in the form of the mini-skirt, the list included such chestnuts as Big Ben, the cup of tea, Hadrian's Wall, Morris Dancing and the queen's head on the postage stamp.
Inevitably, web sites were inundated with suggestions giving a less rosy picture of Blighty. The alternative suggestions included: chavs, binge drinking, hooded tops, stag parties, and even Wayne Rooney's metatarsal.
So, what about our own icons?
While there is still room for icons that have stood the test of time such as Tayto crisps and the pint of Guinness, I am sorry to report that round towers and the Book of Kells have to make way for some of our more modern cultural landmarks.
The Spire in Dublin may not yet have a place in our affections but it has already left an imprint in the public imagination, possibly, as some have remarked, because of its similarity to a heroin needle.
As I compiled this list, there was some lobbying from colleagues for the West Link Toll Bridge to be included. It is seen as emblematic of stroke politics, traffic jams and idiotic planning. But I felt that the Mad Cow Roundabout, which blocks the paths of those travelling in all directions and is set in a poorly-signposted nightmarishly-planned edge city, was a more fitting monument to Fianna Fail philistinism andincompetence.
That commonly-used and frequently-filmed resting place for the sick and infirm, the hospital trolley, is another fitting symbol of Bertie's brave new world.
Just as the turf-carrying donkey cart and red-headed children in the John Hinde postcard was a pastoral icon of the mid-twentieth century, the giant petrol-thirsty SUV is a suitable vehicular image for the suburban noughties. Ideally, the 'Dalkey tractor' should be occupied by a peroxide mum on her mobile phone, and semi-obese brats on PSP computer consoles. And if it is blocking the path of a sleek Luas tram, so much the better.
Many of these tank-like SUVs can be seen outside the modern smoke-free Irish pub, ringed by patio heaters. Nothing encapsulates our futile desire to create a pseudo-continental balmy atmosphere more than these gas-guzzling heaters that are enlisted to warm the open air.
The Irish fry, as served in gloomy bed and breakfast dining rooms, is commonly cited as an Irish icon, but who has time to cook the damn thing nowadays? The queues that form at convenience stores from 8am onwards are surely testament to the iconic status of the breakfast roll. The spicy potato wedge was also a contender, but sadly was just edged out along with the half-baked leaky coleslaw panini.
In the guise of a pair of dressing gown-wearing bachelors, Podge and Rodge leave chatshow rivals Pat Kenny and Ryan Tubridy in the shade as 2006 icons. The Ballydung twins perfectly represent the cavalier 'anything feckin' goes' mentality, where you can talk about masturbation to minor celebrities on air until the cows come home.
Minor celebrities, by definition, cannot be icons. So I could not include the ubiquitous model, Glenda Gilson, as an emblem of inconsequential fame. But her rugby-playing boyfriend Brian O'Driscoll made the cut.
Which type of building best exemplifies modern modern Ireland? A case could be made for the standard suburban semi-redbrick semi-d, or even the apartment block towering incongruously over a traffic roundabout. But the ribbons of dormer bungalows, lashed by tourists and Dublin 4 nobs, have been the distinguishing feature of the countryside ever since Jack Fitzsimons produced his 1971 house-builder's guide, Bungalow Bliss.
Although the majority of the icons listed are distinctly Irish, another iconic list could be produced showing how our culture is becoming indistinguishable from that of our neighbours: the golden arches of McDonald's, the Sky satellite dish, speed bumps, Ann Summers, Coronation Street, Cappuccino, the Man United top and the Argos catalogue. These things are all as much a part of Ireland as they are of Britain.
While icons such as Saint Patrick and the pint of Guinness seem to go on forever, others are much more transient. The kitsch carnival of Riverdance still resonates more than a decade after its conception, partly because it marked the start of the brash new sexually confident Celtic Tiger era, but other icons of the nineties have faded fast.
When Mary Robinson was elected to the presidency in 1990, it was seen as the start of a new era of hope - the dawn of a liberal, less patriarchal society. But like the iconic images of Prince Diana and the moving statue of Ballinspittle (popular in the previous decade), her iconic image has lost its glow.
The symbolic light which Mrs Robinson shone in the Aras for Irish emigrants, the so-called diaspora, has largely been forgotten. Many emigrants have come home while the plight of the others is now unfashionable.
Some icons simply disappear for reasons of political correctness. The Lyons Minstrels, men with blacked-up faces and canes who danced across our screens for generations in the cause of promoting tea, were given their marching orders once the era of mass immigration got under way.
Other iconic characters grow more popular with time. Forty years ago, James Joyce was hardly a poster boy for Irish literature, but his bespectacled mug now stares out from tea towels and beer mats.
Is there such a thing as an iconic sound? In compiling the list, I have stuck to visual images.
But if sounds were allowed, I would have included the Nokia ringtone and Dartspeak, the South County Dublin accent that seems to be - like - spreading everywhere.
Some might suggest that the Angelus is the most iconic Irish sound. But as my friends on the Dart would say:"Oh my God! The Angelus is just, like, so last century."
