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Louis's poppy love points to our blooming maturity
Topic Started: Nov 30 2007, 10:10 AM (173 Views)
JoanneVIP
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THE BOSS
Louis's poppy love points to our blooming maturity
As the national confidence grows, the Anglophobic tendencies abate, says Andrea Byrne

Sunday November 18 2007


It was a very small image and yet in many ways it was highly representative of how much, we as a nation, have advanced over the last number of years. The image that I speak of surfaced in the most unlikely of places -- The X-Factor. As he sat with his fellow judges, proud Mayo man Louis Walsh wore a bright blood-red poppy on his lapel.


An innocuous gesture on Louis's behalf, you may think, and yes I agree. However, I couldn't help but think how, just a few years ago, a poppy-wearing Louis Walsh would have been the subject of a public outcry. After all, rancorous anglophobia was for so long mistaken for doting patriotism. It would have provided the topic du jour on Joe Duffy's Liveline -- irate calls would have poured in accusing Louis of being a West Brit, abandoning his sense of Irishness and succumbing to unpleasant British influences.

Think I'm overstating the case? Well, cast your mind back a few years to November 1998, when our very own President was ritually vilified for opting to wear a poppy while laying a wreath at a memorial service in London. It was seen as wholly inappropriate for Mary McAleese, a Northern Catholic, to be wearing a powerful triumphalist British emblem. So extreme was the censure that she chose not to wear a poppy again during further Remembrance Day memorial services. Not too long after poppy-gate, President McAleese was further castigated for receiving communion at a Church of Ireland ceremony.

Furthermore, in 1999, Louis Walsh's very own boyband protege -- Westlife -- incurred the wrath of Sinn Fein and other hard-line republican entities for helping to launch the annual poppy appeal in Britain, with the result that the band was forced to renege on its pledge of support.

Similarly, sport has always been an arena in which our deep-seated bitterness towards the English was well and truly felt. It always baffled me how Irish football fans would devotedly cheer on their favourite Premiership team week in, week out, and yet when the very same players donned the English national shirt, the love affair would end abruptly, replaced instead by unreserved animosity.

But thankfully, it seems, the tide is beginning to turn. Even in the area of sport, we seem to have freed ourselves from what was rampant anti-British sentiment. You can witness the shrinking of Anglophobia on our streets, displayed by the readiness with which English residents and visitors proudly wear their national shirt in pubs.

During the recent Rugby World Cup, I was stunned by the extent to which Johnny Wilkinson and his fellow beefy soldiers were being supported by us Paddies. In a Dublin pub, while watching the final, South African cheers only marginally drowned out those of English supporters at the beginning of the match. Time was, a vocal English supporter would have been completely ostracised and forced to surrender his/her affiliation out of safety concerns.

God Save the Queen was rightfully greeted with a respectful silence when England played Ireland in that legendary Croke Park rugby game, which provided a welcome change from the usual treatment that national anthem receives. There was not a boo, not a heckle, not a hiss to be heard.

Further testament to the significant decline in the dislike of all things English can be seen in the upsurge of people's interest in cricket. A few years ago, admitting you liked and played cricket (thought of as a notoriously upper-class English game) was the equivalent of running around Dublin city centre draped in a Union Jack. Now, it has become fashionable in these parts, assisted hugely by the vast improvement of our national team.

But even on a more serious level, the nation's reaction to the Queen of England's proposed State visit is to be commended. The majority of people don't seem to have any problem with it and would happily welcome her arrival on Irish soil. And they're right too. If the Queen can welcome Mary McAleese, why can't we return the favour?

Earlier this month, soft-spoken, staunch Catholic fundamentalist Dana Rosemary Scallon asked firebrand DUP doyen Ian Paisley to launch her autobiography. At the launch, Paisley joyously recalled how he listened to Dana in the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest and how he said, "Mammy, Mammy, that lady can sing." Two years ago, the occurrence of such an event would have seemed like an impossible dream.

Perhaps, this change in sentiment has a lot to do with the altered state of affairs in the North. Peace north of the border has in many ways left us at peace with ourselves as a nation. Others will put it down to multiculturalism and our developed tolerance of other cultures and ethnicities. Moreover, a lot of it must be credited with our unprecedented wealth, which in many ways resulted in the obliteration of our long-standing inferiority complex towards the English. We now no longer harbour this need to hate and resent all things British.

Louis Walsh was absolutely correct to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day -- he is, after all, working for a UK-based television station and, understandably, adhered to its conventions. It's respectful and professional. I certainly wouldn't have any problem wearing one, if it was required of me. As I watched the Mayo man, I saw the poppy as a symbol of how far we as a nation have come. From sport to politics to social occasions, displays of Anglophobia are becoming less and less prevalent and it's something we should be hugely proud of.

We have grown up and finally opted to let bygones be bygones.

- Andrea byrne
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Nicky's Angel
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Sara
Thank you for posting Jo
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Gloria
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Westlife DIVA star
Thanks Jo for posting.Yes I agree let bygones be bygones. :)
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