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Focail láidire,
i nglór íseal
Leigh French
Within the space of the last year there has been a surge in the construction
and shop fitting of strongly advertising, self proclaiming Irish bars
in Glasgow. At least seven such new pubs/bars have opened, staking claims
to a notion of authentic Irishness. There is no one focus of location
for the new premises though they are predominantly concentrated within
Glasgow's city centre. This phenomena of the escalation of proclaimed
Real Irish pubs is not one isolated to Glasgow, it is inextricably linked
to a snowballing UK wide product push.
The designs of the new pubs are based on the pursuit of an idealised small
country pub feel. Various attempts are made to give these larger spaces
a sense of intimacy through the use of partitions, screens and the reintroduction
of snugs. As much as the theme of Irishness retains a stressed similarity,
the specifics of the themes differ and the varied geometries of the buildings
dictate their own particular layouts and features. The allusion to Irishness
is also played out in a variety of fashions, from the use of 'olde
worlde' shop interiors to the inclusion of museum vatrines displaying
ambiguous artefacts. In common with most idyllic country pub themes, wooden
panelling features heavily and object d'art hide the harsh corners
and empty ceiling spaces, all of which in the setting signify little other
than an attempt at a throwback to a vague rural past using clichéd
terms of nostalgia and romanticism. The reading of the pub's contents
are more specifically placed with the use of the Gaelic language in signage.
Distressed, supposedly aged, clichéd wooden signs, prints and enamel
plaques, either referencing or actual reproductions of graphic styles
of previous advertising, seek to re-affirm the heritage of the establishment
and the products on sale, all with the appearance of having come off the
production line the week before. Still more direct associations are made
to an Irishness and a sense of place through the greater proliferation
of the media advertising of the products on sale. Despite the otherwise
seemingly nonsensical and taboo activity of drinking in a would be Oifig
An Phoist or hardware store, the flimsy plywood cornices with shamrock
patterns drilled in them and the deliberately chipped, newly stained woodwork,
exposing the fresh pine underneath, only add to the feeling of being on
a stage set surrounded by props. The general ephemera, the rush and tack
of the decoration and building work adds to this disingenuous sentiment.
I would have thought that there should be an obvious loss in the feeling
of any implied authenticity alluded to in these places. The actuality
is that the new pubs reside in a tradition of such thematising and are
a well established part of our daily, critically conscious lives. The
decor is familiar in the way that it shouts it's a themed pub, and
not the first or last in a long line of thematising.
Questions arise about our desire for, or assumptions about, an authentic
reality; how and where they are informed. I am not making a claim for
an authentic National identity but I am questioning the effects of these
selective re-constructions of Irishness. The claim to an authenticity
and the constant need for new sights and sounds that must still convey
a sense of familiarity, a feeling of homeliness and the reassuring associations
to that much beloved corner shop workplace. What we are presented with
is a would be 'microcosm' of Ireland, a public relations packaged
image that has turned into a predictable but successful formula for an
audience that wishes to be reassured. These theme parks present a populist
notion of an Irish cultural Disney Land and in doing so suggest a kind
of homogeneity of style and content. They speak reassuringly with one
clear voice which on the other hand is also dispiriting.
These pubs do not exist simply in themselves but are steeped in the mass
marketing of the companies products that they sell or are owned by. They
are after all, both the outlets for, and the embodiment of, media constructs
of identities and life styles familiar to the sale of any product, in
this case part and parcel of the construction and consumption of an Irish
identity that presents the male Irish immigrant as a unified category.
There has been a general targeting of a younger market as well as an expansion
of the product range. In much of the advertising we find the generic Irishman,
redefined for mass consumption and obliging to a form of populism, an
acceptable UK media face of Irishness, stereotypically the comedian, game
show host, gambling rogue and light entertainer. In one TV advert the
desire for escapism both to and from the excitement, hustle and bustle
of an American bar is collided and contradicted with the nostalgia of
an ideal rural bliss. Knowingly and openly tugging at the family heart
strings, its references to the reality of economic migration are stirred
only for effect. Similarly, in a now routine feature of avoidance of any
possible links with Irish Nationalism, the rolling, pastoral landscape
is presented in a way that deliberately effaces any contentious notion
of land.
On the Irish landscape Irish artist Willie Doherty explains, "..the
landscape is the site of disenfranchisement and privilege, of sorrow and
anguish, of hate and guilt, and simultaneously of aspiration and hope.
The role which place and landscape play in the psychological battle of
hearts and minds in the war in Ireland cannot be underestimated. If place
is inextricably bound up with ideas of home and identity then it is at
the very heart of the struggle between colonised and coloniser." (Two Names...Two Places...Two Minds, Camera Austria, No. 37, 1991)
Some of the very basic things that motivate us are advertising imagery,
our very world is saturated in it. Advertisers pervade our being to affect
our deepest impulses; to shape our sensibility; to transform and organise
our vision; ultimately to affect our whole behaviour. In doing so they
frame our notions of authenticity. Even if we believe we are not affected
we do not exist in a vacuum. Our world is lived with others. What we have
in these pubs is the re-construction of the re-construction of an Irishness,
a lived reality of thematics operating at a level of fantasy. The copy
has become the familiar in the consciousness of many, it has been reinvested
with an authenticity through proliferation. It is value constructed numerically.
Similar in ways to Coronation Street, perhaps once intended to reflect
an essence of a Northern English life, a soap fitting for the time of
social-realist documentary and film, finding its existence in the 90's
a parody of its own constructions. Its reference points have become itself
but for the viewing culture at large it has to be remembered that the
TV is also a point of reference. It is not just a painted backdrop but
an integral part within a diversity of representations, making claims
towards or against the authentic problematic in themselves.
We should not necessarily presuppose that these pubs, and the media circus
that surrounds them, are somehow representative of Ireland. What we are
presented with is an Ireland constructed of 'other' acknowledged
and assimilated words, functioning in a way intended to tickle our sensibilities
and provide us with pleasurable sensations. This construct is fixed in
a particular de-historicised provincialism, arrested from the world of
politics. In these terms, a perpetuated, unified identity of Irishness
is used as a convenient, and politically passive, organising principle
for the circulation of consumer goods. Unfortunately, the raised profile
of a product, along with an uncritical absorption of updated stereotyping
terminology, doesn't amount to a raise in the profile of the different
issues that affect a community or lead to an understanding of the complexities
and diversities of experience within it.
One of the results of British colonialism has been the fragmentation of
Irish people through a complex web of differences. While there is no homogenous
representation of Irish immigration, Ireland's Diaspora has created
a huge global network of people claiming to be of Irish origin. Irishness
means different things in different places and develops characteristics
particular to specific locales. The wider network of social practices
within which identities are constituted must be explored within a discourse
not only of emigration but also a complex diversity of assimilation.
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