Post Colonial Weight - My Week as Ireland....
This week I was minding the @ireland Twitter account. Say what?
Basically it’s a Twitter profile called ‘Ireland’ which is ran by a different Irish person every week. I jumped at the chance to do it because there’s 25k+ followers, and the idea of being able to talk to that many people at once excited me.
I chose to do it this week cos it’s a week where I am doing something interesting. I am travelling around Ireland at the moment, 'Designing The Audience’ for our tour of HEROIN.This week I was in Galway, Belfast & Downpatrick. More posts on that coming soon.
I had a very interesting week. It is a lonely job that I am doing at the moment, travelling around the country visiting places where inequality thrives. I have done this level of research before in Ballymun & Limerick, but it’s really something else to see it on a national scale. At times I have felt physically winded. I was most disturbed by the idea of the potential for History to repeat itself. In cities like Galway and Cork, needles are starting to be found on the streets.
I felt the @ireland twitter account gave me the opportunity to take immediate action about these wrongs I was seeing. I would send a tweet and get up to 50 interactions. It stopped me feeling lonely. It made me feel like I was doing something. I wonder how often our activism is reduced to tweet or a facebook status. The internet can so give the illusion that our activism is more effective than we think.
There there were times I felt @ireland twitter account was suffocating me, like when I accidentally got involved in a massive debate on post colonial weight at the end of dinner with my sister and my partner, and I completely left the table, I was lost in cyberspace! (more on that later) Or when I would wake up to 150+ interactions, feeling like I had to respond straight away. These kind of feelings, which I think we all share about phones and facebooks, are the reason why the mindfullness revolution is so important. I would have been lost this week without my Headspace mindfullness app.
It’s interesting how social media seems like such a flippant thing, you might be reading this and thinking well whatever, just don’t respond, turn your phone off, but I guess I felt such a connection to this community of people that I wanted to be true to that. Sometimes you’re on this talking about Irelands Fave Films, and then sometimes someone tweets you to say that a 9 year old child called Lucy is being denied a medical card, 6 months into a cancer fight. There’s a feeling of being of public service in pressing RT.
So much can happen in a week.
Before I even opened my mouth, I got some stick for self identifying as an 'activist’. “Oh look there’s another activist running the @ireland account”. It was probably the first time in my life I have been called a 'Lefty’ in a demeaning fashion, I missed a train because of it. I obviously haven’t met that many righty’s in my safe circles of theatre and community work.
I talked a lot this week about drugs and drug services. I expressed my disgust at what @EricByrneTD said to Jonathon O'Brien in the Dail, that his brother should “Go and live at home”. It was nice to feel like people were listening. It was nice that others shared my outrage.
I talked about Decriminalisation, and I shared me and @Kgh_Rachael ’s petition to decriminalise the drug user. I got some great responses, including a lady who volunteered to help us get celebrity endorsements. Nice!
I talked about introducing Medically Supervised Injection Centres, More needle exchanges, A&E services for people in addiction. Everyone was like yeah. Go for it. I stated that there were 30 detox beds in the country for a drug using population in the tens of thousands. Everyone was all like “That’s shocking” “Terrible”“something should be done”
I talked about Repealing the 8th amendment. Everyone agreed with me. Same with housing. Mass consensus.
Now in both cases there were one or two objections, but the general consensus was overwhelmingly in agreement.
I got angry at the distance. The gap between what people want and what is actually happening in the country.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I was in communication with the nation for the week, but I was talking to 25k+ Irish people at home and abroad. Well, we all seemed to be in a nice big lefty love in. I also learned that twitter is used by a certain profile of people.
I guess by Wednesday I figured that you were all my friends, that this was one big dinner party were we all agreed with each other. That was certainly how it seemed. I was interested in how all these solutions to our drug problem, the housing crisis etc seemed to be so easily solved in 140 characters, yet for the most part, especially in the cases of abortion rights, drugs and housing, we had had 30 years of inaction on the issue. I wanted to start a debate about why that was the case.
I have a thick skin. I am well able for a fight, but I have to say what happened next really shook me.
I was expecting to get abuse for tweeting about abortion. I thought I would get called a do - gooder and a pollyanna when I spoke about addiction & empathy. I was never expecting this tweet to cause such a ruckus.
I said “We often know how to solve our social problems in Ireland, yet we don’t. We are plagued by post colonial inaction. Exp. Housing Discuss.”
And then people got really passionate. Post colonial weight? No such thing. It’s been 92 years and we all need to get over it. And then it really hit me. This is the part where I disagree with the other lefties. I was kicked out of the bed. I was now “A shinner lefty with an axe to grind” I wouldn’t be happy until Gerry Adams was elected Taoiseach, and all manner of other generalisations and accusations were flung at me.
I tried to make the point that 92 years is a relatively short amount of time, that the affects of colonialism are more prevalent depending on what end of the island you’re on. But of course “That was a very narrow, NI opinion”, I walked myself into that one though - I mentioned 800 years. But wait, wasn’t there 800 years? I get it- it’s complex and complicated. But we were owned by another country for a long time, and for a long time, they fundamentally believed that we were less intelligent than them by race. They believed they had the right to decide what way we lived. They threatened our language and our religion. These things happened. I don’t understand what is to be gained in denying it?
I learned that you shouldn’t mess with the internet when I tried to wade into this debate on a technicality. What I should have said, take note, was “Okay, each to there own, to what do you attribute the inaction so?” cos what i really wanted to talk about was INACTION! I didn’t know the words 'post colonial’ were such a red flag.
I didn’t say that!
I tried to make the broad point that while yes, we have been independant for 92 years, as @JaneMahony pointed out, our journey to independance was complicated and it didn’t just happen overnight, the process of dismantling the treaty as DeV called it took a long time, I made a silly point, a technicality about 1948 being the year we left the commonwealth, and the year that independant rule was truly possible on paper. Obviously from 22 we were Independant, but that did not happen overnight, you had the civil war and then rebuilding the country, establishing the Dail etc I was trying to say maybe we should cut the lads in power some slack, they had a lot to deal with.
1948 is the year of the Republic of Ireland act. Before that, the British Monarch still had some powers over the Dail. We were still a part of the Commonwealth until 1948. There was a big party and all. It was a big deal for our grandparents. Ask them. Look at them all here having a great time the night the free state became the republic. But sure that was no big deal.
Scotland is a member of the Commonwealth. They recently had a referendum on to become independant. Do you get me?
I take responsibility for my lack of clarity though, i couldn’t fit all the above in 140 characters… And Twitter let me have it! I was an idiot who didn’t know what I was talking about, how dare I say such things on the @ireland twitter account. I need to learn Irish History. I did not make myself clear, that was my bad.
But there was no room for clarification. I was immediately treated with hostility and contempt. I was frightened. I felt like saying hang on! Leave me alone! If it really was a dinner party I would have left.
I wonder why we are such an adversarial country. Why our politicians attack each other relentlessly during leaders questions. It’s often not understanding we are searching for, it’s defense & attack. I am not holier than though here lads, being defensive Defo has nothing to do with post colonialism though. Sure that’s not a real thing. That’s like Leprachauns.
This is not a popular point of view, but I would also say, to draw attention to the element in Southern Irish drawing rooms, that for some this country is still not Independant. It depends on what way you are looking at it. You could see it that six counties are still occupied, and therefore, you have never had a vote in your own country. You could see it, that 26 counties are occupied. Anywhere in the world where political partition has happened, you have these tensions. I don’t know what I think yet, I am still working it out. This is all something I want to make work about, so it’s better for me not to confine myself to any one position, so as to stay open, which I am trying to do.
So for hundreds of years, we were told that we were stupid, that we could not be trusted to govern ourselves. We take a long time to get things done in Ireland. There is often indecision. Is that post colonial weight? We are not a confident nation, yet. And then, some very clever people pointed out, when the British left, the church oppressed us. When did that end? The last magdalene laundry closed in 1996. There are women still living in the care of the state who were imprisioned in this way? Have you ever held a physical copy of The Ryan Report. Heavy isn’t it?
What role did the british occupation have to play in all of that? What impact has the famine had on our diet today? What impact has the church had on our relationship to sex? The first generation of heroin addicts from Dublin, all recount stories of being imprisioned in Daingean & Letterfrack; heroin is a very strong pain killer. Has anyone made that connection?
I get that people are sick of talking about 'the Brits’ and 'the North’ I appreciate that our history has been used as an excuse and people want to get on with it get over it. I understand that for some, like my parents generation who marched on the British Embassy after Bloody Sunday, they have done their bit thinking and talking about this. I get that it’s hard. I am hearing that. But I don’t think dissapearing things is the answer.
Starting a brand new country is tough. There is baggage. It’s hard. I think we need to talk about it. I find it very sad that when I tried to raise it, I was pretty much told to “Get over it!” and that it was “An Excuse”. No wonder we have such a poor mental health record. We are told to get up and get on. People say things like “It’s always better to look forward and not back” & “Don’t have a rear view mirror” I don’t think we should be sitting around wallowing, or that our past is an excuse for the present, but I think understanding is key to uncovering the solutions.
Why are there people in Ireland so afraid of the decisions that others might take? Why such strong opposition to abortion and marriage equality. It’s easy to say - The Church. It’s more than that. I want to understand why these people feel they need to excercise a right over what other individuals choose to do with their own lives. I want to understand, instead of blindly hating, or just posting a wee status update and moving on with my life. I think it’s something we really need to look at. I want to understand the points of view of others, because, there is a chance I could be wrong. I want to be careful about what position I take. We used to believe it was okay to have slaves and that smoking couldn’t kill you. We used to think we could get aids or get pregnant by sitting on a toilet seat. Shutting down debate blocks our evolution. It’s difficult. I know that. But what else are we gonna do with our lives? Let’s make an effort to make something of them. Let’s make them meaningful.
We don’t really look at things. I am frustrated with that. I don’t want to read another post about suicide that says “Just talk to someone, please anyone” It’s more complex than that. Talking always helps, if you have someone to talk to, and if that person understands what you are talking about. Last year, I had a kind of a breakdown, my mind was not working properly. I got a lot of advice that could have been very damaging. The biggest one was “Just get on with it. Just stop thinking about it” I needed to TALK to a therapist. The message that we should just talk to anyone at all is wrong. It’s also not fair on whomever we choose to talk to. He/She is not neccessarily equpped to deal with what is going on. Stop speaking in soundbites. Let’s try to understand what overwhelms and frightens us.
Life is not simple. We need to stop reducing it. It doesn’t fit into 140 characters.
I want our journalists, artists and politicians to lead us down new paths of understanding, instead of encouraging the polarisation, the adversity, the 'story’. I want everyone to assume everyone else is as intelligent of them (instead of assuming I actually thought the treaty was signed in 1948). Let’s take responsibility, for thinking before we tweet, for taking a breath to consider the argument, for believeing in the good in others. Thats what Ireland has taught me this week.
Oh and I saw some really beautiful pictures of snow. Oh and I think I might want to be the Taoiseach one day.
PS. If you liked me tweets and want to find out more about me, check out #HeroinTour hopefully coming to a venue near you soon…
HEROIN National Tour
★★★★★ - Sunday Times
★★★★ - Irish Times
#HeroinTour
THEATREclub’s award winning HEROIN is back this year on a national tour of Ireland.
“Heroin manages to convey the needle and Irish society’s wilful ignorance of the damage done” - IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE
“[The show] effectively charts the rise of heroin, and society’s inability to deal with it, from the late 1970s to the present day…. this is a tough play about hard times and a horrible existence that is handled with skill and ambition.” - THE IRISH TIMES
“the feel of ‘Reeling in the Years’ on Smack.” - WRITING.IE
30th January, Lyric Theatre, Belfast… Book Here // 31st January, Down Arts Centre, Downpatrick… Book Here // 2nd February, Town Hall Theatre, Galway… Book Here // 3rd & 4th February, Everyman Palace, Cork… Booking Open Soon Call The Venue for Details // 6th February, Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford… Book Here // 7th February, Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise… Book Here