I suppose I should stop lurking and take a crack at this. Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 10:57:31 +0100 From: Robert Naiman <[email protected]> Subject: [Pen-l] query: James Joyce and nationalist economic development... To: Progressive Economics <[email protected]> Message-ID: <calmnhnqxdsybf9ev8fzcmqe1cu5h-9akxh4vz_pd2fiqoa-...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I was recently talking with an Irishman from Galway who told me that he "hated Guinness," by which he meant that he hated the marketing of Guinness as representing Ireland. This made me think: if one wished to put other goods forward for export as representing Ireland, what could one put forward? Off the top of my head: Viagra heart stents software live cattle Kerrygold butter lightly regulated financial services industrial espionage tax avoidance strategies poorly trained construction labour The Joyce passage is interesting. The satire is of the hyperbole and the cod classicism but a lot of the individual items mentioned have at least some reality. This in turn reminded me of the following passage from James Joyce's Ulysses: "Where are our missing twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost tribes? In the 19th Century Ireland's population was much closer to England's than it is now. Famine, landlordism and competitive deindustrialization (colonialism) explain the current difference. And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! The finest in the world is not true (and the pottery was particularly coarse stuff) but there was a textile industry which was destroyed after the act of union. And our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal Rome had little to do with Ireland, naming the place Hibernia which translates as Winterland or a place with a fucking unpleasant climate. and our flax and our damask from the looms of Antrim Flax (if not damask) was a regional specialty of Ulster and an exception to the decline of the Irish textile industry. and our Limerick lace, Real I think. our tanneries and our white flint glass down there by Ballybough Not sure about these though nobody ever talks about fine Irish leather. and our Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk and our Huguenots did weave silk in 18th century Ireland. Foxford tweeds Stil trading as Foxford Woolen Mills. and ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole wide world. Not unlikely. Where are the Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, the Gibraltar now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian purple to sell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and Ptolemy, even Giraldus Cambrensis. Unlikely. Wine, Very unlikely. peltries, Not too likely Connemara marble, Genuine, still quarried and sold (it's green as it happens) silver from Tipperary, There was native Irish silverwork second to none, our farfamed horses even today, the Irish hobbies, The always was a big horsetrade continuing today with race horses. with king Philip of Spain offering to pay customs duties for the right to fish in our waters. There is still an Angling tourist industry though Philip of Spain seems an unlikely customer. What do the yellowjohns of Anglia owe us for our ruined trade and our ruined hearths?" So here are my economic questions about this passage: - which of the descriptions of economic activity in the tirade are historical, and which of them are Joyce's rhetorical flourish, poking fun at Irish nationalism? - which of the historical economic activities described are still going propositions? - which of the historical economic activities described could be revived or expanded today? P.S. Apparently "the Carmelite convent in New Ross" is still producing stuff for sale: http://www.carmelitesnewross.com/news.html <http://www.carmelitesnewross.com/news.html> -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected]
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