/lit/ - Literature

Jack London, Henry James and William Faulkner had Irish ancestry, albeit they arguably weren't influenced by their homeland anymore and wrote in the USA.

>>11311586
Most of them lived and wrote in London and Paris

>>11311586
>an island of 8 million people
We are still substantially fewer than that I'm afraid.
The island hasn't had a population like that since the mid-19th century.

What I've gradually gathered is that most Irish people hate Ireland--like, in a pathological way. And this intense passion gives rise to great art. The Irish produce great writers who dwell on how awful Ireland is.

>>11311651
Yeah, I meant historically.

It peaked at around 8 million.

>>11311586
>a poor colony backwater for most of its history.

Suffering is the sole origin of conciousness. They had a lot to express, and access to the english language gave them a great channel towards a huge audience. Had they been culturally isolated like Estonia they wouldn't have had an audience and had they been wealthy and owning people like the brits they wouldn't have felt the same need to write.

>>11311667
>Suffering is the sole origin of conciousness.

not sure
but of literature, certainly

>>11311656
Was Ireland truly as bad as the Irish perceived it?

>>11312731
>Was Ireland truly as bad as the Irish perceived it?

During the famine it was particularly hellish About 12 percent of the population died of starvation and another 12 percent emigrated.

Then if they did manage to get out, they wound up in hellish slums in New York or Boston or Glasgow or Manchester or Liverpool. Check out Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England or the book The Gangs of New York to get a taste of what 19h century slum life was like.

>>11312731

They used to believe that the Irish were a Pygmy ethnicity, genetically prone to be smaller than the English.
Then with the mass emigration to the US, it was discovered that if not malnourished during childhood, Irish kids grew up just as tall as the English or Americans

>>11311656
Yeats likes Ireland at least in Lake Isle of Innisfree, although I suppose half the reason he likes it there is because there's no people (read irishmen) there

>>11311646
>Most of them lived and wrote in London and Paris
A lot of people live in London and Paris that don't go on to become great writers

>>11312906
>were a Pygmy ethnicity
They were. Modern Irish are Anglo/Viking rape babies. The pure pre-goidelics roaming the vast forests were probably fuel for the idea of Leprechauns - tiny and outside of your culture. Those little fairy huts they used are damned tiny. Go crawl inside one. Don't flame me, faggot - they are my people, too.

>>11311596
>three Americans of mostly British ancestry
good work anon

>>11311586
>Beckett
>Burke
>Yeats
>Swift
>Lewis
>Stoker
All protestants
>t 22 of 45 US-American Presidents had Irish roots,
Ulster scots roots

>>11312938
>Yeats likes Ireland
>Yeats
WB? He loved Ireland, though he saw its faults. The plays he wrote were not just for shits. They tied the populace into a unified body prior to The Rising. He dedicated his life to his people. He even requested his body to be transported to Ben Bulben.

>Under bare Ben Bulben's head
>In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid,
>An ancestor was rector there
>Long years ago; a church stands near,
>By the road an ancient Cross.
>No marble, no conventional phrase,
>On limestone quarried near the spot
>By his command these words are cut:

> Cast a cold eye
> On life, on death.
> Horseman, pass by!

>>11313054
>Ulster scots roots
The Scots were Irish before they were Scots and then became Irish again.

>>11312731
>Was Ireland truly as bad as the Irish perceived it?
They were fucked under military occupation for 800 years.

>>11312945
Yeah but those are mostly Pajeets and assorted Asians so that doesn't mean much

>Brendan Behan
He's a fun read. If he were still alive then he would namefag on /lit/ and get butthurt that we fail to applaud him for his work with letters. Still, I love that faggot.

>And the auld triangle went jingle-jangle

>All along the banks of the Royal Canal

>John McGahern
Seriously underrated contemporary writer. Of course, a lot of his work is banned in the weedpatch in which it was written.

>ITT

>>11312731
whatever about the 800 years crowd, it's an island of bog and rocks and wind and an atlantic ocean worth of rain directed at it, where people have been fighting over cows and because of the opportunity for drama since the iron ages and see no reason to stop. books are just one manifestation of this insanity; irish missionaries colonized so many places before humanity knew of them that there are several remote tribal languages that resemble irish, not out of some linguistic connection, but because one of them got lost everywhere on earth between 800BC and 800AD.
they also think that ireland was once invaded by a hundred and fifty women with three men, and one only escaped because he turned himself into a salmon after the others were snusnu'd to death by their assigned rosters. i think it's the kind of drunk you need to have trenchfoot for and fifty women who are all your problem, 100 if you don't die first.

>>11313291
i wonder if behan typed faster than he talked. you can see old tv interviews with him and he's a drunken pauser. what's great is anyone who fucking dares to interrupt his thinking of the next word time gets a tonguelashing far worse than the next word he was thinking of. he'd fend off imitators too. mad fucking bastard

>>11313054
>irish is a sectarian tradition
even irish protestants from the north aren't that dumb, and they run death squads against drug dealers to prevent violent deaths

>>11313451
>says that persons of irish ancestry are better suited to writing
>when most "irish" writers are of anglo stock

>>11313463
anglican doesn't mean anglo, you retard. and the protestant split is very recent in the 800 years- which is why we share the main anglican cathedral and always have, since before there were anglicans, and after. wolfe tone was protestant too, doesn't stop him being an irish hero, or irish people voting the band named after him singing "a nation once again" best in every song contest the BBC leave open to the internet.
>b-but the one's i like spoke english most
that's called being monolingual, dipshit, and most of those authors weren't

They don' t have any meaningful cultural achievements outside of literature. There are no great Irish composers, philosophers, or scientists

>>11313579
>anglican doesn't mean anglo
Swift, Yeats, Shaw, Berkeley, Beckett, and Burke were all descended of the anglo ascendancy

has anyone read the country girls trilogy? i took a class taught by a grad student doing a dissertation on these books, we were supposed to read the first one but i didn't. when we had to write a close reading i did mine on the first page of the book. the teacher was really attractive though and i got an a in that class, fuckin hell

>>11312731
Currently living in North Dublin.
I would nuke it all in a heartbeat given the chance. Too bad I'm not creative enough to channel the hatred into art.

>>11313443
He could reliably derive your county from having heard you speak for a minute. That is an amazing ability. He was also a complete shithead.

>>11313675
>Too bad I'm not creative enough to channel the hatred into art.
How about nuclear physics, though?

>>11311586
>22 of 45 US-American Presidents had Irish roots, whereas only 11% of Americans have Irish ancestry
If you find that odd . . .
http://victuruslibertas.com/2016/06/if-all-presidents-are-related-which-of-the-2017-candidates-will-be-the-next-president/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183858/All-presidents-bar-directly-descended-medieval-English-king.html

>>11313617
Swift's a Royalist who got kicked out of England, Yeats was hated by the Gaelic Revivial for his Celtic Revival which didn't understand Irish, I'll give you that, but the flipside of it is that Joyce joined the Gaelic one and blew Yeats the fuck out of the water, Shaw spent the entire of WWI badgering the English government about it's policy on Ireland as not being world socialist enough (the USSR was the only country to recognise the 1916 Declaration of Independence), Berkeley isn't even on the list and rarely comes up in Irish discussions, and Burke is a Norman name and so in any system of primogeniture he would have been Irish/French since before there was an England.
>being born in Ireland isn't enough to be Irish for half those
lel, England only brought in that rule for themselves in Rushdie's lifetime. You're shite at two country's history, even when you're cherrypicking examples.

>>11313726
not just your country, the list of atrocities it had and was still perpetrating upon the human race complete with dates and figures. he'd be great at a pub quiz

>>11313675
what is so bad about it

>>11313780
>country
Read again: COUNTY. He could recognize to a fine detail to whom it was he was speaking by their diction and lilt. He could mimic a fair deal of them, also. Always a good one to get him going was to raise the issue of pederasts - he would go on for hours. A little Behan goes a long way but I do not consider my education complete without him.

>>11313802
>what is so bad about it
Go outside the tourist zone - or just read the newspaper. It will make its nature manifest. I am not even the poster to whom you are replying.

>>11313804
sorry, i was still talking about him debating on television. i don't know if he was on irish tv because i've only seen him from canadian and bbc videos, so he was mostly talking to international figures as the token irish genius.

>>11313772
>the majority of "irish" writers are of anglo descent
>this irish moron lists a bunch of personal characteristics as if that changes it
lol

>>11313920
>he doesn't know anything about english or irish history as nations
>figures nobody else knows who cromwell is either so it's fine
uhhuh

>>11311586
you forgot shane macgowan

>>11313928
>these people are not of irish stock
>paddy mcdimwit starts babbling about history

>>11313980
>burke's really english because the english made norman irish families aristocrats
>because titles change your genetics to english rather than french or irish
>the whole "more irish than the irish themselves" thing never involved intermarriage over 1000 years
>oh also his mother doesn't exist for purposes of argument
uhuh, convincing. so how did his french dad autogestate an irish catholic? sorry, english anglican convert. did the religious conversion change his DNA? since history is inconvenient, i'd love to know the reason why genetics are also inconvenient. i'm proposing that the reason why they're inconvenient is you're ignorant and wrong and know it and can taste it and hope that history, genetics, the world, and literature will change for you if you just cry inside hard enough. i'd like to watch.

>>11313929
even shane macgowan forgot shane macgowan

>>11312731
Yes they're called potato niggers just for fun.

>>11313929
he isn't irish

>>11311707
True suffering, e.g. abuse or actual members of war, rarely causes literature as it stunts the development of complex thoughts. I'd venture that ennui and a limpid complex of melancholic draught probably does more to encourage a literary spirit than other forms; it seems to be the earliest form of human expression once humans achieved a level of physical comfort against a level of technology, video games now filling that role. The argument is better illustrated that rarely did slaves create powerful literature. I'd just argue that literature is a natural instinct and our probity to its creation is because it's merely the manipulation of our most used product, language, and this production presents itself constantly in all forms, e.g. at the dinner table telling each other stories.

>>11314008
Okay, Burke’s Irish, thanks for the paragraph and so much for the rest

Ireland for my linguistic mastery, German-French for my philosophical musings, and just the right amount of Jew to elevate my IQ far above middling. Feels fucking good, man.

>>11313675
>>11313816

I know that feel. I've migrated to Dublin for summer work last summer and i've lived in Drumcondra.

>>11313802
The fucking people within them, for once. People that have such an immense inner-frustration that every time you talk to any of them, it's like you owe them something because of their own inner butthurt of how shit Dublin looks like and how utterly miserable their lives are. And i'f it's not those kinds of people, it's literally iq89's which will punch you in an instant as a means of communication the moment he smells something's wrong.

I actually came to understand why there's pubs on every corner, you can't live in Dublin and still be sober, it'd be literally impossible to live as a inner calm human being without getting drunk.

And i'm specifically talking about what it looks like, besides the center of the city where they have more than 3 FUCKING STORY BUILDINGS, the rest of the city is literally just one huge periphery with one huge underclass chavs/bydlo population lives en masse. Take away the people with substantial amounts of money, since they all live in suburban gated communities somewhere around Dublin.

And the buildings, man, let me tell you how depressive it is to live in a typical irish house in Dublin. Crammed, cold (because heat is so fucking expensive in Dublin that you can only turn it on only if it's super rainy outside) grey, shit building isolation because the irish are the biggest fucking slacks when it comes to building something qualitative that will last, and fucking expensive. And then you see pic related on miles, and miles, and miles ahead with no virtual change that your mind can perceive.

You know how you realize the city you live in is a literal shithole? When the gays/lesbians or whatever sexual minorities that come out of hiding early in the morning for a walk together are more polite and sensible than the entire population of Dublin combined. Then add junkies, gypsies, underclass minorities from 1/5 of the whole world all in one place, and you get Dublin. A huge clusterfuck of pure wish to nuclear holocaust

>>11314243

But asides that, Ireland has a minimum wage higher than in Germany and you can make a pretty buck in Dublin just for working there a couple of months. I myself came back to my own shithole with around 3k euros which lasted me about a year. 'Course you'll have to be on savings mode because everything in Dublin is just so expensive.

But i wouldn't ever go back to Dublin nor recommend someone to go there, and not even Ireland for that matter because they managed to sell an image of Ireland to the world like it's some whimsical place with fairies and jolly people.

If it ever crosses your mind to visit Dublin, go to London instead. The architecture and style of Dublin is literally a smaller scale of London.

Today Ireland is one of the happiest countries in the world

>>11313291
Auld triangle was probably written by Dominac Behan

>>11313311
Even as an atomised millennial growing up in rural Catholic Ireland "Amongst women" is a very painful read, I see too much of my family and neighbours in it. McGahern was one of a kind though, too critical for Irish society, too traditional for the d4 cosmopolites

>>11314434
Suicide rates would disagree, the older generations living in relative poverty were more contented than people today. If you're 30 and haven't built your own 500k chicken house, what the fuck are you doing with your life

>>11314434

In 2014, if it wasn't for gibsmedats 50% of the irish people would live below the poverty line

>>11314563
Applies to many Western nations, sadly

>>11314578
Half the population of your country falling below the poverty line if it wasn't for government handouts doesn't apply to most western nations.

>>11311586
Same reason Jews do. They get just the right amount of discrimination to motivate them and enhance their stories with authentic struggle, while not enough discrimination to actually deter the success of someone decent enough. English is probably a benefit too, since ango shit gets pushed around the globe.

>>11314563
You say like it's something negative. The only job of a country is to ensure the happiness of their population.

>>11314589

Being the way irish people are, it's no surprise they were as marginalized and persecuted historically as they were. Subhuman cunts deserved it too

>>11314598
>The only job of a country is to ensure the happiness of their population.

The anglosphere was a mistake.

>>11314603
yeah ikr. countries should aim for like virtue and shit haah

>>11314711

There's much more to life than the total sum of happiness an institution like the state should provide under something which you think are entitled to in the form of maximized utility.

But i wouldn't expect a filthy hedonistic degenerate anglo or their subhuman offshots like the irish to ever understand that, or to understand the true internal source of their own misery.

>>11314587
Source?

Ireland has a higher minimum wage then us Germans, so I wonder how that comes.

>>11314726
>most happy people
>faggot talks about misery

>>11314733
Higher minimum wage doesn't mean shit if there are fewer jobs and the money is worth less since shit costs more.

>>11314733
>I wonder how that comes

Ireland's entire economy is just being a tax haven for corporations like google or facebook. Why do you think facebook has it's european HQ there?

>>11314757
you're pretty dumb my dude, and he's pretty right, you know
think about the term "happiness" for a minute or 5, if your brain can muster up the power to do that, you'll see

>>11314770
>>11314726
VIRTUUUUUE am i right my dudes?! haha

>>11314786

>If it's not something material or tangible, it's virtue

0/10

>>11314795
Tell me what the state should realistically be aiming for that couldn't fall under the broad category of happiness or virtue. Go on.

>>11314816

You must be a man of puerile and insecure attachment for the state, not to mention with a feeble statist mind, if you think the state owes you something just because you pay taxes.

>>11314835
You haven’t answered his question at all

>>11314835
Oh dear. Reading comprehension isn't so good in Europe these days, eh?

>>11314849
>>11314853

A state's entire reason to exist is for it to be created for the physical and cultural security of a nation.

If there's something that a state institution can do, you can do all by yourself. If you can't, you're not trying hard enough, if you don't and expect someone else to do it for you or hand it out to you on a silver plate, then you're no better than a parasite who needs to be killed.

>>11314762
I know, but being a tax haven and having a handful of actual companies (like Ryanair or Primark) should be sufficient for a country with a population less than Singapore.

Unless half of the country is unemployed, I don’t see how they can live in poverty.

>>11314867
yikes

>>11314867
Thankfully, most people disagree with your braindead ideology and elect parties that set goals such as improving the economy, education, health care or the pension system.

The ultimate goal of these measures is happiness.

Since Ireland is one of the happiest countries in the world today, the govt seems to fulfill the goal it was tasked with well.

>>11314867
>>>r/libertardians
>>>r/atheism
>>>r/politics

>>11314871
You don't have to be unemployed to get welfare in ireland you know

http://www.finfacts.ie/Irish_finance_news/articleDetail.php?Half-Ireland-s-population-recipients-of-public-welfare-in-2015-716

>>11314853
That faggot sounds like a Murican.

>>11314867
So what's a nation? Doesn't it kinda ... well, uhh, you know ... include some people or something, no?

>>11314867
(you)

>>11314901
>So what's a nation?

A linguistic, cultural, historical and spiritual conglomeration of people who managed to create a tradition of being distinct from other conglomeration of peoples over a number of centuries. If it managed to achieve that all the meanwhile with no state, rest assured it doesn't need the state to provide for things it already had prior to it's existence, other than fixed boundaries and laws that enforce those boundaries in order to save and protect the nation from extinction.

>>11314961
>If it managed to achieve that all the meanwhile with no state
So never? Or you mean own state?

>>11314961
>A linguistic, cultural, historical and spiritual conglomeration of people who managed to create a tradition of being distinct from other conglomeration of peoples over a number of centuries.

Happened through nationalism, e. g. states.

Prior to nationalism, the royals in France and Russia spoke the same language and had the same customs.

You’re cringey.

>>11311586
Folk tradition and lots of PAIN

>>11314986
>So never?

iq89

>>11315000
>Prior to nationalism, the royals in France and Russia spoke the same language and had the same customs.

false equivalence

>>11315157
True equivalence, uneducated retard.

Read the history of Germany, Italy, France. Prior to centralized unification under an administration (Napoleon or Bismarck), they didn’t remotely exist as nations.

>>11315181
Read some proper literature on the studies of nationalism

>>11314886
>the govt seems to fulfill the goal it was tasked with well.

Up until the EU and global trade bosom's still exists. After that, it's back to the 70's tier poverty

>>11315366
It’s the same for countless nations, whose wealth is heavily tied to tilted global trade - including Germany, South Korea, Mainland China, Czechia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland ...

The Irish government is doing what a small nation can do without economies or scale or resources.

>>11315458
>The Irish government is doing what a small nation can do without economies or scale or resources.

It's just a shame that the only thing keeping the welfare of the population growing steady is something which isn't entirely depended on the actions of the irish government. Ultimately, if it can't have some real domestic growth to back up the external one coming from the outside, it's just a matter of time until the bubble pops.

>>11314243

(You won't ever enjoy any city because you are a poor person.)

>>11315571
Nice try potato nigger.

Even if you're a rich person visiting Dublin, your only stays are either in fancy hotels that have actual good looking facades and views in the center, or you go somewhere in the suburbs because that's the only place that resembles any sort of notion of livable space in Ireland.

I've traveled my fair share of european cities in Germany, Romania, Poland and the UK.

None of them had the particular kind of grey-decaying-depressive-shithole flavor like Dublin.

It's high time paddy niggers realize their fantasy which they try to sell abroad doesn't apply in reality

By the way, pic related is a view from a 4 star hotel which is 20 minutes from the city center and that costs 150$ a night.

>>11314131
that's just the last on in the list. Do you want me to do the same for the list, including the ones you dropped from the list? Like Lewis, the author of My Irish Life? Want me to explain why Royalism and the Flight of the Earls are related and how you didn't notice the exile Swift went into where England would have probably had him killed if he was in England? No, of course not, because you know the rest of them are Irish for the reasons I already gave you, and you were too ignorant to understand.

I am 1/8 Irish and wish to learn the Irish language one day. Can I be counted among the fortunate?

t. Brazilian (very few Irish-descended people here)

Also, OP didn't mention Seamus Heaney, Flann O'Brien, and so many others.

>>11315714
you can but most irish people don't speak it fluently, and you'll have to go to a gaeltacht (irish speaking area) to get fluent to teaching levels
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZTOm1mIyVQ
go n-éirí an t-ádh leat

>>11315721
an seabhac never gets mentions either though he's laugh out loud hilarious and jimeen's definitely been translated

>>11315738
>most irish people don't speak it fluently

Most irish people don't speak it at all.

>>11315749
ciúnas bóthar cailín bainne
is mór an trua, ach iniseann tú an fhírinne.

>>11315771

>Most

>>11313420
>>when whites think their ******culture****** is distinct from other white ******cultures*******
Kek such fucking cringe

>>11315714
i thought the /pol/ memes were just memes, but this fits 100%

>>11315778
cad í an fhabdh? d'inis mé leis nach raibh an chuid is mó in ann í a labhairt go líofa, agus níl siad in ann. táimid an bheirt againn in aontas le chéile faoi sin, nach bhfuil?

>>11315812
Try and convince at least 30% of the population that, paddy mc dimwit

recent irish literature is really good

>>11315812
>>11315822
>>11315778
>>11315771
>>11315749

An bhfuil cead agam dul go dti on leahtras? Is maith liom madra agaus ispini agus scelloga.

>>11315924

Suffering

>Poverty
>Mass emigration
>Strong national identity
>Inferiority complex
>Drunkenness
>Tenuous independence
>Small size coupled with gigantic historical heritage

These things tend to generate good literary traditions.
t. Portugal

>>11315823
recommendations?

>>11316073
The Foundation for Exploration by Sean Goonan

>>11314926
jesus christ

>>11314243
Where you from? Germany?

>>11315822
>try to convince everyone of something we're all in agreement on
already done boss

>>11314867
>>11315193
>>11315157
holy fucking cringe, an unironical libertardian

>>11316204
t. iq 89

>>11313603
What the fuck you talking about Willis?
Guinness...
Colour photography....
A fucking submarine!!!
Who the fuck do you think invented 'em?

>>11313603
burke, berkeley, kelvin, boyle - the founder of fucking chemistry - u pleb?

>>11313603
>Ireland has no composers
>inventors of Irish harp
>inventors of Irish dancing
I'm not even that /lit/ and I can tell you're pleb because those two things will get grills into schools called conservatories and train them for upper class virginal marriage.

>>11315924
Nice spelling faggot.
Did you do foundation level in Kerry?

>>11316736
>Ireland has great composers
>proceeds to list no composers and talks about virgin women

>inventors of Irish harp
Two of the four earliest harps are Scottish.

>inventors of Irish dancing
Everyone has their own style of dancing. It's not an achievement.

>>11311586
>F. Scott Fitzgerald
>Irish

>>11318812
Irish ancestry

>>11313038
>the Irish were tiny people who had myths about tinier people

Is John Banville any good? Where to start with him?

>>11319589
>F. Scott Fitzgerald
>worth mentioning

>be born irish
>nothing to do but dig potatoes, starve, and contemplate on the aesthetics of digging potatoes and starving

>>11311596
Jack London had Welsh ancestry, nor Irish, IIRC

>>11316073
Colm Tóibín
Sally Rooney
Colin Barrett
Sam Coll
Edna O'Brien
Donal Ryan

I'd also recommend Thomas Morris, who isn't Irish but has done a lot to promote Irish lit in recent years.

>>11312731
Nah it was breddy good

>1800
>Ireland is ruled by absentee landlords

>2018
>Ireland is ruled by absentee corporations

>>11315968
>good literary traditions
>Portugal

>>11311586
Irish guy here

Poets always had super high status in Gaelic society, which meant that the culture as a whole understood and appreciated high-quality literature and poetry

This basically continued in the form of novels after the Flight of the Earls undercut the bardic tradition. Novels gradually gained popularity while poetry declined. As a result we produced some big hitters

>>11320262
Doesn't really work too well in translation desu

MOC was pretty inventive with the way he wrote Gaeilge, it loses Its way lot when you try and port it over to English

>>11321035
*it loses a lot

>>11320262
>>11321035
it's not as funny as an béal bocht either. the title translation bothers me. english is hard to fit in all the contexts the irish version can imply anyway.

>>11318065
>doesn't know o'carolan
>wants to lecture about harps
even if you don't play harp you've probably come across his arrangements.