Countering myths has become one of the great crusading themes of a new liberal Ireland.
Invariably, the myths that we are told that need to be countered are ‘far-right myths’. These along with related talk about superstitious beliefs based on misinformation and disinformation are meant to show the extent of the burden which liberal Ireland has to carry in countering its backward and old world critics.
It’s a narrative which sits easily with a liberal Ireland which likes to think of itself as everything its detractors are not – rational, logical, modern, tolerant and inclusive. Countering myths and misinformation, therefore, is increasingly pitched more like a crusade against backwardness and indeed those who might dare to question the precepts of liberal Ireland.
However, the thing that liberals never like to be reminded of is that, like any other power elite, they too have evolved their own self-serving myths and folklore which serve the purpose of helping to defend a status quo from which they now derive privilege.
In other words, when you closely examine a lot of modern liberal jargon what you find are equally irrational and illogical ideas – much like the myths that self-styled liberals now say need to be countered
Take the sidhe or fairy folk. In old Ireland, they were viewed as a somewhat malevolent force that you usually crossed at your peril. In a new liberal Ireland, their place appears to have been taken by the far-right who like the sidhe of old appear to have the knack of being everywhere and nowhere – frequently all at the same time.
Like the sidhe, the far-right are known to involve themselves in events even when it is not clearly obvious that they are doing so. At least that’s what the mainstream Irish media would have you believe!
Students of Irish folklore will be aware of the concept of the changling. Indeed, the W.B. Yeats poem The Stolen Child takes this as its subject matter in its exploration of the sidhe luring away a child and replacing it with another child or changling. In Celtic mythology, the belief even existed that a hare could change into a human and vice versa.
Perhaps the modern equivalent to that in Ireland today involves a male changing into a female or vice versa as part of a myth based on gender ideology. Unlike the changling of old, however, that supernatural and science-defying feat is now apparently accomplished by nothing more than the signing of a gender recognition certificate!
Telling stories and repeating them until they became accepted as fact was a feature of the craft of the seanchaí or storyteller of old. The good news for folklore enthusiasts is that the craft of the seanchaí appears to be alive and well. Today it is more likely to be practised by some government spin doctor earning a six figure salary and living the life in the south Dublin power belt. Regardless of that, the basic craft of the seanchaí remains unchanged – keep repeating your stories and they eventually become accepted as fact.
So too, a type of ethno-folklore continues to thrive on Ireland’s social media platforms of all places. This sees critics of illegal migration and asylum fraud usually being met with a post on X (formerly Twitter) posing the open question ‘but what about the famine..’?
The gist of this piece of contemporary ethno-folklore goes that because Irish people suffered a famine in the 19th century, with many fleeing to America as a result, Ireland is now honour-bound to have an open borders immigration policy in the 21 st century.
Folklore and mythology are all well and good but surely even the most naïve must recognise how ridiculous it is to even attempt to equate today’s migrants travelling with the latest piece of high-tech iPhone kit in their back pocket with the famine Irish, many of whom owned nothing more than the clothes on their back.
The same social media folklore omits the obvious fact that throughout most of the 19th century, most nationalities were also free to basically turn up and enter the US. Today, no one is and that also includes Irish people by the way.
Indeed, myths and related folklore about Irish people entering America or Australia these days with a yarn about how a dog ate their passport on the plane seem surprisingly scarce. Perhaps that’s the thing about liberal mythology – you are allowed to leave out the bits that don’t suit your agenda.
Irish liberals’ carefully curated view of themselves as logical and rational takes another hit when you consider the proposed introduction of laws based on ‘hate speech’. The idea of laws based on emotions – especially when you can’t even define the hate crimes – hardly sits well with the notion of people who like to give the impression that they live by reason and logic. There was a time when those in power believed that the laws of the land should be based on clearly observable actions and not emotions of all things.
Far from being removed from the world of myths and myth-making, it would seem that our home-grown Irish liberals are in fact totally immersed in their own self-serving myths and myth-making. Indeed, the greatest myth of all in Ireland today would appear to be the one about liberals being rational, tolerant and inclusive.
Perhaps that’s the real myth that we should all be countering.