Contemporary Irish Culture
... With the rapid amount of change in Ireland, especially over the past decade, what of the culture? What exactly is it that makes the Irish, Irish in this new modern age. The first aspect of Irish culture I will examine is its language. ... The Irish speak with an accent known as an Irish Brogue. ... It is still required of all Irish children to learn Gaelic in school but the majority of young people do not use it out side of school. ... The cultural ecology of Ireland is a defining aspect of the culture. ... Family has always been and still is the most important part of the Irish’s life and culture. The Irish believe that ones first responsibility is to ones family. ... Divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1996 when the Irish population voted on a referendum to make it legal but the process through which one can get a divorce is very difficult. ... In 1937, Eamon de Valera drafted the Irish Constitution using text that explicitly highlighted the favored status of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. ... There is wide spread belief in the idea of the “luck of the Irish.” The general population believes that the Irish are intrinsically lucky and that carrying things like four leaf clovers or lucky charms one is more likely to experience good fortune. ... A major aspect of any culture is its art. Traditionally Irish poets and artists such as W. ... With the changes of the past decade an almost new Ireland is available for todays Irish artists. Gerry Hynes, who was the first woman director to win a Tony (for “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” in 1998) and is an Irishwoman put it best, “In the old days, much of Irish writing was about absence—the absence of people the absence of money, the absence of cultural influences. ... ” Traditionally, Irish literature was rooted in a near-sacred sense of place. James Joyces "Ulysses" is an epic mapped out on Dublin streets; Yeatss and Synges works are tied tightly to the Irish landscape. ... In the Temple Bar district--billed as "Dublins cultural quarter"--the culture in question is global. Signs for Persian and Italian cuisine compete with those advertising the Auold Dubliner and Gallaghers traditional Irish restaurant. ... In "How We Wrecked Rural Ireland," an article in the current issue of the Irish Planning Institute, the institutes former president charges that the country is destined to keep building eyesores. "Irish people have no reverence for the past at all, because it was so poor and unhappy," says Ann Marie Hourihane, a Sunday Tribune journalist whose book of essays, "She Moves Through the Boom," examines everyday life in the Celtic Tiger. ... Over the past decade Irish culture has become more popular than ever, especially in America, and a commodity that Dublin is as eager to promote as its tax breaks or pool of IT talent.