I was browsing the Internet at home the other night when, suddenly, I managed to access the US Central Intelligence Agency's file on Ireland.
You're probably thinking this involved a major security breach on my part. So I might as well tell you - after pausing briefly to enjoy the notoriety - that the information is offered freely on the agency's website, at: www.cia.gov.
Indeed, the stuff on Ireland is part of the CIA's annual World Fact Book; and it only became a file when I downloaded it. If I add that the Website includes a "homepage for kids", in which - among other things - you can get an introduction to the agency's "Canine Corps" by double-clicking on a Golden Labrador called "Bogart" ("Bo" to his friends), you'll know the level of security breach we're talking about.
Bo (probably not his real name) has been retired from the agency for a few years, but still likes to drop into the office "to keep the young pups on their toes". When I finally managed to extricate myself from Bo's tour of canine HQ (by cruelly throwing a bone out of an upstairs window), I got around to the chapter on Ireland; which, disappointingly, contains only basic information on things like climate ("mild winters, cool summers, overcast about half the time"), area ("slightly larger than West Virginia") and terrain ("mostly level, to a rolling interior plain").
OK, it also notes the number of Irish airports with "paved runways"; estimates the State's available "military manpower" at 967,621 (They must be including me); and features a map showing major population centres such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick and . . . (cue the X-Files music) Tullamore. I don't know much about Tullamore (the last time I passed through it, the only rolling terrain I saw was the CIE one I was on, and it wasn't rolling fast enough), but why it's on a CIA map is anyone's guess. Knock is not on the map, although it has a paved runway, and a bloody big one too. I'm not paranoid, but you couldn't be up to Offaly people.
On the other hand, you have to question the quality of the CIA's intelligence, given that under the heading of "Ethnic Groups", the book states baldly that Irish people are either "Celtic" or "English". Nothing at all about the major cultural subdivisions, such as Ulster-Scots or Cork people, to name only the ones who've caused the most trouble. And, as I've said before - leaving the English part aside - just how Celtic is the majority population here anyway?
There have been so many invasions of this country over the millennia, you'd get dizzy just thinking about them. For one thing, at least a few of us - the Meath football team springs to mind - must be descended from the Mesolithic farmers who arrived thousands of years before the Celts, and who in their spare time may have built ancient structures such as Newgrange, and the road from Slane to Ardee.
Our Celtic past is a nebulous thing. One "Celtic" version of my surname means "hound of Ulster", more or less; and yet I have no hound characteristics, apart from a tendency to scratch myself and the fact that my wife is always asking me to fetch things.
But the point is, we have become such major exporters of Celtic cultural products that we have a vested interest in promoting ourselves as pure Celts - descended from a race of proud, warlike men, and women who all looked like the Corrs.
As I've also said before (I know, I'm repeating myself like an old CIA dog), most of the Celtic products are inspired by two broad themes: bad weather (Celtic mist, Celtic breeze, Celtic storm, etc); and personality disorders (Celtic vision, Celtic spirit, Celtic-to-win-the-Scottish-league-this-year-predictions, etc), many of which are caused by bad weather. Hardly something to celebrate.
Personally, I've always thought Ireland was a multicultural country, albeit underneath a veneer of universal conformism. But if it wasn't multicultural before, it's heading that way now, and I'm all for it.
Dublin in particular has become a veritable kaleidoscope of colours lately, as well as a veritable credit-card application form of languages other than English. The latest manifestation of the trend was a court case last week, reported in the Irish Independent.
According to this, a Dublin publican was fined £1,400 for an incident last November when gardai called at his premises at 12.45 a.m. and spent 15 minutes knocking before anyone heard them. Finally inside, they found "30 people, mostly Chinese nationals, drinking and singing to a Karaoke machine".
The first thing that occurs to me is that 30 Chinese people in an Irish pub constitutes an ethnic group, whatever the CIA report says. The second thing is that, while the report doesn't say where exactly the gardai were from, the incident must have been a major clash (the Garda file would have said "altercation") of cultures.
And yet it wasn't. The striking thing about the incident was that the Chinese were participating in two quintessentially Irish cultural practices: singing in a pub, and trying to get a drink after hours.
Which suggests that this country's famous assimilative powers are as strong as ever. On the other hand, I can't believe that the dramatically improved weather this year - starting last St Patrick's Day - is unconnected to the influx of people from warmer countries.
I know it's fanciful to think the newcomers could be bringing the weather with them, and it's probably just the Greenhouse Effect and rising sea levels. But the fact is, the country has not been overcast anything like "half the time" this summer, and if it continues, the CIA will have to update its fact-book and apologise.
On the other hand, if it is the Greenhouse Effect changing the climate, Tullamore could be under water soon. Maybe the Americans are planning a naval base.
