An Anthropology of the Irish in Belgium

Belonging, Identity and Community in Europe

Sean O’ Dubhghaill

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030241476
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The first anthropological account of the Irish diaspora in Europe in the 21 st century, this book provides a culture-centric examination of the Irish diaspora. Focusing less on an abstract or technical definition of Irish self-identification, the author allows members of this group to speak through vignettes and interview excerpts, providing an anthropological lens that allows the reader to enter a frame of self-reference. This book therefore provides architecture to understand how diasporic communities might understand their own identities in a new way and how they might reconsider the role played by mobility in changing expressions of identity. Providing firsthand, experiential and narrative insight into the Irish diaspora in Europe, this volume promises to contribute an anthropological perspective to historical accounts of the Irish overseas, theoretical works in Irish studies, and sociological examinations of Irish identity and diaspora.

© The Author(s) 2020

Sean O’ DubhghaillAn Anthropology of the Irish in Belgiumhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24147-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. The Irish Community at Home and Abroad

Sean O’ Dubhghaill¹

(1)

Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Sean O’ Dubhghaill

Keywords

CommunityIrelandAnthropologyImaginary

End Abstract

Robin Boylorn and Mark Orbe (2014) contend that auto-ethnography, writing about one’s own experiences as an explanation that motivates specific research interests, can be used to convey information derived from sense experience; Peter Collins and Anselma Gallinat (2010) also claim that the self is the primary conveyance of formative pre-theoretical notions and that recounting these events serves to heighten the experience of ethnographic engagement. Despite the potential shortcomings of auto-ethnography, there is a vignette from my own childhood which I believe can concisely impart formative experiences that took place in the company of my Irish-American cousins. The necessity of this vignette’s inclusion stems from the overwhelming number of cross-cutting issues it entails: belonging, diaspora membership, the necessity to perform one’s identity and of Irishness more generally.

In March of 1993, my Irish-American mother drove two of my Irish-American cousins and myself down to a remote castle in County Cork, in the province of Munster in Ireland. At the very top of Blarney Castle, which is surrounded by lush groves of beautifully arranged thickets and meadows, is a kind of enclosure surrounded by fortress walls, but which is also exposed to the elements. The main attraction lies off to one side of, and atop, a small pile of scaffolding. The reason for our journey was to visit ‘The Blarney Stone’ which, when kissed, is thought to imbue those undergoing the ritual with the gift of ‘eloquence’. First, it might be important to stress that while the gift that is ‘acquired’ through this odd ritual is not exactly eloquence as such but is, in actuality, commonly referred to as the ‘gift of the gab’, a symbolic construction that binds those who have undergone the ritual and those living in Ireland. It is, without reading between the lines, thought to involve the initiand’s induction into receiving a claim of belonging and the gift of being seamlessly akin to the Irish in manners of speech, even after (or especially after perhaps) they have departed from Ireland. Put otherwise, the gap between diaspora belonging and Irishness can be closed through this one act, so its importance is difficult to overstate.

Obtaining this highly prized ethnic marker was why we had arrived and my cousins ran quickly past our tour guide in order to ensure that they had a good place in line. I was more fearful and hesitant. What was required, as can be seen partially in Fig. 1.1, is that the neophytes lie on their back, grab a hold of two iron bars, necessary for securing oneself, and to kiss a part of the rock that is smoother than elsewhere on the castle’s inner wall. An attendant assists in this, laying his/her hands on the torso of anyone supplicating themselves to the rite.

Fig. 1.1

Kiss the Blarney Stone

What cannot be observed in Fig. 1.1, though, is that there is a sheer drop, protected only by a fine grill, over which the head of the prospective initiand is placed. My fear of heights got the better of me and I stood ramrod still as my cousins beckoned me to join them in the queue. I saw participant after participant undergo the procedure; I remember the majority of them as being (Irish-)Americans who had Irish roots, but no matter how expertly it was conducted, time after time, I could not be convinced to partake.

I remember feeling quite embarrassed at this. My cousins returned and were now affecting Irish accents. My mother spoke to me shortly thereafter, upon seeing my dejection. ‘You know that you don’t have to kiss the Blarney Stone though, right?’ I was intrigued. ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, you were born here, your father is Irish and you speak Irish. There’s no need for you to do this like there is for them. You already are Irish’. I remember feeling incredibly relieved. What had not occurred to me at that time, but which would become a huge theoretical concern during my academic career, was what had constituted Irishness in this instance; why was it that I did not have to perform in the way that they had? What exactly made me more Irish than them and why was I thought to be exempt from having to display it? What makes anyone Irish at all?

What is at stake in this vignette is still as relevant to my research today as it was when it occurred over two decades ago. In unpacking what had happened, or at least how I remember what had happened, what had taken place was the concretising of a claim to belonging by way of something irreducibly associated with one’s identity; my cousins had travelled from overseas and in so doing had been given the opportunity to (re)connect with their roots. To me, it was a matter of driving for about three hours to a new locale. What was more was that I did not have to get in touch with a connection that was imaginary in nature or that had to be retrieved; my connection seems to have been secured by a kind of factual bind and just by dint of what might be viewed as contingent things, I was thought to be exempt from having to commemorate my identity.

The questions take on a different dimension when measured against the concerns of mobility, imaginary connections over time, how we perceive of difference (and how we differentiate) and particularly when placed against the backdrop of massive webs of significance, which is not secure. This work is dedicated to the task of directly engaging with these issues. Returning to the vignette outlined previously, we might begin to place the transformation of the subject, their ‘becoming’ something else, front and centre by asking: how do the Irish community abroad reorient themselves to new surroundings? Do they maintain a connection to their home (and if so what constitutes this connection)? Do they become something else, and in so doing lose something of their original identity? What role does the Irish language play in how their views of themselves change? Does this depend on who is speaking (or not speaking) the language? What messages about Irishness are being transmitted more generally throughout the media and what are these messages symbolically communicating? These questions are engaged in the chapters that follow; first, perhaps, we might need to get a better overview of the area in which this study takes place.

The distance between Belgium and Ireland is a little over 500 miles. How ‘close’ Ireland and Belgium are, though, is not something that can be measured in miles. For instance, in terms of the European Union’s development in the post-war era, the fact that Ireland was at a remove from the continent proper by way of a sea involved a certain sense of disconnectedness, a certain lack of sameness (particularly when Ireland acceded to the European community). Previously in history, the exiles who made Leuven, Belgium, their home tried to maintain a connection with Ireland by studying a Scottish philosopher, Duns Scotus, and would have made no distinction between the Irish and Scottish people in their studies in the seventeenth century. What I mean to communicate is that how difference is constituted changes over time. Belgium and Ireland’s nearness is, and always has been, a matter of some debate and touches on a wide range of issues of belonging, wealth, sameness and difference over time.

Belgium is an excellent, unique field site and vantage point from which to examine the Irish community. As alluded to briefly in the previous paragraph, the connections between the two countries run deep, but two overarching themes of this work are Ireland’s accession to the European Union (and how Brussels is invariably referred to as ‘the heart of Europe’) as well as the long-standing historical connection, from the time of the Wild Geese’s departure (examined in Chapter 4) to the Irish college which still stands in Leuven today. Belgium is also an excellent country from which to launch an examination into the complex topics of identity formation, one’s preferred language and the role played by ‘Europe’ in reorienting our senses of belonging. Moreover, as Blainey (2016) laments in an excellent work entitled: Groundwork for the Anthropology of Belgium: An Overlooked Microcosm of Europe, Belgium remains a largely overlooked microcosm of anthropological examination, its huge international population and historical interconnectedness (to both Europe and its former colonies, the proper memorialisation of which is still the source of some discord) notwithstanding.

These concerns give rise to questions that are relevant for any anthropological examination of any community, the Irish community in this instance, and include: How has anthropological scholarship on Irish communities been received since its inception? Who is entitled to write about Ireland and why? What is the difference between a diaspora and a community abroad? What binds members of a community together and what sustains them? This chapter is dedicated to answering these questions.

The central theme of the present work is to address the question of how, and exact manner in which, the Irish community in Belgium might be examined anthropologically. Moreover, I attempt to tease out particular difficulties in how the concept of community has been deployed, how it presupposes something that cannot be demonstrated, that is imaginary and personal. Examining the Irish communities who live in Belgium, their claims about belonging and how they imagine their lives also touches on aspects that are deeply personal and strike at the very heart of how we are connected to our place of birth, even though we reside overseas. It is a task for which anthropology is excellently placed, given its emphasis on the personal, shared, and lived character of a particular people group. This introductory chapter aims to establish a general repertoire for what exactly an Irish community is, and how it has been studied anthropologically, so that we can come to better understand how we might investigate an Irish community overseas (and whether that community comprises a diaspora or not).

The Irish Community: An A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. The Irish Community at Home and Abroad
• 2. Identity Politics, Belonging and Europe
• 3. The Irish in Brussels: Culture, Language, Politics, Belonging
• 4. Placing the Irish Diaspora in Place and Time in Europe
• 5. Non-Irish, Irish Speakers Among the Irish Community in Belgium
• 6. Imagined Belonging and the Irish Diaspora
• Back Matter