I was reading an article in the Irish Times today commenting on recent remarks by Glen Hansard, and Irish musician and actor recently known for his role in the film Once. What struck me in the article was a comment about the status of high culture in Ireland. The writers states:
>> "We do, as a nation, have a problem with high art. Public art has a terrible record of being vandalised."
Given my personal interest in Irish history this comment struck me because it echoes one of the central points of my dissertation - that popular cultural is the real barometer to measure Irish society against. It's not just political. It's not just that the IRA historically targeted governmental monuments to destroy because of what they represent. It's deeper. The Irish have had a contempt for the upper classes for so long and the number of elites has been so small, comparatively, that high culture only matters so much as that it correlates to British (or any other) culture. The popular is what truly represents the people of Ireland. The fact that class is understudied in Irish history has led scholars to assume the tension in Ireland ran solely along ethnic lines, like F. S. L. Lyons' "Culture and Anarchy." But ethnicity is only part of the issue. Were a lot of Irish elites non-Catholics of Anglo-Irish stock? Most likely. That fact, however, seems like a convenient excuse to divert a class issue into an ethnic one. Because most of the folks in Ireland come from modest means, it's only natural that they hold high art in contempt. By exploring the the popular aspects of culture helps to illustrate a more complex Irish history.
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