2.Why, in your opinion, do the Irish have contradictory and even
paradoxical attitudes to the English?
In Ireland this ambivalence frequently takes the form of a full-blown love/hate
relationship ,where admiration and condemnation of the English often go hand
-in-hand.
On the one hand ,the English political domination of Ireland has left the Republic
with a secure and workable administrative ,educational ,and judicial system .It has
also ensured that most Irish people now speak English .And it should be said that
there has been so much movement back and forth between the British Isles and
Ireland that almost every Irish family has some relations in England and Scotland or
Wales, or most probably has worked in these places for some portion of their lives.
But, since the time of Irish colonisation under Queen Elizabeth I, Ireland has
been in the control of England for a long time .In implementing some repressive
measures ,Ireland made a change from one of the most compliant of the British
colonies to an independent country. So the Irish are proud they do not have a
monarchy : they think of themselves as citizens, not as subjects.
And Irish have sought to define their culture in opposition to that of Great
Britain ,the British have for their part been responsible for many of the stereotypes
that are still in force about the Irish .For centuries ,the British caricatured the Irish as,
at best ,dreamy and impractical ; at worst, lazy and given to drinking in excess .But
from Ireland’s recent economic success that Irish are neither lazy nor incompetent .
Quite the opposite :the Irish workforce is now young ,highly educated,
entrepreneurial ,and discipline.And the decline of the authority of the Roman Catholic
Church ;this alone would serve as a marker to the emergence of new parameter as
what constitutes Irish identity.
2013 级商英班 于敏娟 201300071094