It's startling to learn that Ireland is now a junior member of the French commonwealth, the Francophponie. This is the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's latest attempt to cosy up to his little EU chum Emmanuel Macron. Apparently Varadkar wants to increase Ireland's 'global footprint', and he claims that Ireland clearly qualifies as part of the French-speaking world because Samuel Beckett (an Irishman who got out as soon as he could) wrote many of his works in French.
Oh dear, oh dear. I suppose this nonsense might have given Beckett a quiet chuckle (while doing nothing to improve his opinion of the governance of his native land). It's just a shame that Myles na gCopaleen isn't around to see it – imagine what fun he'd have had with the notion of Ireland as an essentially French nation reclaiming its rightful place in La Francophonie...
Anyway, in the ridiculously early hours of tomorrow morning, I'll be flying out to Kalamata for a week of walking in the Mani. I wonder which queue I'll be in at Gatwick when I return – will I be returning to a sovereign nation or a vassal state? I rather think I know the answer to that one, but I still hold out a faint hope that Macron, the Emperor of Europe and of the far-flung Francophonie, might have put his foot down and forced la perfide Albion into a no-deal Brexit (i.e. Brexit). You never know.
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While you are doubtless correct that Flann O'Brien would have mined Ireland's observer status of this organisation to great and enjoyable comic effect, it is hardly to be wondered at that Ireland should seek to increase its "global footprint" as its heretofore closest political and largest trading partner has decided to betray bilateral obligations solemnly entered into in pursuit of an abject fantasy of "independence", the right of other nations to which it has singularly failed to recognise and continues to fail to recognise to this day. What truly galls is the bitterness, reflected in the scathing misrepresentations posted here, on foot of the ghastly Spectator article, at other countries seeking benignly to pursue their interests while asserting the right of the UK to wreak havoc by unilaterally reneging on its international obligations.
ReplyDeleteMad stuff.