Eamonn Clark, STL

Dublin is a city of contradictions.

It’s a place where there are churches and bars on every street. You can see a pious old woman on her way back from mass and a gaggle of girls with the most vulgar tastes in dress standing on the same corner waiting for a bus. You can find rabble-rousers and men of the most refined manners in the same shop. There goes a priest, there goes a trans-rights activist.

It’s a city at war with itself.

In truth, Ireland is a complex country. It’s not complex like America – America (and Americans) are complex because of parts… lots of “things to do.” Ireland (and Irish) are complex because of layers… lots of “things going on in there.” (Yes, yes, it’s an oversimplification. Got it.) The subtle and amiable wit of your average Irish gentleman is counterbalanced by a charming habit of self-deprecation or at least humility. (Irish tend not to brag.)

Even the Irish flag symbolizes a conflict, represented by the layers of the tricolor – the Orange and the Green… Protestants and Catholics. White in the middle as an aspiration of peace.

Ireland is just barely big enough to be really anonymous if you want to be and small enough to be a well-known figure without being some kind of phenom. Though it’s not quite like the Middle East or Iceland, where everyone knows exactly how they are related to everyone else, there’s nevertheless only ever a few degrees of separation between any two people. Major public figures – musicians, politicians, athletes, prelates – they are just kind of part of the family, and part of the story.

Everyone is sort of in it together, in a tangible way. That means all the tensions and wounds of poor old Ireland are shared collectively somehow, too. So is a lot of the unwillingness to talk about it all. This extends from the relatively recent violence (late 1960’s-1998) between North and South during the Troubles, to the ecclesiastical abuse crises (plural) that unfolded on everyone’s watch – and in which therefore basically the whole of Irish society was complicit, in one way or another, to some degree. It’s not polite table conversation. Or polite conversation anywhere else, even on a blog. But the prolonged failure to wrestle with these important collective memories only serves to bury them deeper. What does that do to a soul, of an individual and of a country? Perhaps forms some kind of neurosis?

This theme of repressed pain over the abuse crises in particular was explored and driven home very well by Derek Scally in his recent book “The Best Catholics in the World,” a must-read for anyone interested in the Irish situation. It’s not an entirely balanced take, but it’s an important one.

Dublin, the cultural and political capital of the Republic of Ireland, is something of a symbol of the Irish psyche. There’s some kind of neurosis that is manifesting itself there. No doubt, most Irish would resent that. And that’s kind of the point. In Dublin there are plenty of “normal people,” but there is also a very vocal minority of well-funded and coddled extreme leftists, a large number of ruffians and other kinds of low-culture individuals, and now a significant influx of immigrants (many of them seemingly economic opportunists rather than refugees). Then there is also the undercurrent of the echoes of the strong piety that once animated the city, just barely hanging on, with approximately 1% mass attendance any given Sunday. Now, all that does not represent Ireland. And yet it does, because that’s a major part of what Dublin is, and Dublin is, well, Dublin. So there’s tension between what is most culturally and internationally identifiable about Ireland, and the greater part of the country, or “real Ireland.” All this gives Dublin a uniquely charged energy which is rather hard to describe. And that energy sits on top of the rest of the country, at odds with it.

Layers and contradictions.

These thoughts came to me (in a less-developed form) at the Dublin Rally for Life the other day. It was a good crowd, maybe 8,000-10,000 or so, from all over the country. I already found myself running into people I’ve met during my stay, and that without trying to meet up. It’s not the same as D.C. – smaller, yes, and also lacking the “organizational splendor” that comes with the sort of funding and personnel involved in the March for Life. It’s a much quainter operation. But it has heart.

The constitutional referendum on abortion in Ireland passed by a very slim margin a few years ago (2018). Dubliners would have been the outsized supporters of this. So there were some unfriendly onlookers as we went down one of the main thoroughfares of the city, ending up next to the River Liffey. But there were also people walking by who were openly supportive. A mix. More layers and contradictions to explore.

Like the Troubles or the abuse crises, abortion by this point has touched just about everyone in Ireland somehow. Will the awful reality of 31,000 unborn being killed be yet another deep wound to leave alone for now and later psychologically bury? Or will this tragedy be too much to ignore and suppress, something that runs up too hard against the deeper cultural values which “real Ireland” still possesses deep down? Only time will tell. In the meantime, the Liffey keeps on flowing, and Dublin keeps on changing.