Despite a number of other potential candidates with equally good credentials, sometime during the Middle Ages the Christian Church declared Patrick to be the patron saint of Ireland, and he has held this position ever since. Every Christian country has one (and some have even more than one), but in contrast to the patron saints of other nations, Patrick is the only one used for the creation of an entirely secular cult of great popularity. So every year March 17th - the feast of St. Patrick - becomes a day of massive celebrations in Ireland and many other countries. But this was not always so and is rather a modern development which did not even start in Ireland.
Although it was the Waterford-born Irish Franciscan friar Luke Wadding (1588-1657) who was instrumental in establishing the feast of St. Patrick as an official church holiday, it remained a purely religious celebration in Ireland for centuries. The custom of celebrating the day in a more popular form, with gatherings, banquettes, drinking and public parades, began in the 13 colonies of New England, four decades before they became the United States of America. Even at that early stage there was a strong contingent of Irish people there, especially in Boston and New York. From small beginnings in 1737 the celebrations and parades grew in size and number all over the USA, in particular during the 19th century, after millions of Irish had fled their homeland during the famine years and sought a future in the new world.
In Ireland St. Patrick's Day became a public holiday in 1903, after the Irish MP James O'Mara had introduced a bill to that effect in the British parliament. But there were no parades yet. The first one on Irish soil took place in Dublin in 1931, nine years after the establishment of the Irish Free State. Even though now augmented with public celebrations, the day remained in Ireland still a predominantly religious feast. It became the National Day of the Republic of Ireland, but only since the 1990s it is rapidly becoming a global event (as well as an ever larger festival in Ireland, now extending over five days in Dublin).
By that time the Irish government, inspired by the sudden and unexpected economic boom (called the "Celtic Tiger"), began to promote Irishness, Irish culture and Irish products around the world. Ever since practically the whole Irish cabinet, plus an ever growing number of junior ministers, travels abroad for St. Patrick's Day, in order to promote everything Irish everywhere on the one day of the year the world loves to be Irish and to wear green. No longer a religious feast (even though the Church still sees and celebrates it as such), Paddy's Day has become a huge commercial event that makes millions for everyone and every industry that can connect with it.Almost every year new countries join the celebration, encouraged by the Irish government and supported by the numerous Irish ex-pats one can find now everywhere. This year it is the turn of China to jump onto the green band wagon, and since a single day seems no longer enough to celebrate all things Irish, Beijing laid on a five-day Patrick's festival (pictured above right), copying the parallel event in Dublin.
Even though the number of Irish ex-pats in China is relatively small and St. Patrick is as alien to Chinese culture as Moses, Jesus or Mohammed, money talks and anything that brings in more is now welcome in the officially still Communist People's Republic of China. There is also an ever growing number of Chinese living, working and studying in Ireland. In fact Chinese students are now a quite important source of income for Irish universities, and China benefits by getting in return thousands of well-educated academics who speak good English. One should also not overlook the fact that 2008 is the year of the Beijing Olympics, a major project for the Chinese government and widely used to strengthen ties with western countries.
Since the Chinese leadership decided to allow Irish ex-pats (and anyone else who likes this sort of thing) to roam the streets of Beijing for five days, clad in green T-shirts, wearing idiotic green leprechaun hats and getting drunk on the all too well-known Guinness, the Irish government felt obliged to dispatch one of its ministers as well to grace the rather tacky event with his dignified presence. As all the cabinet ministers were already booked for similar missions to places where there are more Irish and the tradition is established for longer, the Beijing job was given to Dick Roche, Fianna Fáil TD for Wicklow and Minister of State (in both the Taoiseach's Department and the Department for Foreign Affairs) with special responsibility for Europe. It demonstrates once again the rather typical confusion of the Irish government to send the Minister for Europe to a minor fun event in China, while the country is preparing for another EU referendum and there are major matters discussed in the various EU councils.
And yes, a minor fun event it was, and not more. Less generous people would call it a silly farce for which the Irish taxpayer has to pay a lot of money. And they would be right, too. Obviously neither Mr. Roche nor anyone else in the government did bother to study Chinese culture, mentality and general political practice. Marches and public demonstrations are neither popular nor encouraged in China, unless they are organised, orchestrated and tightly controlled by the Communist Party or the state authorities. So as much as the Chinese try to make "good weather" in the run-up period to the Olympic Games, they remain inflexible bureaucrats who will have things their way - or not at all. The small Irish ex-pat group in Beijing which organised the festival with massive sponsorship from the Irish government, Enterprise Ireland and other organisations and public bodies, was told the planned parade down Wangfujing Lu - Beijing's major pedestrianised shopping street - could not exceed 200 people.
So Paddy Taxpayer was financing the official trip of a minister to China, to join a bunch of ex-pats going wild for a week and promoting the stereotype that being Irish means disorganised, oafish, noisy and drunk. But it was not just Mr. Roche alone who flew to China. Oh no! A whole delegation accompanied him on this very special mission, including blonde Irish dancing girls in blue-embroidered green dresses, government officials and civil servants, representatives of Irish companies, some journalists and a group of "normal" people who went just for the craic. Some of them came from the Christian Brothers' College in Cork, presumably brought along to tell the Chinese that there is a "People's Republic" in Ireland as well. Taxpayers' money well spent, wouldn't you agree?
In the end the Irish embassy managed to soften up the Chinese bureaucrats.
So when the first St. Patrick's Day parade in China took off on Sunday to start the five-day-long Irish festival in Beijing, there were perhaps close to a thousand participants, a truly motley crew if there ever was one. A satirical caricaturist, out to make the Irish look like bumbling fools, could not have done a better job. It was one of the tackiest events of its kind and included the most ridiculous looking impersonation of St. Patrick I have ever seen. His alb was way too short and reached just below the knees, and what was meant to represent a Celtic cross on the chasuble looked more like the targeting cross-hairs of a rifle. Well, we cannot offend the secular Chinese by displaying too many Christian symbols, can we?
To make things worse, the fellow posing as St. Patrick sported the most unreal and idiotic looking false beard ever seen on a man. Not even the tackiest of tacky "Santa" impersonators would sink that low in his choice of fake facial hair!
There was no interaction between the marchers and ordinary Chinese people, most of whom had not the slightest idea what was going on. Shoppers and passers-by looked bewildered at the semi-costumed crowd walking down the street, led by a Scottish (!!!) piper. A minor traffic jam occurred, while hundreds of strange-looking people - most of them white - paraded through central Beijing's main shopping street, very closely watched and shadowed by about 200 uniformed policemen who did not really know what to do and how to behave towards the "green fools" either. Yes, all the Paddy's Day friendship and peaceful intentions did not make the Chinese authorities take any risk or even a single chance.
To Chinese minds, formed for 25 centuries by the austere and principled ways of Confucianism and sharpened and steeled by now nearly 60 years of Communism, the whole idea of a nation going silly, noisy and getting drunk to celebrate its special greatness is just not comprehensible. Something very odd from the other side of China's Great Wall, to say the least.
Not even the special personal appearance of Ireland's Minister of State for Europe made any impression on the Chinese. His presence only added a good number of plain-clothed secret policemen to the 200 already there in uniform. And by the looks of it, Mr. Roche did not enjoy the experience much either, despite several desperate attempts to smile at everyone.His very smart and rather serious looking black suit was lightened up by a brightly-green tie, but since that seemed not to be enough Irish green for the occasion, the minister also wore a posh lime-green scarf, almost looking like a priest's stole. (see photo right)
Being not a very tall man, Mr. Roche looked more like a leprechaun missing his hat than the representative of the Irish government. It is not known what the Chinese thought of the rather sad and ridiculous spectacle, but I imagine it did not enhance our nation's image in the Far East.
The parade itself probably qualifies for the Guinness Book of Records in several categories: Not only as the first staged in China and the most tacky, but also as the shortest St. Patrick's Day parade ever. It started in front of the foreign language bookshop on Wangfujing Lu and marched down circa 150 metres to the Oriental Plaza, where it turned around - and ended, still closely watched by 200 uniformed policemen (and who knows how many others in plain cloth). And 1.33 policemen for each metre of the way must also be a record, I am sure.
Apart from his participation in this truly memorable event, the Minister of State for Europe also had meetings and talks with representatives of the Chinese government. Though they took place behind closed doors, it can be assumed that they were mostly about trade and tourism, the two subjects Irish ministers are sent abroad to promote on St. Patrick's Day. However, there was a much more important matter an Irish minister - and especially one from the Department of Foreign Affairs - could and should have raised with his Chinese hosts. While a few hundred Irish wearing green costumes were allowed a heavily supervised walk in central Beijing, thousands of red-robed Buddhist monks were demonstrating in Lhasa, the capital of Chinese-occupied Tibet, against the Chinese government and its oppression of traditional Tibetan culture. Those monks, inspired by the western ideas of freedom and liberty, were attacked by Chinese soldiers and police, beaten and shot at. The inofficial number of dead Tibetan civilians stands at about 100 by now, and the true figure of casualties could well be larger.
When Dick Roche was asked by an RTÉ reporter in Beijing if he had mentioned the matter of Tibet to his Chinese hosts, the minister declared that he had not, because "this is not what we are here for". Well, well, so that's it then: As long as some Irish ex-pats can fool around in Beijing and have their craic, we don't give a hoot for human rights and do not care for those thousands of monks, nor for the Tibetan people who live under Chinese oppression for nearly 50 years now! This is how Ireland is represented abroad, as a paradise for bumbling fools, not the slightest bit interested in real matters such as political clout and human rights.
Shame on you, Mr. Roche, for kowtowing so cowardly to the Chinese! Your silence in Beijing speaks a lot louder than anything you ever said or will say in future. And it will be remembered much longer than the silly parade you led in China.
But maybe we should not be too surprised by the minister's lack of political spine and moral fibre. This is the same Dick Roche who - as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in the last cabinet - messed up the electoral register and is personally responsible for the M 3 project going through the Skryne Valley and destroying the Hill of Tara.
In fact the very last thing he did in this position - before being demoted by Bertie Ahern to junior ministerial rank - was the signing of the extremely controversial building orders for the M 3. And now, when he is back from China, Mr. Roche will try to make us vote for the Lisbon Treaty. Well, we'll see about that...
- Condition:
angry
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