An A-to-Z of Irishness | News.com.au Jack Marx Live Blog

An A-to-Z of Irishness | News.com.au Jack Marx Live Blog Jack Marx Monday, March 17, 2008 at 09:08am Today is Saint Patrick’s Day, and tonight is the night when all good Irishmen and women get plastered. Of course, we all want to join them, but how much do we really know about the modern Irish culture? Don’t be caught with nothing to say - study this A-to-Z of modern Irish notables and you’ll be able to name drop like a Paddy tonight. Steer clear of The Troubles, though. J James Joyce, the most controversial literature figure of the 20th century. Some believe Ulysses to be the watershed of modern fiction, but not everyone agrees - when Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, was sent to Carl Jung for psychiatric evaluation, the good doctor read Ulysses and declared the girl OK, but her father schizophrenic. He was certainly an odd guy - he once destroyed a novel on which he was working because his wife scolded that it would “never be published” (that showed her), and it is widely suspected that James indulged in an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who went quite nuts in the end. Nevertheless, James made the Time 100, so there’s hope for Milton Orkopolous yet. K Lord Kelvin, Belfast father of the Kelvin scale of temperature and the transatlantic cable. Very, very smart, but, occassionally, very, very wrong: in 1897 he told the Royal Society that “Radio has no future”, and that “heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”, just eight years before Orville and Wilbur Wright managed it. L Next time some loved one dies on you, or just dumps you and disappears (a fate worse than their death, for sure), go fetch of copy of A Grief Observed, one of the lesser-known books by Belfast-born Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, written immediately after the death of his wife - if it doesn’t sort you out, you can’t be helped. And then there’s Phil Lynott, whose ode to Elvis Presley I never tire of. A finer cross between Prince and Jimi Hendrix there will never be. N Liam Neeson, from Ballymena, Northern ireland, who, despite having a CV that runs the gamut from serious historical drama to superhero action and back again, will probably best be remembered for his wonderful performances on Sesame Street S Jonathan Swift, satirist who wrote: “When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” Also, Soon, by Dublin group My Bloody Valentine, who really knew how to make guitars weaze. T The truly terrible Westlife. Probably safer to raise The Troubles with any self-respecting Irishman. U The Undertones, from Derry, featuring a young Feargal Sharkey, who always sounded like he was riding a jackhammer. V Veronica Guerin, journalist for Irish newspaper The Sunday Independent, shot dead by drug dealers in 1996. Played in the movie by Our Cate, seen here with Colin Farrell, who’s language isn’t getting any better. W Waiting for Godot, an excruciatingly shithouse play by Samuel Beckett, who you can thank for the fact that so much theatre is like this nowadays. Much more entertaining is Where’s Me Jumper by Cork group The Sultans of Ping FC, or anything by Oscar Wilde. Y William Butler Yeats, who led the 20th century Irish literary revival from Dublin. Despite his charm as a poet, he didn’t do so well with the ladies - after proposing unsuccessfully to Maud Gonne in 1916, he then pitched a woo at her daughter, who, as a child, had asked Yeats to marry her, but, as an adult, laughed. He did better with Georgie Hyde-Lees, whom he met at a Séance, and who married him despite the combined opinion of her friends that William was actually dead. Z Zooropa, eighth album by U2, a Dublin band who began a little unsure of themselves but went on to become one of the most popular and enduring rock bands in history. It is said that, when informed that Bono’s life was now half over, God responded: “Bugger...I’ve grown quite used to this chair.”