Mary Kenny
Ireland joined the French Commonwealth – the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie – at the end of last year and its presence is now being more widely noted. The OIF gathers together the 88 countries in the world (including 27 ‘observer’ nations) which are French-speaking and Ireland has been welcomed as one of the observer nations.
And I hope that Helen McEntee, who seems to be in charge of this office at the Department of Foreign Affairs, will not restrict Irish ‘Francophonie’ participants to the political class, when sending delegations to meetings of this ‘French Commonwealth’.
Joe Carroll, who contributes reviews to our book pages, is an experienced French speaker who has written a book about daily life in France and has served the European Commission in Brussels and Strasbourg, holding press conferences in confident French.
His wife Kathy Carroll conducts French visitors around Ireland with wit and élan. I should declare an interest and say they are friends of mine – Joe was a journalist in the Irish Press and Irish Times – but they are exactly the kind of people who should be illuminating the links between Ireland and la francophonie – cultivated French-speakers who also have their feet on the ground.
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Interestingly, when giving a reason why Ireland should be linked to the French-speaking Commonwealth, it was pointed out that Oscar Wilde and Sam Beckett had written some of their works in French. This is true, although Oscar’s French language output was fragmentary.
And although Beckett did write some of his plays first in French, he wasn’t really a very whole-hearted Irishman: the DFA’s own archives show that Beckett identified rather more as a Foxrock Protestant than as an Irish Republican. He joined the French Resistance partly because he disapproved of Ireland’s neutrality during World War II
There are many more persuasive links between Ireland and France, if we cast an eye across the history of Christian and Catholic, from the Irish monks who evangelised Alsace in the 8th Century to the Flight of the Earls – some of their descendents still resident in Bordeaux – and the St Omer education of Daniel O’Connell in penal times.
And then there is Wolfe Tone, who derived the very idea of a Republic, from France. Surely of some historical significance too?
De toute façon, j’espère que la liaison entre l’Irlande et la France dans l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie amenera aux plus grandes ententes culturelles entre nous!
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Lourdes getting a sense of balance
In France itself, it’s reported this week that the fortunes of the shrine of Lourdes have taken a turn for the better in financial terms.
Lourdes had been seriously in the red over the last 10 years – in 2014-15, it was overdrawn by €3 millions. But a new CEO was appointed three years ago – Guillaume de Vulpain, a layman who had been an executive of the car company Renault (which has had its own financial embarrassments).
But Mr de Vulpain has reversed the financial decline, and Lourdes has been declared once more in the black.
He imposed more fiscal discipline, and there have been reductions in staff – mainly by not replacing some retirees. By the simple measure of increasing candles from €2 apiece to €2.50, more revenue has been restored: the sale of candles remains a key aspect of Lourdes’s economy. (There are people – feutiers – engaged solely in the management of candles, and the disposal of melted wax.)
Linking Lourdes with ‘revenue’ and ‘fiscal discipline’ seems an uncomfortably close association of God and Mammon, but the French are notoriously practical in these matters. Lourdes is the second most-visited tourist location in France – attracting increasing numbers from Asia – and thus its economic buoyancy is considered important.