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AT THE END of last week, the Irish Bishops’ Drugs and Alcohol Initiative dropped the ultimate Surrealing in the Years story when they announced they would be adding vaping to the infamous Confirmation pledge.
The story had everything. A semi-dystopian twist on an old Irish institution? Check. Bishops grasping desperately at the zeitgeist? Check. An idea that absolutely will not solve the problem it’s been dreamt up to address? Oh, you better believe that’s a check ’round these here parts.
Unfortunately, I was on sick leave last week — for real, not in the time-honoured, ‘Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell’ kind of way one might expect of a columnist — so I didn’t get the chance to make my funny, funny jokes about it all. Fortunately, it’s not like World War III began in the meantime or anything, so I’m going to indulge myself and write about it now.
Because the pledge is sold as such an integral part of the sacrament of Confirmation, Ireland’s godfearing preteens would be forgiven for thinking that it has some kind of basis in Catholic dogma. That their fellow young Catholics in Spain and the Philippines and East Timor and all of the other strongholds of the faith are making a similar pledge. That is absolutely not the case.
The pledge was introduced in Ireland in the late 1800s by the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, and Ireland is the only country where it is widely observed. Originally, the pledge was designed to curtail excessive drinking among the population of Ireland, and I think we can all agree: mission accomplished.
Having succeeded in ending the scourge of underage drinking, the pledge is now targeting our more modern vices, and there can be little argument that something must be done to curtail the prevalence of underage vaping. The trouble with the argument that ‘something must be done,’ though, is that it isn’t an argument at all. It’s a sentiment devoid of substance, and it’s how you end up with ideas like this one, which almost certainly make things like vaping and drinking seem cooler to the naturally disobedient teenage mind.
Unfortunately, adding vaping to the pledge feels like it’s less about stopping kids from vaping — we have over a century of evidence that the pledge doesn’t stop them from drinking, after all — and more about trying to convince ourselves that the pledge still has a meaningful role to play in keeping our children healthy and safe.
Still, who are we to stand in the way of progress? Especially when there is so much progress to be made.
Former Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu this week called for an update to Dublin city’s motto, a thing that not only exists, but has apparently existed for nearly 500 years. In case you’ve never encountered it before, Dublin’s official motto is: ‘Obedientia civium urbis felicitas.’ And in case you’re some kind of dumbass who can’t speak fluent Latin, that more or less translates to: ‘Happy is the city where citizens obey’ or ‘Obedient citizens make a happy city’.
The city’s coat of arms, which bears the motto, dates back to 1607. Many will twig that this was the same year as the Flight of the Earls, widely regarded as the beginning of an era during which Ireland fell entirely under English rule. One can imagine, therefore, exactly what motivated those ruling Dublin at that time to select a motto that essentially amounts to: ‘If you savages don’t start behaving yourselves, then there’s going to be no rights for anybody.’ Which is pretty much exactly how the situation played out for the few hundred years that were to follow. Centuries, one might add, that are not exactly remembered for their obedience.
It is more than a little mystifying that the motto has endured, presumably only surviving this long because nobody knew that Dublin even had a motto. It’s certainly not a motto worth bragging about.
You want to know how raw of a deal that Dublin got? Limerick’s motto is: ‘An ancient city well studied in the arts of war’. Who do they think they are? Samurai? Cork’s is ‘A safe harbour for ships.’ Pleasant! Inviting! Even Waterford’s — ‘Waterford remains the untaken city’ — is dripping with aura. Why does it feel like all the other cities got to choose their own motto while Dublin’s was seemingly selected by someone who hates the city and everyone in it?
In order to spare the council the inevitable six-figure consultancy fee they’re going to hand over to a team of the least creative people on earth to come up with something like “Dublin: The city of one hundred thousand welcomes,” I have composed a few suggestions of my own, pro bono.
One of the stranger stories of the week offers some insight into the kind of city Dublin has become over the last decade or so. Several publicans told The Journal on Thursday that tech giant Kaseya, whose value was estimated at $12 billion in 2023, booked out seven pubs and a barbershop in Dublin’s Dame Lane, across the road from Temple Bar.
Tech workers from all over the world are in town for the Kaseya Dattocon Europe event being held in the Convention Centre this week, and were treated to five hours of private, open bars across almost an entire street in the heart of Dublin. All of the pubs booked out by the tech firm were closed off to the public at large until 11pm.
While the night was undoubtedly a profitable one for the businesses in question, the incident reopens the debate about who Ireland’s capital city is for.
Now a city where entire streets can be auctioned off for the evening, where short-term lets on Airbnb massively outnumber available places for people to actually live, and business at large is increasingly geared towards serving the tourist market, it is easy to see why those of us who call Dublin home might be concerned.
Nobody likes being the “It’s a slippery slope” guy, but it’s easier to make the argument when you’ve already been sliding headlong towards rock bottom for a few years. The capture of Dame Lane is simply another milestone on that journey, where the interests of massive corporations are prioritised ahead of making a city a pleasant and inspiring place to live for its citizens. Now that such a thing has happened once, it will inevitably happen again.
It’s at times like these that the citizenry of a city might take heart by looking proudly to the storied motto of their ancient town. In Dublin’s case, I don’t recommend it.
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