"The Ireland That We Dreamed Of" and the Ireland That We Got
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When I was growing up 80s and 90s, the phrase “dancing at the crossroads” was something that you said with a smile and an eye-roll. It meant you were referring to an Ireland that either never existed or was long gone but which was in either case an embarrassment. The phrase is still used from time to time – “they take their kids to mass? that’s a bit dancing at the crossroads” – but for the most part it’s doubly forgotten, because not only the formulation but the idea it summarised are lost to history. It’s a misremembered line in Eamon de Valera’s speech, “On Language and the Irish Nation”, delivered over the radio on St. Patrick’s Day 1943. In the popular imagination he spoke of “comely maidens dancing at the crossroads” as representative of his vision of a Gaelic, rural, eternally Christian Ireland. Here’s the speech:
"The Ireland That We Dreamed Of" and the Ireland That We Got
"The Ireland That We Dreamed Of" and the…
"The Ireland That We Dreamed Of" and the Ireland That We Got
When I was growing up 80s and 90s, the phrase “dancing at the crossroads” was something that you said with a smile and an eye-roll. It meant you were referring to an Ireland that either never existed or was long gone but which was in either case an embarrassment. The phrase is still used from time to time – “they take their kids to mass? that’s a bit dancing at the crossroads” – but for the most part it’s doubly forgotten, because not only the formulation but the idea it summarised are lost to history. It’s a misremembered line in Eamon de Valera’s speech, “On Language and the Irish Nation”, delivered over the radio on St. Patrick’s Day 1943. In the popular imagination he spoke of “comely maidens dancing at the crossroads” as representative of his vision of a Gaelic, rural, eternally Christian Ireland. Here’s the speech: