Saying No To A Heavily Globalised Ireland

[aontroim]

Apologies if this has already been discussed somewhere on here...I received this in an email today - there was no source attributed to the article but was interesting to read. Not sure if all the facts are 100% correct though.  Something to think about none the less.


The Carrolls and Major cigarette brands were an essential part of the
national identity insofar as they were not avaliable anywhere except here
and represented a distinct and seperate national identity element insofar
as they were unknown outside of Ireland ?

There is video footage of a GAA match from Croke Park in 1973 ( ? ) and
everywhere around the stadium are seen the red and white and green and
white sponsored umbrellas of the two unique Irish brands. Likewise with
the big racing festivals of the period, and indeed in the large spread
advertising in newspapers, magazines, and on billboards in Irish cities
and towns of the time.

British visitors to this country at that time remarked that they were
something they had never seen before ( Irish national identity ) except in
Ireland. Indeed at the time the two respective brands had as much as 50
per cent of the domestic tobacco market. Today that has shrunk to three per
cent.

In 1991 PJ Carrolls was bought out by Rothmans, who since have been bought
out by Players/Imperial. As a part of their drive for " globalised
branding" the new owners have neglected the two unique Irish brands to the extent
that they are now virtually unknown, except to the few small tens of
thousands that still smoke them, nearly all of whom are over 40 years of
age.

There is no more advertising of the brands and it seems that the reps who
sell them have been told to more or less neglect them untill they are
rendered extinct over the next few short years.

This is an example of how the proliferation of globalised branding and
marketing is damaging the national identity of our country - even though
the public cannot percieve it as such - after all they arent meant to ?

Because it is happening under the aegis of " free trade ", and seemingly
natural reflex of the free market, and because the average person in the
street is unaware of the fact that these market forces are being used (
subliminally ) so as to weaken Irelands national identity, it is going
unremarked upon.


HARP LAGER

Harp lager is another example, and the makers Diageo, seem to have
deliberately ( ? ) degraded the product in such a way that it is now
virtually extinct, and has been replaced by their premium " globalised
brand " Budweiser ?

Again the national identity of Ireland is damaged as a consequence as
Ireland begins to look or seem less like Ireland and begins to look and
seem more like America or the UK ?

Like Carrolls and Major, the Harp lager brand was at one stage in fact a
symbol of the " national identity " in a similar way to which Marlboro
cigarettes, Colombia Pictures, and Coca Cola are symbols of the American
national identity. The Harp is a symbol of Ireland and the brand in draft
format was the nations premium draft lager untill a recent point in time.

Moral of the story - transnational globalised merchandising along with the
willfull degrading of unique Irish merchandise is damaging the national
identity of the country.

DELIBERATE NEGLECT

Regarding Diaego's ( Diego since 1997 ) deliberate neglect of the Harp
lager brand what they have done is really clever ?

They rendered its chemical composition such ( ? ) that whilst it was
palatable enough to drink it was nonetheless terrible the following day
such was its hangover effect, unlike its globalised brand Budweiser, which
whilst palatable enough didnt and dosent give a bad hangover ?

Harp lager drinkers, who had been loyal customers of the deeply character
resonant Irish label, some since it first appeared in 1961, found that for
the first time ever they were suffering terrible hangovers after drinking
it. This happened throughout Ireland between 1989 and 1998 ?

This deliberate degrading of the Harp label was done in such a way that it
went largely unnoticed and it seemed over time ( 1988 onward ) that the
average punter and discerning lager drinker was making a natural choice
whereby he preferred the globalised Budweiser to the nativist Harp which
gave him a bad hangover ?

Not so.

Indeed as has been noted by a publican here in Sligo, the persons charged
with cleaning the beer lines neglected the Harp lines which resulted in a
cloudy degraded lager, whereas the Budweiser lines were kept cleaned and
clear ?

Likewise with the Carrolls and Major brands.

The only diffirence being that neither of these two products has been
chemically degraded so as to render them unpalatable ? Instead a policy of
complete neglect of the two labels is being employed as strategy so as to
bring them to extinction.

The complete disinterest of Players/Imperial in these two symbols of the
national identity is such that there is no advertising and as a
consequence no-one under forty smokes them.

This is deliberate and as has been observed is intended to render the two
respective and unique Irish brands extinct over time.

This in turn massively weakens the national identity of Ireland - though
whether or not that is the intention of Diaego or Players/ Imperial is
unknown ?

SAYING NO TO A HEAVILY GLOBALISED IRELAND
 
Why not resist a heavily globalised Ireland and support nativist
industrial merchandise and labelling that invigorates the national spirit and
seperate identity of our nation from that of any other nation ?

Before he was assassinated in 1922 Michael Collins said that Ireland would
have an nationalist industrial spirit of its own and that this spirit
would incentivise the development of deeply character resonant Irish industrial
products and labelling. If ever there was a superb example of this then
surely it was the PJ Carroll Company with its unique Irish brands and
products.

Why should Ireland, in spite of the inevitabity of a more globalised
economy become an identity replica of the UK ( Tescoes, Debenhams, Boots,
Marks n Spencers, Walkers crips, etc ), the USA ( Marlboro cigarettes,
Budweiser, Jack Daniels, etc) or anywhere else ?

And hows about an end to the con of an Irish drinking culture where there
is no Harp lager ?