\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\njust reminded how \u201990s Sid Meier\u2019s Alpha Centauri was
the environmentalist faction leader was Lady Deirdre Skye
That \u201880s-\u201890s vague post-Stevie Nicks VH1 romance novel Celtic chick vibe. Probably had something to do with where Actual Ireland was at in America\u2019s mind.
The names Moira, Killishandra, Ione, maybe even Naomi but then that broke too big.
Enya! Who was like the other (than U2) big Irish 80s act (she doesn\u2019t tour tho)
Loreena McKennitt!
(who got by for a bit as CanCon)
\u00a0God yeah this stuff really defines the era for me.
I remember first hearing that particular song as a kid on the Thistle and Shamrock, the Celtic-music block on NPR, which approximately coincided with this era but is apparently still chugging along 40 years later. You could pick it up in Canada when you were near the border, so it was good road-trip music.
I think identifying the Troubles as a major cause is correct \u2013 the IRA was so romanticized in North America, it was wild \u2013 and it seemed like a lot of this was unhyphenated-Americans who could plausibly claim some sort of Irish or Scottish ancestry trying to find \u201croots\u201d in a delayed-onset version of the same kind of syndrome you see in, like, third-generaton immigrants. What\u2019s interesting to me is that the cultural turn is really connected to the increased romanticism about and interest in Native American issues at home, and a lot of the conceptual apparatus of \u201cauthentic and vibrant original culture in touch with nature reclaims its birthright from a sclerotic colonizer\u201d. The whole thing felt kind of like a thinner, more commodified and outward-facing of the, like, 19th century romantic nationalism.
The part that was interesting to me about the 80s-90s turn in particular is how it was a vehicle for countercultural stuff, both as an expression of New Spiritualism and as a pushback against Christian Puritanism, like it was really inseparable from the neopagan turn and Mists of Avalon and shit like that. In that context the important thing about the Celtic element is that it was perceived as, like the opposite of American Protestantism and also as being more traditional and therefore more authentic (which in turn allowed it to launder the traditionalism of whatever people liked individually). I met so many spiritual-but-not-religious theatre kids who were into quasi-historical fanfiction about the druids in the 1990s.
Yeeeah, that was a Thing. The crazy thing thinking back is how upper middle class and feminine it was; second wave feminist dissatisfaction with Christianity seemed to be a major driver of the movement.
Oh, it must seem so romantic
When the fighting\u2019s over there
And they\u2019re passing \u2018round the shamrock
And you\u2019re all filled up with tears
\u201cFor the love of dear old Ireland\u201d
That you\u2019ve never even seen
You throw in twenty dollars
And sing, \u2018Wearing of the Green\u2019
Each dollar a bullet
Each victim someone\u2019s son
And Americans kill Irishmen
As surely as if they fired the gun
I mean, really
"}