Allied Irish Brogue

“Brogue Trader” is what The Sun called John Rusnak, the American trader who lost AIB $750m. Of course, this is what annoys me more than Mr. Rusnak. After all I haven’t had a thing to do with AIB since 1999, when the Bank of Ireland offered me a student account with lots of cool shit (none of which I can remember now). Besides, AIB’s ATMs are crappy with their pre-Windows, green-on-black menus. Bank of Ireland’s ones are far sexier, with full colour plasma screens and big, legible print. You can top-up your phone, pay your bills and maybe even take out some money. I know you can do that with AIB as well but BoI do it in a sexier way, as I’ve explained already! Sheesh!

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I have a problem with The Sun. The Sun is a British paper that allegedly produces an Irish edition. Irish as in they call it The Irish Sun, have listings for Irish channels and an Irish story on the front page. But The Sun is the most disgustingly two-faced bastard of a paper I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering. I can gladly say I’ve never bought one, but I read it now and then if I see it just to reinforce my hatred. The Sun holds British public opinion in a vice-like grip. It tells British people that Britain is losing touch with itself, like it always has since just after The Good Old Days. The Good Old Days start and end at various times, depending on whose side The Sun has taken. The Sun sees a fruit merchant jailed for refusing a court order to display his weights in kilos as well as pounds as a “Metric Martyr”, mainly because the law was brought in by the European Union. The Sun generally forgets that the UK has a lot of representation in the EU, including TWO commissioners, instead preferring to claim laws are “imposed” by “Brussels” (where the EU Commission is located). The Sun views all outside of England as foreign; meaning that the Welsh are treated much as France would be and Scotland is inevitably mentioned with the word “Bonnie”. In other words, The Sun lives in England, looks around it and sees chaos; looks inside it and sees a loss of values. The Sun thinks everything that makes British people British is under threat. You know, the traditional signs of nationality; the chip (or should I say The Great British Chip), the money (“Eurocrats” are trying to make them change over to the Euro, dontcha know?) and the banana (also known as The Great British Banana, under threat by an “insane” European law that requires a minimum degree of straightness in every banana. What’s even more insane is the entire fictious nature of that story). The UK could be a great force inside the EU, giving it (the EU) the gravitas it needs on the world stage. But Britain, the country that can’t run it’s own railways or hospitals, still believes it’s on a par with the US on just about everything. British kids are becoming the scariest photocopies of Americans you’ll ever see. Britain sees itself as a grim, bleak place; so much so that many advertisements one sees on British TV are shot in sunny places that look like Britain, such as South Africa. It also sees itself as needing no-one; the mentality of the old headline of “FOG ON CHANNEL – CONTINENT CUT OFF” still prevails. British media still refers to “Europe” as anywhere in Europe bar the UK.

So in the British mentality, Ireland is just a region. This infuriates me so much because so much of it goes unchecked when we shouldbe giving them hell about it. I’m no republican by any means, but equally too I hate to see the Daily Mail list RTE on their TV pages under the heading “Regional Variations”. I’m going to write to them about it, definitely. This thing of referring to us as “Southern Ireland” annoys me too, since it’s this bone-headed view that if it isn’t Northern Ireland, it must be Southern Ireland. The most northerly part of the island of Ireland is in what they call “the South”; the Republic of Ireland. Because Ireland is viewed as just another UK region by The Sun, the quaint regional stereotypes are regularly wheeled out by supposedly Irish editorial staff. And so John Rusnak is referred to as the “Brogue Trader”, in reference to his Irish “brogue” or accent. “Brogue” is not a word used here that much (it refers to what British people call an Irish accent), unless it’s describing a shoe in Irish, and besides; not everyone working for AIB is Irish. John Rusnak works for Allfirst, the American operation of AIB. AIB is Ireland’s biggest company, but it’s also a BIG company full stop. It’s simply belittling a multi-million dollar scandal rocking a large multinational, employing 6000 in the US, that just happens to be Irish. But because it’s based in one of The Sun‘s “regions”, the man is called a “Brogue Trader”.

Funny, I don’t remember Nick Leeson’s headline as something like “Mad Deals and Englishmen”……..

j