Color and Cultural Identity in Ireland
Helena Wulff
Chapter Summary. With its green landscape, Ireland has long been identified as the Emerald Isle, or the Green Isle. This chapter explores the politics of the color green in Ireland as cultural identity constructed in relation to firstly, dress, and secondly, tourist design. Starting out as a political statement of insider identity among Irish people, green became an identity marker to outsiders signaling Irishness. The ban on the wearing of the green during colonialism reinforced the significance of green in Irish inside identity. Now green remains an indicator in outsiders’ construction of Irishness. The extensive wearing of the green on St. Patrick’s Day, the national day, is a continued celebration of national independence, cultural identity, as well as recognition by outsiders. The impact of Ireland’s green reaches across the globe such as when Riverdance represents Ireland abroad. The color green is the signature color in the branding of Ireland as a tourist destination.
Ireland is often referred to as the Green Isle, or the Emerald Isle, not because emeralds are to be found there, but because the rain makes its countryside greener than in most places in Europe.1 But why is green still a prominent color in Ireland? What does green convey about Ireland and the Irish? What does Ireland’s green symbolize for the Irish on one hand, and for foreign tourists on the other? This chapter explores the politics of the color green in Ireland as cultural identity constructed in relation to firstly, dress, and secondly, tourist design (Wulff 2007a,b).2 Identity has mainly two sides: the inner side that is cultivated among people who share an identity, such as a cultural identity, and the outer side, which is how they present themselves to outsiders. Even though there are overlaps, the two sides are somewhat different. A third side of cultural identity is its construction by outsiders.3
Importantly, this anthropological research on cultural identity and the color green in Ireland reveals a color to be highly charged politically and culturally. There was a time when there was a ban on “the wearing of the green” in Ireland (Cronin and Adair 2002: xiii). Now green is the signature color in the branding of Ireland as a tourist destination. One of the first instances when a tourist might notice Ireland’s green is, of course, around the Irish national airline, Aer Lingus, which has its logo, a green shamrock, painted on its planes. Its crews are dressed in green uniforms.
Green is one of the colors of the tricolor, the national flag of the Republic of Ireland, the other colors being white and orange. Green was identified as the national color long before Ireland became an independent nation, which it did in 1922, after 400 years of British colonialism. Going back in history, it is significant that there was no typical Irish or national dress (Cullinane 1996). Instead, in the nineteenth century, there was an English ambition to have Irish people follow English fashion (Robb 1998). Cronin and Adair (2002: xiii) quote an Irish nineteenth-century ballad entitled “The Wearing of the Green” by Dion Boucicault, which says: “And they’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the green,” and it continues: “Then since the colour we must wear is England’s red, Sure Ireland’s sons will ne’er forget the blood that they have shed.” The ballad also talks about how wearing a shamrock in one’s hat was a way to rebel. Green was the color of the republican revolutionary organization, Society of the United Irishmen. But in the beginning of the twentieth century, the Gaelic League4 launched a national costume as one way to promote Irish culture: kilts for men while women wore long dresses with shawls. Green dominated and red was avoided because of its association with England. It was this national dress that was turned into Irish dancing costumes that often still are green or have green details. These colorful costumes with Celtic embroidery represent different Irish dancing schools. Dancers who have won medals at competitions might sew the medals on the costumes. Girls’ and women’s costumes are supposed to be modest with skirts reaching not more than four inches above the knee. Now boys and men tend to wear black trousers and a white shirt rather than a kilt. Irish dancing costumes are worn at championships in Irish dancing in Ireland and further afield, in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (Wulff 2007a), and at other major events abroad when Irish dancers represent Ireland, ranging from Irish cultural festivals to St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Tokyo, Dubai, and Montserrat among many other events worldwide. Since 1994, when Riverdance, the Irish dance show (Plate 15), had a sensational breakthrough as an interval entertainment in the annual Eurovision Song Contest broadcast from Dublin, this show with its long line of glamorous Irish dancers beating the floor, has also represented Ireland on a global scale (Wulff 2007a). Green has often appeared in their costumes, in the women’s soft miniskirts with black tights, and the men’s open shirts and black leather trousers, as well as in the marketing of the show, in posters and on CDs, DVDs, videos, and souvenirs from the show.
CULTURE AND COLOR
In anthropological texts, color has been inserted here and there as adjectives in order to paint lively ethnographic portraits of people and their lives. There is also a strand that has included attention to colors in symbolic analysis. Victor Turner’s ([1969] 2008) research among the Ndembu people is a prominent classic, highlighting multivocal meanings of red, white, and black in local rituals. It is these three colors that Berlin and Kay (1969) identify as the most basic colors in their influential but somewhat controversial study Basic Color Terms. Red, white, and black recur in earlier anthropological studies mostly in relation to relatively small traditional societies (cf. Jacobson-Widding 1979). They are, of course, bodily colors to be found in blood, semen, and breast milk, and pupils, and in that sense universal, but their cultural meanings do vary quite substantially. There may not even be a semantic domain for certain color words, as Wierzbicka (2006) has noted, which has to be taken into special account in research on color. And there are, again, many cultures where other colors are more significant than red, white, and black, such as green in Ireland. Diana Young (2005: 61) writes about the impact of the smell of green-ness among the Pitjantjatjara people in the Western desert in Australia. Young found that they made a connection between color and odor, and that “when the first rain drops hit the ground after a long dry spell, the smell of land is the smell of the new green growth to come.”
Berlin and Kay (1969) argued that color naming is related to biology and thus universal rather than only cultural. In their comparison of terms for color in twenty languages, they found that color naming originates in perception. Those languages that separate six colors, according to Berlin and Kay, have terms for black, white, red, green, blue, and yellow. This is where they mention green. In The Anthropology of Color, edited by MacLaury, Paramei, and Dedrick (2007), there is a section on green in an article by Irena Vaňková (2007: 448–49). She observes that “both red and green colors are closely connected with elementary human experience with the world,” and goes on to say that “green is—contrary to animal red—primarily the color of plants, vegetative life.” But when green is linked to a human being, it has a negative meaning: “In relation to the human body, green always means illness even closeness of death and decay.” Vaňková also considers that “beings that are non-human—but that resemble human beings and have a face—are often depicted as green, especially water goblins or water nymphs that often have not only green hair, but also a green complexion.”5 This could have been a description of Irish fairies who are visualized as all kinds of elusive creatures in imagery, but characteristically green, at least partly, in appearance or dress.
GREEN IN IRISH TRADITION AND ADVERTISEMENT
Irish fairy legends are still being told in Ireland. There are urban contemporary ones as well as traditional legends. These stories are in many cases living legends that are transferred between generations. A fairy legend is typically a story about a human who meets other beings, so-called good people, little people, or fairies. It opens in the ordinary, in everyday life or on a journey, but then something remarkable, good or bad, suddenly happens. The legend tends to close back in the ordinary. (In folklore, the belief in legends is explained by the storyteller’s ability “to reconcile the impossible with the unexceptional.” Whether the listeners believe in them, or not, it is the betwixt-and-between nature of fairy legends that make them alluring, according to Bourke 2003: 27–30.)
When some fairies or other figures from Irish mythology make it to tourist design, a part of inside Irish cultural identity has moved to one promoting Irish identity to outsiders. This is especially materialized in dolls of the little leprechaun (Plate 14) in a green suit and a big green hat. Leprechauns are said to be shoemakers and known for saving all their money in a hidden pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. These tricksters are traditionally believed to bring luck, but they can be both good and bad, and do engage in mischief. If a leprechaun is ever captured by a human, he is supposed to have the magical power to grant three wishes in exchange for his release. Stories about leprechauns are told by professional storytellers at festivals, and informally as oral tradition, also to and among children. There are children’s books on leprechauns, and many references in literature and poetry, both classic and contemporary, to these little creatures. They appear in popular culture such as film and television cartoons, as well as in advertisements. This is not always appreciated by Irish people, though, who sometimes see popular versions of leprechauns as stereotypes. This is the point of departure for media scholar Diane Negra (2001: 77) in the article “Consuming Ireland: Lucky Charms Cereal, Irish Spring Soap and 1–800-Shamrock,” where she critiques the usage of the leprechaun in tourist advertisements of Ireland in the United States. Her purpose is to “challenge the notion of that cruel stereotypes such as the Lucky Charms leprechaun are best shuddered at and dismissed (however tempting).” She goes on to argue for a “linkage between commodification and colonialism.”
Studying the consumption of Irishness in the United States, Natasha Casey (2006: 91–109) interviewed Irish Americans and Irish Canadians who she admits had a favorable, even romantic view of Ireland. To her question: “When you hear the word Ireland what idea, images, or words does it conjure up?,” a woman college teacher replied: “Green hills, ocean, castles, fairies.” The reply from a man who worked as a technician also started by emphasizing the green-ness: “Green shamrocks, Book of Kells, Irish traditional music.” Also a man working with environmental issues included green in his observations of Ireland: “friendly towards Americans, green, and pubs.” As did a woman student who said that the word Ireland made her think of “the country of Ireland, green, Irish dance and music, friendly people, rainbows, Irish language, Celtic symbols.” Four out of five reported replies included a reference to something green in Ireland. It is likely that these replies partly emanate from direct experience of Ireland, in combination with family stories about the land of their parents and/or grandparents that the interviewees had heard while growing up. There is also a striking resemblance in these replies with how slogans in Irish tourist advertisements tend to be phrased.
In an article on emotions, memory, and nature in images of travel and tourist advertisements of Ireland, I described how:
Images of Irish journeys stand out for their particular combination of portraying hospitality, traditional culture in music and dance, wit and loquacity. There is an abundance of pastoral landscapes and dramatic cliffs along the coast. On the home page of Tourism Ireland in 2004, an image unfolded of horses galloping on a beach against a background of a blue sea. This was soon followed by the text “Welcome to the island of memories.” (Wulff 2007b: 532)
The dominant color on the website was green, and there was a shamrock in a corner. Tourism Ireland still has a green shamrock as logo. In 2011, there was also a green background with a shamrock inserted and a text welcoming visitors to Ireland. Contrary to the 2004 texts and captions, the 2011 invitation combines the romantic rural past with a more contemporary urban scene when it presents Ireland as:
blessed with a tapestry of magical natural settings that have become the inspiration and stage for many an Irish myth and legend, Ireland is home to vibrant and cosmopolitan cities, picture-card country landscapes and retreats, and a friendly and artistically creative population, always welcoming to visitors with a smile and no doubt a story and a joke or two! (http://www.discoverireland.com.sg/consumer/en/index.html)
Going back to the replies in Casey’s (2006) study, in light of the fact that the interviewees were of Irish descent, some personal reminiscences could have been expected. There is nothing about people, or visiting relatives. Incidentally, this parallels interview replies I got in my study on tourist imagery in Ireland (Wulff 2007b). This is very interesting not least as there was a major difference in our studies in the sense that Casey’s question about Ireland focused on the “word Ireland” while my study investigated visual imagery of Ireland. This meant that my interviews took the form of photo-elicitation (Harper 2002). I showed (the same) ten tourist images to every interviewee, asking for his or her comments to them. The images were from travel catalogues and tourist sites on the Internet. They represented the Irish rural landscape as well as urban settings, some featured people, Irish as well as tourists. I also encouraged the interviewees to select images advertising Ireland, images they found startling, and tell me about them. And I asked the interviewees to write stories about one or two images and send to me on email. An Irish nurse sent this comment on email where she discussed the idea of reality in relation to tourist imagery:
The pictures are often of nature or people who eat, drink, play music and dance. The pictures of nature are probably very realistic—you have been here yourself and know how pretty the countryside is. When I see the pictures I think of the greenery. I am reminded of how green it actually is. (Wulff 2007b: 532)
In my pursuit here to trace the color green in Ireland, what stands out in this reply is: “When I see the pictures I think of the greenery. I am reminded of how green it actually is.” The nurse had lived in Sweden, and was contemplating moving back there again. This made her write about her longing for Ireland when she was abroad, and that:
What I will miss if I return to Sweden, is the greenery, the little fields and the beaches by the sea. There is a harmony in all these things that I have never experienced anywhere else. (Wulff 2007b: 536)
Also here, green, in the form of landscape greenery, and presumably green “little fields,” is what makes the difference, what the nurse expects is what she would miss if she were to move back to Sweden. Taken together, all these replies from Casey’s study as well as from my study, bring out an emphasis on the color green in Ireland, both in verbal terms and in visual imagery.
GREEN IN MODERN TRADITION AND FASHION
The green element in Irish dancing costumes is used both as a way to foster Irish cultural identity and a sense of belonging among Irish people (including non-Irish who take part in the dancing), and as a way to promote Ireland abroad at major events and celebrations to outsiders, as well as in tourist advertisements where images of Irish dancers appear such as on postcards. There are dolls of Irish dancers in different sizes and materials for sale. And not only are costumes worn at Irish dance performances as a part of national celebrations on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, the national day in Ireland, typically green, but it is also more common than not to dress up in green, on this day both in Ireland and in the diaspora. This can range from just one garment such as a tie or a skirt to wearing a spectacular green attire for the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, as well as in New York, Sydney, or Tokyo.
On St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin in 2002, a dance critic who figured in my study on dance and culture in Ireland gave me a real shamrock, which she fastened on my lapel before I went out to watch the parade in the rain. She also invited me to her family’s St. Patrick’s dinner. As we were getting ready to go, she said that she was looking for a certain scarf as “I’m going to wear something green!” And when I asked a woman choreographer, also a part of this study, the following week if she had celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, her reply was “No, I didn’t do anything. Just bought a green dress for my granddaughter” (Wulff 2007a: 107).6 Which, of course, is a significant act after all.
St. Patrick’s Day is the day when the river Liffey that runs through Dublin is dyed green. The celebration, in the form of parades and parties, has been criticized by some for being commercial and commodified, but for others this is a lighthearted family feast with Irish tourist paraphernalia from leprechaun green hats in adult sizes and plastic shamrock tiaras to green beer in pubs. The Dublin parade has become a multicultural event in a cosmopolitan context. The mood is inclusive, inviting anyone to Irish cultural identity—at least for this joyous day, just like my dance critic did when she saw to it that I wore a shamrock (Wulff 2007a: 134). In her study of young musicians in Ireland, Virva Basegmez (2005) noted on St. Patrick’s Day that “the celebration of Irishness by non-Irish people is, however, more like a masquerade, or perhaps a ‘cool thing to do,’ ” yet she confesses that it did make her feel “a little Irish” temporarily, as did I when I was wearing my shamrock.
When it comes to Irish high fashion, green is included, but not as a distinct color. Recently, green has had an additional meaning in relation to Irish fashion as described in the feature “Irish Fashion Goes Green” by Melanie Hick (2008). It is about Ireland’s first festival of sustainable fashion.7 Hick writes:
Ireland, a country renowned for its lush rolling green hills has never before held a green fashion week. They’re making up for that great shame by launching Fashion Evolution, Ireland’s first ethical fashion week, which will take place in Dublin from 19th–25th April. Over six days the fash fest will cover ethical and environmental issues within the Irish and international fashion industry. A series of public and industry masterclasses and events will culminate in a big green bash on Thursday April 24th. Big names include Katherine Hamnett, Mike Barry, head of Marks and Spencer’s corporate social responsibility and Dilys Williams, director of London College of Fashion’s new Centre for Sustainable Fashion. Ethical fashion is the future, and the festival should deliver some results the worldwide industry can learn from. (http://www.thevine.com.au/fashion/news/irish-fashion-goes-green20080419.aspx)
GREEN AS CULTURAL IDENTITY AND RECOGNITION
By way of historical data, ethnographic observations, and interview extracts, this chapter has shown that the green landscape of Ireland, the Emerald Isle, or the Green Isle, is indeed the source of the national symbolism attributed to the color green in Ireland. Starting out as a political statement of insider cultural identity among Irish people, the color green soon became an important identity marker in relation to outsiders signaling Irishness. The ban on the wearing of the green during colonialism seems to have reinforced the importance of green in Irish insider identity. Now green remains an indicator in outsiders’ construction of Irish identity. It is noteworthy that expressions of green in the three sides of Irish cultural identity are to be found separately, as well as simultaneously. The extensive wearing of the green on St. Patrick’s Day continues to be a celebration of national independence, of cultural identity, and recognition by outsiders. Such national pride reaches abroad, in fact across the globe, such as when Irish dancers perform Riverdance, representing Ireland abroad. Irish politicians and ambassadors, as well as writers, and other artists, can also be seen wearing green when they represent Ireland abroad, especially when they give speeches or appear at social functions. The fact that the color green, moreover, is a signature color in the branding of Ireland as a tourist destination both in travel advertisements and material objects is yet another sign of its cultural significance. Irish tourist design is invariably green. This is a color known to be associated with Ireland, and thus continues to be promoted as such by the Irish tourist industry.
Finally, in terms of green as a part of the branding of Ireland as a tourist destination, green is considerably more strongly emphasized in Irish tourist advertising on Internet websites, in television commercials, and in travel brochures than the national (flag) colors of countries such as Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, India, or China. The colors of the flags of these nations also appear, especially in the advertising of Britain, Germany, Sweden, China, and of course, India with its “Incredible India” campaign, but far from as prominent and elaborate as green design, such as Celtic knotwork, the harp, shamrocks, and leprechauns, does in Irish tourist advertisements.
1. The association of green with Ireland can be found in early Irish texts. The first reference to the Emerald Isle seems to be in a 1795 poem by the Belfast United Irishman William Drennan, where the green of the country is clearly the basis for the epithet. B. Ó Cuív, in “The Wearing of the Green,” Studia Hibernica, 17–18 (1977–1978): 107–19, also mentions a statement by John of Salisbury (written in 1159) referring to the Pope’s grant of Ireland to Henry II of a token of his investiture of the government of Ireland sent to the king in the form of a gold ring adorned by an emerald. (Personal communication with Diarmuid Ó Giollain January 24, 2011.)
2. This chapter builds on the anthropological research project “Dance in Ireland: Memory and Mobility in a Postcolonial Age,” funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Research methods have been participant observation and interviews, as well as archival work.
3. See R. Byron, “Identities,” in Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, ed. A. Barnard and J. Spencer (London: Routledge, 2002), 441, for an anthropological definition of identity as either “properties of uniqueness and individuality” or “qualities of sameness, in that persons may associate themselves, or be associated by others, with groups or categories on the basis of some salient, common feature, e.g. ‘ethnic identity.’ ” As Byron says “nations are frequently said to have identities.”
4. Founded in 1893 in Dublin by politicians and artists aiming to strengthen the position of the Irish language and national culture such as dance, this association still exists although with less political impact. It did contribute to making Ireland an independent nation. D. Ó Giolláin, Locating Irish Folklore: Tradition, Modernity, Identity (Cork: Cork University Press, 2000).
5. Vaňková expands her exploration of green to include how we imagine “inhabitants of Mars” as green, and enumerates “green demons, green phantoms.” She notes that “green faces often appear in horror films.” I. Vaňková, “To Have Color and to Have No Color: The Coloring of the Face in the Czech Linguistic Picture of the World,” in Anthropology of Color, ed. R. MacLaury, G. Paramei, and D. Dedrick (Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 2007), 448.
6. O Suilleabhain writes about the idea in Irish folklore that green in children’s clothes and at weddings is regarded as unlucky. S. O Suilleabhain, “Green,” in A Handbook of Irish Folklore (Detroit: Singing Tree, 1970).
7. “Ethical Fashion is an umbrella term to describe ethical fashion design, production, retail, and purchasing. It covers a range of issues such as working conditions, exploitation, fair trade, sustainable production, the environment, and animal welfare.” Victoria and Albert Museum, http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/features/ethical_fashion/ethical_fashion/index.html.
REFERENCES
Basegmez, V. (2005), Irish Scene and Sound: Identity, Authenticity and Transnationality among Young Musicians, Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 57, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Berlin, B., and Kay, P. (1969), Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bourke, A. (2003), “The Virtual Reality of Irish Fairy Legend,” in C. Connolly (ed.), Theorizing Ireland, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Byron, R. (2002), “Identities,” in A. Barnard and J. Spencer (eds.), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, London: Routledge.
Casey, N. (2006), “The Best Kept Secret in Retail: Selling Irishness in Contemporary America,” in D. Negra (ed.), The Irish in Us, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Cronin, M., and Adair, D. (2002), The Wearing of the Green: A History of St Patrick’s Day, London: Routledge.
Cullinane, J. (1996), Irish Dancing Costumes: Their Origins and Evolutions, Cork City: Cullinane.
Harper, D. (2002), “Talking about Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation,” Visual Studies, 17/1: 13–26.
Hick, M. (2008), “Irish Fashion Goes Green,” The Vine (April): 19.
Jacobson-Widding, A. (1979), Red-White-Black as a Mode of Thought: A Study of Triadic Classification by Colors in the Ritual Symbolism and Cognitive Thought of the People of the Lower Congo, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
MacLaury, R., Paramei, G., and Dedrick, D. (eds.) (2007), Anthropology of Color: Interdisciplinary Multilevel Modeling, Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
Negra, D. (2001), “Consuming Ireland: Lucky Charms Cereal, Irish Spring Soap and 1–800-Shamrock,” Cultural Studies, 15/1: 7–97.
Ó Cuív, B. (1977–1978), “The Wearing of the Green,” Studia Hibernica, 17–18: 107–19.
Ó Giolláin, D. (2000), Locating Irish Folklore: Tradition, Modernity, Identity, Cork: Cork University Press.
O Suilleabhain, S. (1970), “Green,” in A Handbook of Irish Folklore, Detroit: Singing Tree.
Robb, M. (1998), Irish Dancing Costume, Dublin: Country House.
Turner, V. ([1969] 2008), The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction.
Vaňková, I. (2007), “To Have Color and to Have No Color: The Coloring of the Face in the Czech Linguistic Picture of the World,” in R. MacLaury, G. Paramei, and D. Dedrick (eds.), Anthropology of Color, Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
Wierzbicka, A. (2006), “The Semantics of Colour: A New Paradigm,” in N. J. Pitchford and C. P. Biggam (eds.), Progress in Colour Studies, Philadelphia: John Benjamin.
Wulff, H. (2007a), Dancing at the Crossroads: Memory and Mobility in Ireland, Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Wulff, H. (2007b), “Longing for the Land: Emotions, Memory and Nature in Irish Travel Advertisements,” Identities, 14/4: 527–44.
Young, D. (2005), “The Smell of Green-ness: Cultural Synaesthesia in the Western Desert (Australia),” Etnofoor, XVIII/1: 61–77.
Websites
http://www.discoverireland.com.sg/consumer/en/index.html
http://www.thevine.com.au/fashion/news/irish-fashion-goes-green20080419.aspx
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/features/ethical_fashion/ethical_fashion/index.html