Transcript

The Republic of Donegal | Paddy Cullivan | TEDxBallybofey

thank you ladies I mean look at beautiful Gorda pork it's like Switzerland and we should be more like Switzerland let's be honest ladies and gentlemen so I moved to Donegal basically to get away from globalization yeah we were told in the 1990s and the 2002 globalization would save us and we've now realized that it hasn't it merely centralized the takings of the world into a few corporations and a few individuals of the 1% while the rest of us watch our quality of life diminishing all the time and you know you can argue against it or you can argue for it but the problem is it recognizes no border it is Beyond Borders so maybe let's stand up for borders a little bit the first time I heard about the border was a story my father told me my father was and when he was 18 was an accordion player in the eugene lady ceili band in Cavan another border county and at one time a friend mocked him says Tommy Cole Evan you're the best accordion player in the 36 counties of Ireland to which my father replied but there's only 32 and not wanting to be wrong of course his friend said I should the foreign Scotland a blond [ __ ] a blonde a classic Irish word but there was four counties in Scotland two blond dos there was back in the seventh century in the 6th century the diarrhea the kingdom encompassed had parts of Scotland parts of Wales and Cornwall and in fact if you were to have a United Celtic Europe you would have six different countries united together Brittany Scotland Wales Cornwall and Galicia and we would actually have a Celtic realm something I would support hugely but we're not part of that we're part of a much larger thing called the EU which lets a minute started off well in 1950 as a kind of a trade agreement and supposedly was meant to end all wars in Europe well look what's happening at the moment look at clever Switzerland and look at clever Norway and clever Iceland nowhere near this kind of activity and of course Europe has always been in this very strange situation this strange serial comic map from 150 years ago represents each European country as a person you know as a noble person or something that denotes their kind of national character but look at Russia Russia poor Russia is an octopus Russia is always portrayed as an octopus and this continued when Stalin was there communism an octopus once again poor Russia treated as an octopus are not saying poor Russia but you know what I mean why do you get made the octopus the whole time and of course Ireland and England were presented as these kind of noble little people that were going to fight against all of this but what about the biggest octopus of all the british empire covering huge Suede's of the globe but it's never represented as an octopus and in fact when the octopus tentacles started to fall off what did they do they left us with these amazing borders things called partition the partition of India it's been trouble ever since it was done by the British back then the partition of Palestine we are still dealing with that issue but the first one the biggest one the partition of Ireland the partition of Ireland the creation of a border we have to get beyond this border and of course the strangest thing of all was that Lloyd George was proposing nine counties nine counties in fact postcards were printed too great the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ulster the nine counties but someone decided against the nine counties it wasn't a battle it was actually James Craig and the unionists because if you had nine counties in Ulster the proportion of Catholics would be forty five percent and if Protestant to be fifty five percent and the unionists deem that far too close so they got rid of three counties Donegal Monaghan and Cavan leaving ninety thousand Protestants in the south they didn't really care about their future and of course that left 33% Catholic and 66% Protestant and of course punch magazine even at the time had this idea that you would dig a big channel through the ban a massive Channel and then fill in the gap between Ulster and Scotland and make a separate large promontory and that would actually be the north it would have worked actually but what happened what happened when partition came along we lost things that we had had for a long time we had a train network of 6,000 kilometers an amazing train network that was so extensive when the most extensive in the world Donny Gaul itself 250 miles of railway in Toni Gaul alone going through the most impossible landscape the fact it's not there is an insult to the people who actually built it look at Northern Donegal and of course it ran through gorgeou hork from Letterkenny and of course there's my train station in what would have been probably the most beautiful train journey in the world around man Terrigal but this is our this is what we have now is the Train Network now the partition estrella network because of splitting the country into as you can see you know it only can it goes somewhere and the Northwest has nothing at all it's part of the government's successful government's ng nwc GFI initiative the Northwest can go [ __ ] itself initiative look at the motorway network we still don't have a map that you can actually buy the chose you the entire motor netway network of the island because it's embarrassing in the south that goes east and west and south and then if the north it just goes from east to west a little bit of the way and dare we get past the bandwidth our motorways no way no no not gonna happen and again the north northwest can go [ __ ] itself see pointless but the thing is that we will have a united Ireland in the next 10 to 20 years at despite when anybody says in 2015 there was a convoluted pole taking up the North a convoluted pole taken down the south I've crunched the numbers for you here's what it is yes for northern yes for United Ireland 48 percent no 28.5% don't know twenty-three point five percent or as I like to call them morons you've had eight hundred years to make up your mind honestly just put your hand over your eyes and just put a pen mark wherever you want honestly don't take so much time and of course when we do have a united Ireland which we will what are we going to learn what are we going to trade what are we going to give each other well the thing that the north can give us is actually putting signs on roads to let you know what road you're on unlike in this country where it's called L 102 five x or nothing or or even where you have two different speed signs in a boring in which you could either do 60 or 80 kilometers an hour ladies and gentlemen we can give them same-sex marriage they can give us drive-through off licenses yes indeed ladies and gentlemen in Enniskillen there's a drive-through off-license yes yes drinking and driving together at last some of our politicians will absolutely love that hears me jamming with a few of them and of course the argument over northern and southern tato will finally have to be settled this is going to be one of the most sensitive ones I think we can all agree that southern tato is superior in flavor and design but let's admit it the northern tato headquarters of tan raggy castle is creepy and much more interesting than boring tato park some people are gonna have to come out honestly they're gonna have to come out no no no Jeffrey Donaldson will have to admit that by day he might be mild-mannered Ulster Unionist politician Jeffrey Donaldson by night he is Daniel O'Donnell honestly honestly they have you ever seen them in the same room they even part their hair the same way for God's sake they are the same people we can bring back all ireland logos amazing all ireland logos like this amazing all ireland motoring school logo you know it's hilarious the antropomorphic nature of us you know the arms and the things are at mayo and galway the legs are carrying Cork I don't know what Claire is but personally I would have filled in the Shannon to be honest just not to to cause anything we can bring back Irish products our own products Calvin Cola back in the seventies and eighties plucky little Calvin took on the might of the coca-cola corporation and lost but it was ours and we can bring it back we could finally in the south get rid of these keeping up with the Joneses stupid number plates that we brought in for some reason where we get to let our neighbors know we've just bought a new car and this it's it's not a aspirational it's pathetic let's bring in those ugly yellow northern number plates that don't let people know when you bought your car and of course the one thing that does unites us and we can bring back in our new united ireland is circular architecture this these bungalows and square buildings we brought in are far and import no circular building is what we are best at I know it's not good in terms of space but at the same time and believe it or not it's one thing we have in common with our unionist brethren okay you may not like the parlor takes you may not like the politics but I have to say you must admire the engineering that is an amazing skill ladies and gentlemen and of course everywhere around Ireland we are going to have to have trilingual signs the Irish English and Ulster Scots stop laughing and of course we'll have to change all our symbols we'll have to change everything we'll have to change the flag even even to something as ugly as this I don't know whatever keeps everybody happy that's the main thing about a united Ireland okay although I must say green light and orangey never works really in any context so that's the case so we're going to have a united Ireland but what will it be part of it will be part of a united Europe and that's a problem it's a problem for me look at Germany in 1850 Jeremy in 1850 was a bunch of millions of different kingdoms millions of different places okay Pro sure got involved in wars but they were generally small and short and had professional armies and that was it what happened when Germany United and got itself together world war one world war two okay no insult of the Germans but honestly when 1990 happened I did shudder a little bit when they reunified and of course we now have a united Europe but once again is not talking about trade anymore but talking about laws and even a yyyy-you army and even if you look at the EU army statistics many large countries now favor an EU army and of course who is the big enemy again oh look it's an octopus it's Putin as an octopus we are now still using 150 years the same propaganda we used 150 years ago against Russia gearing up for a large war based on the fact that we are in an alliance an alliance that actually made us deport a Russian diplomat and the word of Boris Johnson the word Boris Johnson allowed us to get involved in being mean to Russia I think it's crazy I think it's madness and I think even if we do get a united Ireland we have to do something radical we have to secede Donegal from the rest of the Republic we cannot get Donegal people there's only 160,000 in in Donegal we cannot get him involved in some foreign Russian war it can't happen and the national anthem of course will be Las Vegas in the hills of go buy goats don't shave because the genius part Gallaher the man who predicted who predicted donald trump and a wall building a wall those are actually in the lyrics of the song the hills of Donegal and we should build a wall around on Eagle it will become an amazing place you can have two casinos chicken ranches anything you want different laws different entertainment and look we're good at building walls we're amazing at it we've been doing it here for 5,000 years let's build a wall people will visit it like the great wall you can see it from space the great wall of Donegal and of course it is the force of the foreigners we can actually bring in people to build it as well and maybe get some decent cuisine beyond Fighters oh so when it comes to fishing rights this is all the amount of different countries are allowed to fish around the coast once again Tony called can recreate reclaim the porcupine shelf this massive area the size of Germany that used to be owned and can be fished constantly the 10 or 12 sites of interest off the coast of Donegal for gas and oil our Adal just recently voted that we would never drill for gas or oil ever again not in the Republic of Donegal no we're drilling for it all I'm regaining all the rights and all the money from it as well and that'll pay for everything we'll have to take rock wall and put a massive radar station on rock wall and a massive gun in case we see Spanish trawlers coming along trying to take our fish it's our fish Donny Gaul catch not Spanish catch and of course let's remember how American we are we're not European and Donny Gaul we like country music we're like driving cars we love cars and then driving them at insane speeds down crazy roads that's what we do we're American we're not really European at all and what we need to do is to encourage all those companies like Google and Facebook and all of those guys and actually say look you're paying twelve and a half well you're not paying anything really but you can pay nothing in Donegal for ten years except you have to build the infrastructure you have to build the roads you have to build the houses you have to do everything with your profits and when in ten years this place will be like Switzerland it will be amazing the banks can move here people could come here it will be a haven a tax haven but the people of Donegal benefit it will be as rich as printed but Trinidad and Tobago which it's the same size it loved the same population as Guam I'm telling you Dhoni goal can be massive the architecture then we can take the amazing work of Lima Cormack and use that everywhere use the landscape to inspire wonderful buildings there's only seven churches but we can change the ugly bungalows of duneagle into amazing wonderful creations like this especially birth church had taken after the Green Valley Oak imagine your house looked like that it would be amazing it just would don't argue with me about this last but not least at that train station by the way I drove past it today I just took this photo I can't believe it somebody has done it up it's going to be part of a Greenway now greenways are great ladies and gentlemen but who thought that the next development after trains will be walking so let's please get all the companies in declared the Republic of Donegal a place that had a coat of arms seven centuries before the Brits even thought of it and let's make this place this special place take care of itself and let all those people beyond the border beyond the border have their little war on the steppes of Russia it's been tried many times it's never won because remember Russia don't start wars but they sure know how to end them let's make sure Donegal isn't part of us and say with me up the Republic the Republic of Donegal [Music] [Applause]