Abstract
Irish pubs are associated with a strand of consumer capitalism that relies on the global commodification of culture, the export of ethnic stereotypes, and the creation of experiences that can be consumed along with more conventional forms of consumption. The production of an imagined Ireland in hybrid spaces which are anchored in the immediacy of the local, but also constituted through global connections, can be best understood through Manfred Steger’s concept of the global imaginary. This chapter focuses on the material and semiotic practices in Irish pubs across the world that produce spaces that are simultaneously both local and global, and which generate a global imaginary and global sense of belonging.
Dublin doesn’t feel so far away …
—Lonely Planet, The Dublin Irish Pub in Ushuaia, 2017
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Irish Gaelic: for ‘Land of Youth’.
- 2.
Margo is the stage name of Margaret Catherine O’Donnell an Irish singer and exponent of a hybrid musical genre known as ‘Irish country music’. Common epithets for O’Donnell include ‘The Girl from Donegal’ and ‘The Queen of Irish Country Music’.
- 3.
Bodhrán: Traditional Irish drum
References
Barthes, Roland. 2000. Mythologies. London: Vintage. (First published in GB by Jonathan Cape, 1972).
Baudrillard, Jean. 1998. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London: Sage.
Brown, Stephen, and Anthony Patterson. 2000. Knick-knack Paddy-whack, Give a Pub a Theme. Journal of Marketing Management 16 (6): 647–662.
Clarke, Donald. 2013. Who Will Set Us Free of This Horrible Entity: The Bogus Irishness of Craic? The Irish Times, June 22. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/who-will-set-us-free-of-the-bogus-irishness-of-craic-1.1438746. Accessed 26 Sept 2016.
Culler, Jonathan. 1981. Semiotics of Tourism. American Journal of Semiotics 1 (1/2): 127–141.
Eco, Umberto. 1986. Travels in Hyperreality: Essays. Trans: William Weaver. San Diego/New York/London: Harcourt, Brace and Co.
Elliott, Anthony, and John Urry. 2010. Mobile Lives. Oxon: Routledge.
Goodman, Conor. 2015. The Best Irish Pub in the World Outside Ireland Is … Healy Mac’s in Kuala Lumpur Is Named Irish Times ‘Best Irish Pub in the World’ (Outside Ireland). The Irish Times, April 27. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/generation-emigration/the-best-irish-pub-in-the-world-outside-ireland-is-1.2189367. Accessed 9 Sept 2017.
Graham, Colin. 2001. Deconstructing Ireland. Identity, Theory, Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Greenberg, Clement. 1989 [1961]. Avant-Garde and Kitsch. Art and Culture. 3–33. Boston: Beacon Press.
Haddad, Sam. 2014. The Most Far Flung Irish Pubs in the World. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/dec/15/irish-pubs-around-the-world. Accessed 15 Dec 2016.
Hoey, Paddy and David Shaw. 2016. Here’s Why St Patrick’s Day and ‘the craic’ are Two of Ireland’s Greatest Myths. The Conversation, Australia. https://theconversation.com/heres-why-st-patricks-day-and-the-craic-are-two-of-irelands-greatest-myths-55783. Accessed 20 Oct 2016.
Irish Network Japan. 2016. The 24th Tokyo St. Patrick’s Day Parade. http://www.inj.or.jp/en/event/24th-tokyo-st-patricks-day-parade. Accessed 20 Oct 2016.
Kelley, Austin. 2006. Ireland’s “Crack” Habit. Explaining the Faux Irish Pub Revolution. Slate, March 16. www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/03/irelands_crack_habit.html. Accessed 23 Sept 2016.
Kulka, Tomáš. 1996. Kitsch and Art. University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press.
Lifestyle Asia. 2011. Best Irish Pubs in Singapore. https://www.dropbox.com/ow/msft/edit/home/Irish%20pubs/LIFESTYLE%20ASIA.docx?hpt_click_ts=1474518673972. Accessed 23 Sept 2016.
Lonely Planet. 2017. Dublin Irish Pub. https://www.lonelyplanet.com/argentina/ushuaia/nightlife/dublin-irish-pub/a/poi-dri/1164913/363118. Accessed 28 Sept 2016.
Mays, Michael. 2005. Irish Identity in an Age of Globalisation. Irish Studies Review 13 (1): 3–12.
McCarthy, Pete. 2003. McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.
McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather. Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context. New York: Routledge.
McGovern, Mark. 2003. “The Cracked Glass of the Servant”: The Irish Pub, Irish identity and the Tourist Eye. In Irish Tourism. Image, Culture and Identity, ed. Michael Cronin and Barbara O’Connor, 83–104. Clevedon: Channel View Publications.
Monks, Aoife. 2005. “Everyone Can Be Irish for the Day”: Towards a Theory of Diasporic Performance. New England Theatre Journal 16: 117–129.
Myers, Kevin. 2010. The Day of Indulgence Is Done—The Time of Duty Has Arrived. Irish Independent, March 24. http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-the-day-of-indulgence-is-done-the-time-of-duty-has-arrived-26643791.html. Accessed 23 Oct 2016.
Nagle, John. 2005. ‘“Everybody is Irish on St. Paddy’s”: Ambivalence and Alterity at London’s St. Patrick’s Day 2002. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 12 (4): 563–583.
O’Neill, Brendan. 2001. We’re All Irish now. Spiked, March 15. http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/11789#.V_xN5uB96M8. Accessed 23 Nov 2016.
Pine, B. Joseph, and James H. Gilmore. 1999. The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre and Every Business a Stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Pope, Conor. 2016. The Irish Pub Is a Status Symbol. With Unrest in the World, Everything Irish is Seen as Safe. The Irish Times. September 15. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/the-irish-pub-is-a-status-symbol-with-unrest-in-the-world-everything-irish-is-seen-as-safe-1.2790913. Accessed 23 Nov 2016.
Postrel, Virginia. 2003. The Substance of Style. How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness. New York: HarperCollins.
Ritzer, George. 2010. Enchanting a Disenchanted World. Continuity and Change in the Cathedrals of Consumption. London: Sage.
Seigworth, Gregory, and Melissa Gregg. 2010. An Inventory of Shimmers. In The Affect Theory Reader, ed. Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 1–25. Durham: Duke University Press.
Skinner, Jonathan, and Dominic Bryan, eds. 2015. Consuming St. Patrick’s Day. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
St. Patrick’s Day and Night. 2016. Moscow, http://irishweek.ru/day-night/?lang=en. Accessed 19 Oct 2016.
Steger, Manfred B. 2004. Introduction: Rethinking Ideological Dimensions of Globalization. In Rethinking Globalism, ed. Manfred Steger, 1–12. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
———. 2008. The Rise of the Global Imaginary. Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Steger, Manfred B., and Paul James. 2013. Levels of Subjective Globalization: Ideologies, Imaginaries, Ontologies. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 12: 17–40.
The Irish Pub Company. 2016. http://irishpubcompany.com/the-story-of-the-irish-pub-company/. Accessed 20 Oct 2016.
The Irish Pub Concept. 2017. http://irishpubconcept.com/about/overview/ Accessed 20 Oct 2017.
The Irish Village Dubai. 2016. https://theirishvillage.com/. Accessed 7 Nov 2016.
Thrift, Nigel. 2010. Understanding the Material Practices of Glamour. In The Affect Theory Reader, ed. Melissa Gregg and Gregory Seigworth, 289–308. Durham: Duke University Press.
Watson, James L., ed. 2006. Golden Arches East. McDonald’s in East Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Welch, Robert. 1996. Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hudson, C. (2019). The ‘Craic’ Goes Global: Irish Pubs and the Global Imaginary. In: Hudson, C., Wilson, E. (eds) Revisiting the Global Imaginary. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14911-6_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14911-6_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14910-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14911-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)