The Lynchs - Tumblr Posts

@litelatin replied to your post “Anonymous asked: I'm French and Irish living in the US and my Irish grandfather...”  what kind of headcannons?

As in what irish hcs bother me in this respect as an irish person? EDIT: this got kind of long, but if you’re interested in learning about what “Irish” elements in hcs/writing/etc. can come across badly to an Irish reader or interrupt suspension of disbelief, see below the cut for some points I came up with off the top of my head - this is written thinking about Ronan Lynch/TRC but also includes some of my general musings. I’m happy to consult with anyone who wants help with this!

I mean some general ones that I’ve already posted about are people referring to Irish as Gaelic (check the replies for further discourse) and having Irish people all be fluent and profound with the Irish language without any explanation how or the importance of this to their identity, which shows a complete ignorance of the whole post-colonial situation the language is in, or people using the term bagpipes to refer to Irish instruments which doesn’t sound right to us at all. You do have this in trc itself but I believe this is because the pov of that chapter isn’t lynch and it’s in-character ignorance of this. a helpful anon has let me know that maggie does seem aware of the terminology on her blog so at least there’s that. But also stuff like @arbores--loqui--latine’s post on st patrick’s day about how kilts are also Scottish and not Irish generally. This post gave me life tbh. Generally, I find the idea of Ronan acting anything other than livid about American interpretations of st patrick’s day don’t really work for me? Firstly, because of who he is as a person. Secondly, he’s second generation and the son of someone who was born in the North and I don’t think he would have been raised to think that pinching someone for not wearing green is a thing (it’s not in Ireland anyway) or as someone tied to a magical dream forrest he’d support dying rivers green or that Niall wouldn’t have been one to take part in our national past time of judging people for referring to it as st patty’s (it’s st patrick’s day or paddy’s day or nothing at all). Like I’m fine with Ronan ironically opting for a “kiss me I’m irish” line he fully knows is terrible, but idk, I think an interesting complexity can be found in his character as being so close to his irish heritage as an irish american? like i find that balance more compelling personally Other things are like pretty much anytime anyone writes irish!ronan - as in a ronan who is meant to be 100% born and raised in ireland - they do this terrible unnatural hokey dialect or speech pattern for him and his character becomes some mystical caricature and i cannot go any further without combusting with embarrassment. 

(generally there’s an obvious lack of awareness of irish history touched upon with this almost every time, with weird things coming out of comments people make offhand that just completely ruin all suspension of disbelief for me)

really odd stuff can come out of this too like weird wedding traditions that are in no way common or accounts of life in ireland as though the emerald isle is some magical/ahistorical realm out of Man of Aron that are again drenched in a long history of stage irishness and paddywhackery most foul.

i do often enjoy hcs and fics that draw on irish fairy lore, but if literally any single person ignorantly includes a leprechaun i will break out in hives - the contemporary version of a leprechaun which everyone is familiar with is a derogatory xenophobic stereotype based entirely on 19th century british colonial cartoons making fun of the primitive irish. they aren’t funny. stop. if you’re gonna use them, please confront their history when you do. if you mention them generally, be aware of their historical context. it’s bad and cringey enough they’re used in ireland as a fun gimmick for tourists. we don’t even have lucky charms in ireland and they make our blood boil fyi. there’s obvz a lot of stuff out there about alcohol and ireland which is Not Great and ill-informed and perpetuated without question? which unfortunately trc is kind of set up to allow for. i mean i do find harry potter much worse for this, but seamus finnegan is at least a side character, so there’s less major fandom posting perpetuating these problems without question. (also see the context of the st patrick’s day discourse above - like it’s a bit ew that our national holiday is celebrated by perpetuating a massive irish stereotype/social issue? idk)

also there’s some stuff out there about ireland and religion which is sort of quite dated or over-simplified? i don’t have the energy to go into this right now but that’s just a general topic that can raise my eyebrow

wow this is really long lol sorry - there’s just a lot that i generally ignore because it just makes no sense and this is some of it. tbh a lot of it is this intangible mysticism of “irish” characters as mentioned above, like i can’t give firm examples, it’s just inherent stuff in how characters are positioned/viewed/etc. I know that it generally is coming from a “good” place but a lot of it is rooted in really bad history and people just don’t know about it so that’s a shame. 

Like this is all 100% off the top of my head also. Again: If anyone wants me to read over their use of irish culture or characters, I would be happy to give feedback! I don’t want to discourage people from honestly engaging with these things, I just want to encourage more people to do a quick google before including something or actually checking with an irish person first, because a lot of this stuff actually reads like people have tried to look up irish traditions and completely missed the reality of what they’ve found or were led astray by the quantity of nonsense out there.  Does that answer your question? Any other Irish fans with anything to add? 

I know you've said before that Niall was probably from Belfast but I'm pretty sure I recall it being stated somewhere in the books something about him being from Roscommon? I mean to be fair I could have dreamt it but I'll try and find where I saw it

I don’t know about whether there may be mention of Roscommon at some point but in the prologue to The Dream Thieves it tells us “Niall Lynch was a braggart poet, a loser musician, a charming bit of hard luck bred in Belfast but born in Cumbria, and Ronan loved him like he loved nothing else.” I generally tend to ignore the Cumbria bit though. People generally do? Idk England doesn’t particularly compel me in relation to the Lynch as “Irish” characters soz - though I’m guessing these links may be developed in regards to the Scottish history/Celtic revival linked with Cumbria? But actually has anyone ever considered a Niall of NI descent raised in Cumbria as opposed to Norn Iron? Like that’s a whole thing u feel can we just - he’s written in a way that cloaks the potential of this entwined identity I feel - I need more of the relevance to make me give this any weight what’s the deal what is up why - also please keep in mind all of tumblr that I am the most perpetually exhausted I have ever been and as someone who never started their work in advance in college and has had issues with sleep generally for over 10 years that’s saying something so be forgiving for any glaring errors of logic I’m trying my goddamn best rn I stg I will be a real human so soon so beautifully soon I can sleep

how often do you get asks about ireland-related trc stuff? i have a question but i think it might be super dumb lmao

tbh i would happily answer any questions people have whenever! what’s your question? it’s actually really nice to get them sent my way and there’s nothing dumb about trying to find ireland-related things out with an irish person, i’d be delighted to help =)

imo any Christmas trc content that doesn’t include Ronan/Declan/Matthew referring to the 26th of December as St Stephen’s or just Stephen’s Day and using it as the truly sacred day of slugging our with left overs together is really missing out on some tranquil Irish Lynch vibes - like not to say sales aren’t some people’s major Stephen’s day plan, but lbr that’s just not Them, and also there is the whole going-out-with-your-mates-that-night route but I really think they’d be leaning more heavily on the nesting approach in the barns and a day of enforced truce between them

CDTH SPOILERS will tag also but just so you’re warned

The use of the word Fenian in CDTH is so jarring to me. Like I’m sure she’s trying to invoke Fenian in the sense of a member of the Irish mythological Fianna ? But like... it’s unavoidably political as a word ?

I could delve into a better explanation of this but I’m currently in a doctor’s waiting room so have this Wikipedia explanation of the term.

Being associated with Boudicca as an organisation makes it weirder that it’s being used and isn’t political to me. (There are probably a host of reasons why Boudicca as a figure could also complicate this further, but I just mean in the barest sense of it being a shady dangerous group, not that they appear to be even remotely paramilitary in nature, which also adds to the weirdness)

I mean lbr here is a man who must have memories of being from Belfast during the Troubles as evidenced by his shared past with Niall discussed in Chapter 64:

And calls himself the New Fenian apolitically ? As a henchman of this group ?? So odd.

I mean the term even has specific American history too.

I just don’t think any of the reasoning behind this will touch upon any of the connotations/history of this in itself - I mean that’s absolutely not the point of CDTH, nor do I particularly think it should be. So just... why ? Is it just that it sounds like a cool rebel name ? If so that surely would be shrouded in the actual historical rebellion it’s linked to ? Being from Belfast when Niall would have been there, there is no way he’d be ignorant of the word or immune to its connotations, he wouldn’t use it without those being considerations, and I don’t know why he’d particularly want to in this context regardless of political leaning. Therefore: very strange.

Like generally when people are talking about the Fianna even you wouldn’t say “Fionn mac Cumhaill was a Fenian” you’d say he was a leader of the Fianna? Diarmuid Ua Duibhne - solider or member of the Fianna. Calling them Fenian would be weird. It’s still an extremely recognisable term today.

Anyway this is my off the cuff rambling as a confused Irish reader.