Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

On the left, here, you can see that another testimonial about Rainy Day has been added to the list. It comes from the Irish Times and an article by Robin O'Brien-Lynch that appeared in the paper on Friday (subscription required). As regards this blog, O'Brien-Lynch said: "Rainy Day by Eamonn Fitzgerald is a little heavy on homespun whimsy for some tastes but erudite and well-written. There is perhaps too much focus on foreign affairs at the expense of local comment."

The "local comment" that's missing in O'Brien-Lynch's eyes is material about Ireland, its politics and society. Here's his argument:

"When Irish bloggers want to talk politics, they tend to discuss US and global affairs, particularly Iraq. This is a self-defeating process; US politics and the war in Iraq are well-documented, with thousands of bloggers based in Iraq. Admittedly, Irish bloggers extend their potential audience by keeping their subject matter universal, but there also seems to be an unconscious snobbery towards Irish current affairs ק all Iraq and no IRA. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when Irish political blogs do come up trumps, the focus is on the North."

The Rainy Day response to this position is that on the net, all politics is local, in the sense that everything is just a click away. To be sure, the parochial is important and events at the foot of the Galtee Mountains are sometimes addressed here, even if it is with "homespun whimsy"; the provincial is significant — be it Munster rugby, Bavarian software or Catalonian wine — and is not ignored; and the national, from Norway to New Zealand, is taken seriously, but the rest of what you get here is the wide world of the web and that's because your blogger regards this as a global medium as opposed to a countrywide one. Actually, the proportion of posts relating to Ireland is flattering when one considers the state's size. Culturally and economically, however, the island is influential beyond its geography, and punches above its weight, as A.J. Liebling, the Shelly of the ring, would have put it, but the issue that most concerns Rainy Day is security in an age of terror and failed states, and Ireland's policy of neutrality means that it is simply not a player in the bigger game.

For more on this debate, and to read the Robin O'Brien-Lynch article, pop over to Gavin's Blog. Meanwhile, in the spirit of the illustrious West Cork paper, the Skibbereen Eagle, which warned 147 years ago that it was "keeping an eye on the Czar of Russia" and his expansionist plans, Rainy Day promises to not ignore Ireland.