Irish comedians don't need to mention the war

The Germans have a few stereotypes and preconceptions about Ireland, but to my knowledge they have yet to depict us on their national airwaves as a nation of balaclava-wearing terrorists planting bombs at the heart of Europe’s economy. In their comedy shows Enda Kenny is not given black gloves, a gun and leather patches on his green sweater.

If they were to do that the wail of disgust would carry all the way from Dublin to Berlin. It would be grounds to tear up the promissory note there and then. But here? Recent depictions of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have given her a military-brown shirt (Anglo: The Musical) or have gone so far as to cast her as an Alsatian-wielding Nazi and throw in some tasteless Holocaust references (Green Tea).

Even the smartest depiction, originally on Après Match but now on Irish Pictorial Weekly, gives us Barry Murphy as Merkel the Bond Villain, a merciless soul at the heart of an evil plan to crush your dreams. (It is also genuinely funny.)

Anglo: The Musical’s Twitter account has also quipped: “Thinking of giving our Merkal puppet a moustache in support of Movember. Any ideas for a type of ronnie that’d work for a German leader?”

For a country that avoided the second World War and a subsequently crippling obsession with that conflict, there has been an embarrassingly easy fallback into equating the German leader with lazy, and sometimes troubling, historical stereotypes. In the case of Green Tea, the offence went beyond the two nations to an entire race when it cranked up the air-raid sirens, broke out the sounds of Alsatians barking, threw in a few standard war-movie lines and described the Irish Government huddled in its “ghetto”.

This country’s economy can be compared to many things, but the Holocaust should never be on that list. Then again, this is what can happen when such lazy stereotyping becomes a trope of Irish comedy.

Among the crocked countries of Europe, Ireland is hardly the worst in this regard. Protesters in Lisbon last wore Adolf Merkel T-shirts, and her effigy – mid Heil – was burned in an English town on Guy Fawkes night.

But it is to Greece we look for the most virulent depictions. In October, Greek protesters greeted Merkel’s visit by dressing as Nazis and fighting police, but they were only following the lead of some sections of the media. Broadcasters have repeatedly made the analogy between Germany’s attitude to the crisis and its Nazi past.

Greek newspapers have put Merkel in Nazi uniforms while also giving Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, an SS makeover.

All you have to do is run an internet search for “Merkel Nazi” to see those images, plus a wider selection of pictures and cartoons depicting her in a variety of Hitler moustaches. And more: among those who like their conspiracy theories wild, a popular one takes the depiction literally and suggests she is Hitler’s illegitimate daughter, born of his frozen sperm and Eva Braun’s sister.

But here? Ireland didn’t used to go in for that sort of thing. In this corner of Europe, Ireland wasn’t the island with the historical hang-ups or the simmering truculence towards the Germans. The Irish weren’t trotting out the “don’t mention the war” lines or engaged in towel skirmishes on the Costa Brava. All of that was looked on as a particularly British obsession that they needed to get over. There was bemusement at the Mirror’s infamous “Achtung! Surrender!” front page during Euro ’96 that was reflective of the cultural gulf.

That was their history, not ours. Our history with the war . . . well, that’s another matter, but at least it hadn’t led to decades of “the Jerries”.

In an Ipsos MRBI poll for The Irish Times earlier this year, only 7 per cent of Irish people said Hitler and the Nazis came to mind when they thought of Germany. They were twice as likely to think of beer festivals – although that might have been a complex confirmation of an Irish ability to stereotype themselves even when rummaging for stereotypes of others.

So we’ve managed the 65 years since the war without getting into that mindset. Our comedians, for all their faults, didn’t have to dip into The Big Book of German Cliches for a gag. There might be some ways in which Ireland can be compared to Fawlty Towers, but it’s no excuse for breaking into a John Cleese high kick.

@shanehegarty