His task in the talk is to explain the glaring differences in how Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have handled their problems with the English. His thesis is that "geography" and Topology may be the source of those differences. The premise of his argument is that Ireland has reacted to the British far more emotionally and violently than other Celtic countries. Scotland and Wales have managed their status within and without the British Empire with little of the Vitriol which the Irish season those relationships. Jones claims: "The relations between Scotland and England, for instance, are typical of those subsisting between 2 strong and well-matched men, who after a period of angry fighting agree to be reconciled and to join in a partnership of mutual benefit." The same reason, he says, cannot be applied to Wales and England where racial and cultural differences are profound and yet still the 2 countries manage to live in peace. Jones explains this with the metaphor of "2 brothers of unequal size, with good-humored tolerance on the one side and a combination of petulance and admiration on the other."
But between England and Ireland we have a long history of "dragooning, despoiling, and bullying on the one side and of dogged and contumacious resistance on the other." Why the differences? He wonders, especially it cannot be shown that England used a deeper and wider standard of Tyranny with Ireland than she did with Wales and Scotland. Or is there some "special feature in the Irish character that provoked friction and prevented union?" All 3 of the countries in question are predominantly from the same stock which Jones labels as "Mediterranean stock with a primitive Neolithic substratum, which in [all] cases completely accepted, presumably thru conquest, the Celtic culture and Language." So wassup? Wherein lies the difference?
Simple, says Jones, Ireland is an Island. The other nations are not. Jones then points to Freud et al whose work has established that "the psychology of islanders tends to differ from that of related peoples on the mainland." Naturally, the word "Insular" leaps to mind. But how does insularity influence mentality? He quickly glosses over the obvious aspects of "aloofness," and the "desire for security," which he rightly claims have been adequately demonstrated elsewhere. Jones wants to talk about the aspect which "concerns the tendency of the geographical insularity to become unconsciously associated with particular complexes, affording in this way a certain mode of expression for these." The complexes to which an island becomes attached are: Woman, Virgin, Mother, and Womb, "all of which fuse in the central complex of the womb as the virgin mother." Skippy finds it more than interesting that the same complexes have accrued to the Gaelic morpheme "Brú," as in Brú na Bóinne.
Jones then surveys literature for tales of such Magical Isles: Avalon being the eponymous favorite. All Islands, he says, are female. And in fact most countries are represented by some sort of female allegory: Britannia, Columbia, Germania, Italia, etc. And in none of these mythic allegories is there a husband. He claims that these allegories have more sticking power if the country is also an island. Britannia, he points out, means much more to the British than does Columbia to the Amerikans. He also points out that in Irish Literature Ireland or Erin is always female. Yeats called Ireland Cáitlin Ni Houlihan and you may remember his Play of the same name. Ireland is called: Morrin Ni Cullinan, Roisin Dubh [little Black Rose], Shean Van Vocht [the old woman], Seau Bheau Bhoct, Dark Rosaleen and by the names of 3 ancient queens of the Tuatha Di Danann - Eire, Bauba, and Fodhla. Ireland is always a woman and always a mother.
"In every region of the world the belief may be found that there exists somewhere, usually in a Western Sea, a magical island which is identified with heaven. In Europa you find these names of such Isles: Meropis, the continent of Kronos, Ogygia, Atlantis, The Garden of the Hesperides, the Fortunate Isles, and of course Avalon whose name means: "Apple Orchard." The hallmarks of these magical isles are also the hallmarks of the Mother: a place where all your wishes are fulfilled, from it new souls emanate, and it is the land to which the dead depart. The Archetype of the Mother is illustrated by the Triple-Spiral Motif found all over the British Isles, Ireland and parts of Spain, Portugal and France. She comprises the 1st Trinity of men's religions and her 3 faces illustrate the world of the female: Womb, Tomb, and Seductress. Witch, Bitch, and Crone. Here Jones gets real Freudian when he says that all humans travel thru this mental topology when they are young. "I refer, of course, to the period of complete gratification passed thru during intrauterine life, the perfection of which gradually `fades into the light of common day,' as Wordsworth put it." This "fading" is recapitulated in Eliot's masterpiece: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," in the last lines: "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/ By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown/ Till human voices wake us, and we drown."
Many of these magic isles are the source of "Fountains of Life," and eternal youth. Many of them have magic trees which yield magic fruit: golden apples, or peaches of immortality. Jones points out that Apples are always symbols of the Breast as is fruit generally. Skippy shudders here, with his years spent studying what he calls "Tree-Grammar," the repository of archetypes and instincts and aesthetics which we have inherited from our 50 million years of evolution in the canopies of trees. Trees which gave monkey-boy shelter, fruits and flowers for food, and instant protection from the land killers like the big cats and the fucking Jackals. Children demand tree houses for a reason much deeper than most humans are prepared to admit. Jones sums his psychobabble up: "There can be little doubt that unconscious memories of the mother's womb and breast contributed to the formation of this phantasy of a wishless Paradise." The fact that in our myths these magical isles are from where children originate also points squarely to this maternal complex. Otto Rank, he reminds us, went bug-fucking nuts - just like Nietzsche - doing research on the "idea of water in myths and beliefs relating to birth." So Island = Womb is QED. It's a wrap. As for the concept that the Island is the place the soul returns to after death - we immediately leap to Arthur's body transported to Avalon by the Fay Morgana who Transfigured her Chi into 3 Faces to accompany the dying and resurrecting king to his womb-abode to abide his return. Pssst...There were 3 women named Mary at the foot of Christ's Cross who watched him die and then prepared his body for the tomb. One of those Mary's was the 1st witness to the Resurrection. Jones says: "Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return. The Unconscious mind cannot apprehend the idea of annihilation [Object Loss] and substitutes for it that of return to the Nirvana existence of prenatal life."
"We thus see that all aspects of the idea of an island Paradise are intimately connected with womb fantasies, with out deepest feelings about birth, death, and mother. . . . Without fear of contradiction it may be said that there is no culture so impregnated throughout with the various beliefs and legends associated with the idea of an island Paradise" than that of the Irish. Ireland is Thierna no oge - the country of youth. Tir-Innambéo - the Land of the Living. It is also called [in translation]: The Land of Youth. The Land of Promise. The Other Land. The Blessed Isle. The Emerald Isle - where green is the color of life, and by the way, the color of the Holy Spirit in Catholic Iconography. On these Isles, in Irish myth, heroes search for the Cauldron of Rebirth, and the Holy Grail, both archetype of the female womb. The Isle is always in the West because West is the direction where death lives because the Sun, on its heroic path, falls into the West to die. To lie in Darkness. And then to Return. Going West is on old idiom of dying.
Ireland, Jones points out, was the only member of the British Empire to refuse, in the 16th century, to "relinquish the Catholic cult of the Virgin-Mother." Why did all of the British Empire go protestant and anti-marian except Ireland which has made Mary back into the goddess from which she sprang? When the British divided the Island of Ireland into North and South - the Irish saw this as Rape, pure and simple. Psychologically, we are never apt to forgive the rape and despoilation of our mother, especially when our mother is a Virgin Goddess. So you see? Asks Jones, more rhetorically than Skippy, that's why Ireland will always hate the Brits. They're Motha-Fuckas. Since Jones gave this talk to Brits and not to Irishmen, we can imagine it as an after-dinner speech with cigars and good whiskey. White men with Phds tittering at the Ironies. Like Skippy and Slag, Eddie Rickets and Cairo, but better dressed.