Tiocfaidh ár lá: introduction to the special issue

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The two special issues of JSM represent a continuation of the Celtic conversation initiated by Aherne (2000) in his iconoclastic article, ‘The chronicles of the Celtic marketing circle, part I’. I'd like to thank the editors of JSM, Nigel Piercy and Carolyn Strong, as well as all the contributors, reviewers and production people at Routledge, for helping bring the issues to fruition. The title of this introduction, incidentally, is an Irish Republican rallying cry, which translates as ‘Our time will come’.

Notes

1. In a wretched attempt to establish my (tangential) Celtic credentials, I feel obliged to confess that I studied archaeology as an undergraduate, worked on several archaeological digs (Iron Age, no less) and first found gainful employment at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast. Yes, I know, I know, too much information…

2. This mistake is easily made, I should add. It is, I tell you! Check out Samuel (1998) if you don’t believe me.

3. In addition to our bulbous American cousins, the bus contained a conclave of wild‐eyed, wispy‐bearded, wooly‐jumpered ‘Druids’, who had regrettably lost touch with the imperatives of personal hygiene sometime in the Upper Palaeolithic. I’ll spare you the details.

4. The sunbox is a carefully angled, light‐directing channel above the main passageway to the Great Inner Chamber. It is principally responsible for the magical moments of illumination on midwinter morn.

5. In fairness, Newgrange is far from the worst of what’s on offer. The visitors’ centre is very attractive architecturally, as is the Boyne bridge, and it has won several richly‐deserved design awards. The light‐bulb business, however, is lamentable.

6. Other critics of McHistory are much less po‐faced. They merely make mock of marketisation, as in the classic comic book, 2000AD, where Judge Dredd pays a (six‐issue) visit to post‐apocalypse Ireland, which has been turned into a giant theme park called, ‘Emerald Isle’. The judge is called in to sort out the Sons of Erin, a terrorist group whose avowed ambition is to stage a ‘spectacular’ that’ll wipe out the entire tourist industry (‘No more leprechaun suits…. No more top o’ the mornin’ to ye…. No more patronizing our entire nation for the stereotyped garbage in a tourist brochure by some jerk who thinks this country’s just one big joke’.) The judge, however, tracks the terrorists to their lair—in the Charles Haughey Memorial Village, naturally—and takes care of them in his usual conciliatory fashion. Many contemporary historians, no doubt, wish they could sort out marketers in a similar fashion (see Graham, 2001).

7. A very good example of conceptual recycling is The Tipping Point (Gladwell, 2000), which basically reworks the old innovation diffusion models for a new audience. Subliminal advertising, as denounced by Vance Packard in the 1950s, is also making something of a comeback in the much‐vaunted form of ‘neuromarketing’.

8. Another contender, of course, is the word ‘strategy’, which has been interpreted in all sorts of ways (see Mintzberg et al., 1998). In this regard, some readers may be wondering what these special Celtic issues of JSM have to do with marketing strategy, inasmuch as the papers seem far removed from the conventional concerns of marketing strategists. The answer, however, is that it all depends on what is meant by ‘strategy’. These special issues, I believe, address the perennial strategic concern of marketing scholars and researchers: ‘what business are we in?’.

9. FYI, John O’Donohue has published several best‐selling books on Celtic spirituality, including Anam Cara and Divine Beauty. He runs well‐attended workshops and offers a personal consultation service for celebrities and the like.

10. I appreciate that dichotomies are unpopular with today’s postmodern pluralists. Yet, as Bowker and Star (1999) argue, humankind is drawn to them and, if evolutionary psychologists are correct, our dichotomising propensity won’t be defeated by the huffing and puffing of postmodern philosophers.