Irish identity

Unionism needs to reclaim its Irishness…

Ollie Donaldson on August 24, 2022, 8:45 am | Readers 5930

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Irish language legislation is coming. This is despite the protest of some unionist activists and politicians, who have objected due to the politicised nature of the language. That the Irish language has been politicised obscenely is hard to object to, however the response to simply shut any language legislation down is not proving to be an effective one. Nor, in my opinion, is it an appropriate response. However, what else is possible after the wholesale retreat from Irishness by most …

What’s in a name #3…

Niall NYC on July 28, 2021, 8:30 am | Readers 4107

I was delighted to read, from afar, that the DUP MP for East Londonderry Gregory Campbell deigns that the border in Ireland is not “a threat to anyone who feels Irish on this part of the island.”. I’m sorry, but “feels Irish”? Am I naïve in thinking we had moved on in “Our Wee Country” since 1998? Or does this typify a mindset that refuses to accept geographical reality? There is a Big Island called Britain, and there is a …

Future Ireland / Loyalist Voices: A Conversation I’d Love To Have Someday

William Ennis on February 2, 2019, 9:50 am | Readers 5490

I like the idea of the conversation. I’ve always found conversations very useful. Arguments are too heated, always driven by aggression, and even debates always seem poised in an uncomfortable, adversarial way. But the conversation is good. A conversation is calm and much more likely to be geared toward understanding. It was mid-morning in a nice bar in Northumberland Road, Dublin. My friend was across the road in Dublin and Wicklow’s Orange Hall. I’d been in there earlier and absolutely loved it, as any Loyalist anorak …

British or Irish. When it comes to identity we are all mongrels…

Claire Mitchell on October 7, 2017, 1:53 pm | Readers 6868

We are all mongrels, to a greater or lesser degree. British-Irish-Northern Irish crossbreeds. Not to mention the fact that if we did ancestry DNA tests we’d probably be 20% African. We live in a divided society and in a contested state. So to hear Foster and O’Neill playing Punch and Judy at the Tory party conference this week was frustrating. ‘Northern Ireland is British’, ‘Oh no it’s not’. etc. etc. I was studying and teaching Northern Irish politics in University …

British Irishman, not a Black and Tan

Brian Spencer on August 22, 2016, 11:28 am | Readers 3508

In the Ireland of 2016 the British community (Protestant and unionists) still carry the curse of plantation, Cromwell, the famine, the Black and Tans and one-party rule Stormont. (Read ‘Being a planter‘ here.) The Protestant and unionists are the villains, by birth levied and vilified with historical wrong. Catholic is Erin and virtue, Protestant is Saxon and guilt. When Americans think of Britain they think of Monty Python or Downton Abbey. When the French think of Britain they think of …

Irish and Loyalist

Brian Spencer on June 19, 2016, 5:53 pm | Readers 5084

In my first post in this series – looking at what it is to be Irish (as an adjoint to my blog ‘The New Irishman’) – I sought to show that Ian Paisley was 100% Irish. Ian Paisley’s Irishness was stated unequivocally by the man himself; and third party observers have testified to his quintessential Irishness. In my second post I sought to show that the protestant in Ireland has historically, and in Northern Ireland presently, been considered as illegitimate and as an inauthentic outsider – “imperialistic …

Catholic, Erin and virtue. Protestant, Saxon and guilt.*

Brian Spencer on June 3, 2016, 1:34 pm | Readers 2808

Watch this video, it punched me in the sternum – ‘momondo – The DNA Journey’: We divide people in two. Native or immigrant. Authentic or blow-in. We want certainty, especially in Northern Ireland – Protestant or Catholic, us or them. Catholic is Erin and virtue. Protestant is Saxon and guilt (and “imperialistic blood-suckers” as southern Protestant Hubert Butler said). It’s not unique to Northern Ireland, but is a universal condition. Mistrust of “the other” is typeset into man’s …

Ian Paisley – “We are Irish!”

Brian Spencer on May 29, 2016, 3:54 pm | Readers 5739

Of the DUP membership, 1.4% self-identify as Irish. Yet the founder of the DUP was 100% Irish. This is not speculation or conjecture or troublemaking, this is a statement of fact based upon unequivocal and repeated testimony from Ian Paisley. Ian paisley wrote in 2012 on the centenary of the signing of the Ulster Covenant: “Edward Carson was a life-long Irishman, as well as being a life-long unionist, and that made all the difference… On this 28th day …

Confessions of an Irish Catholic anarchist…

Soapbox on February 7, 2016, 7:00 am | Readers 1434

With election time on the horizon, the descriptive terms in the title start coming up in conversation more and more frequently. And yes, it is all correct; I’m an Irish citizen, a devout Catholic and a committed anarchist. To the average person, that might seem incongruous- certainly the last two- even absurd. But it is all correct. Needless to say, questions come thick and fast: How I can remain in the hierarchical Catholic Church- which prizes devotion and obedience …

What if McIlroy’s stance was the prompt for a conversation of what it means to be Irish?

Mick Fealty on September 18, 2012, 1:10 pm | Readers 81

I was struck by Niall O’Dowd’s passionate assay of the Rory McIlroy choses to be British affair, not least where he rather honestly relates that …the Northern Ireland flag, flown by a Protestant like Graeme McDowell, will never bother me in the slightest, flown by a Catholic like Rory, however, will never seem quite right to me. I remember being best man at friend’s wedding in the mid 80s. It was a mixed marriage and the plan was to marry …