Remembering Myles: ‘…to be a person, completely unaware of nationalistic neuroses is a very fine ambition.’

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the great Brian O’Nolan, aka Flann O’Brien, aka Myles na gCopaleen we’re taking a lead from a Scotsman (who unlike us, did not forget). With a bow and a tip of the hat to Alex Massie, here’s the boy at his best… ‘To be decently ashamed of where one was born is the civilised attitude […] rejecting parochial affiliations […] repudiate the national attachment’; proposed ‘statutary denationalisation’ so that ‘the man irretrievably born Irish …

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Is polarisation over national identity just levelling out after Troubles?

Okay so as Aaron has pointed out, one of the most talked about findings in the census was the nation identity question. This is question has a rather volatile history in past surveys (though I think this is the first time it was included as a census question)… Edward Moxon-Browne had this chart in ‘National Identity in Northern Ireland’ as part of the first report of the Social Attitudes in Northern Ireland survey: It was for this reason I did …

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What does McIlroy’s pending decision for Team GB mean to the rest of us?

It’s easy to forget how long Ireland has gone about the sporting world without the least sign of serious success. When Padraig Harrington became the first Irish man since Fred Daly to win the Open it was only 2007. Rory McIlroy won a silver medal as top amateur in the same year. With Harrington joined by GMac, Darren Clarke and the boy from Holywood, modern Irish golfers have redefined what success looks like… Christy O’Connor Snr was in or near …

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Ireland’s “Old World melting pot must adapt, learn and settle before it can progress”

Oh dear, to take up the tone from Ruarai’s somewhat sleazy letter from America, there’s a very thoughtful blog essay on the problem of Ireland. I heartily recommend reading the whole thing, but here’s the last paragraph: While the tricky political condition resulting in the border must not be taken lightly, people of this island need to learn to transcend political reckoning with social cooperation. So where does this leave us? It leaves us without a single, identifiable voice; a …

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England: “We’re sh!t and we know we are…”

The  average England soccer fan has a strange love hate relationship with the serial failure of their international football team to win anything much since Wembly 1966. “It will really teach us a lesson” quipped one caller on Nicky Campbell phone in on BBC Radio Five Live this morning. Er, no actually. If there was any chance of that, you’d have learned something since you started serially beating up your managers, starting with Don Revie back in 1974. Even the sainted …

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