Oliver is from Co Donegal, but, partially because of his profession, most Londoners assume he’s “a Protestant from Northern Ireland and not a Catholic from the South”. He is a policeman in the British capital. “It’s not something I’d shout from the rooftops if I’m walking around the streets of Derry,” he says.
“Being where I’m from, and doing the job I do, I do bump into ex-military guys and ex-paratroopers. There’s one guy, I’ve got lots of time for him, but the stories he tells me from when he was in Northern Ireland are hair-raising. I’m just looking at him. You go, ‘Well, it’s history now, but I can see why the paras weren’t liked,’ whereas he tells it from another side. We have very grown-up conversations, and we do shout and swear at each other in private conversations about politics, and that’s fine. But, at the same time, I guess I’m a traitor for doing the job I do. What’s the old term? ‘Taking the queen’s shilling.’”
I’ve got a piece of paper saying that I will uphold the queen’s peace. I remember reading it out going, ‘Don’t have to take that thing seriously’
Oliver has never received any abuse for being Irish, but he recalls a story from a previous job. “A woman made a comment about an Irish passport being no good ... That made my blood boil for about five minutes. I got over it, and now I can look back and laugh in her face ... because, good God, what the British have done to themselves.”
Boredom is what led Oliver to London, he says: with a sibling already living there, it was an easy move. But becoming a police officer wasn’t part of the plan – he says he was “standing at a lectern pronouncing my faith to the queen going, ‘Woah, that’s weird.’ I’ve got a piece of paper saying that I will uphold the queen’s peace. I remember reading it out going, ‘Don’t have to take that thing seriously.’
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“They’ve definitely got no concept of their own history, and I do challenge people on it every now and again. I’ll say, ‘Look, I’m not having a go, but you don’t know your own history because you’re not taught it. It’s not your fault. Your history is uncomfortable, and you should at least look into some of it.”
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Oliver was on duty around the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, and he observed the strong sense of tradition around the monarchy. “The death of the queen was almost like they were losing a bit of their own identity, the warm fuzzy nice bit, and they’re mourning progress in a way.”
Culturally, he says, “the English have a hangover: the class system. It still permeates everything. And I still worry for the young people sometimes, this sort of inner-city street talk ... That’s like a cultural thing that grows up. It’s completely organic, but if you try and talk like that and get a job, you’re stuffed. You’re never going walk into a city job with an accent from inner-city London.”
I go home to Donegal, it takes me a few days to slow down. And then when I come back to London I’m a bit tense for a while
Some of the general cultural differences can take a bit of adjusting to in the first few days back in Ireland, or on the return to England after a break, Oliver says. “I go home to Donegal, it takes me a few days to slow down. And then when I come back to London I’m a bit tense for a while. It’s busy. The smells are different.”
Moving to London from a more conservative, rural environment changed Oliver’s outlook on life, he says, admitting some uncomfortable truths. “I was probably sexist, probably homophobic and probably a bit racist as a young man, because that’s all you knew. And then you move and you get your horizons broadened.”
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Oliver says he has worn a remembrance poppy in the past – he doesn’t have to wear one for work – but has largely stopped. “As I get angrier with certain traditional elements within the English, I don’t. They’ve conflated their war dead with a weird nationalism. And I’m very uncomfortable, because I meet people who wear the poppy, probably for far too long, and they’re the same sort of people who might be punching somebody on a football terrace, or would be sitting on a hill in Kent or Dover looking for migrants coming across on small boats, being absolutely horrified that there’s more brown people coming. Brexit has brought out some of the worst.”
