Many years ago in London, I had a bit of debate with an English colleague about my nationality. He claimed I was British. His logic, it emerged, was that it’s the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland – it says so on the passport. I told him that it’s the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He disputed this, so we agreed to bring our respective passports into work the next day to settle the matter.
Filled with the giddy prospect of being right, I brought in my passport the following morning. The colleague had not. Grudgingly, he admitted that one glance at it had proven me correct. Ireland was a different country. Yet he wasn’t prepared to completely concede the point.
“Still,” he said. “You know what I meant.”
What he meant was an attitude that I’ve encountered many times since: Ireland might be a different jurisdiction, but for the British, the Irish aren’t really foreign – not in the way the French or South Africans or Australians are.
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There are probably many reasons for this attitude: the vapours of colonialism, ignorance of Irish history, or you’re-white-like-us racism. But it’s mostly to do with proximity. Go to any part of Britain and you’d be hard pressed to meet anyone who doesn’t at least know another Irish person, or is married to one or has some Irish ancestry.
We can forget how much Irishness is woven into British life. The British – or more specifically, the English – think of us as their fun cousins. The ones you want to sit with at weddings.
Around the borders of Europe, you’ll see the distinct influence of the neighbouring country: in the food, the architectural style, even the language: one country slowly morphs into another rather than suddenly transforms
And, like it or not, it works the other way too. When English people come to Ireland, they see the same shops. They see fellas wandering around in English football jerseys. They can buy their usual newspaper. They can watch the BBC in their hotel room. It’s easy to see how they might regard all that as British; just with an Irishy twist.
This isn’t unique to our part of the world. Lines on a map are just that. On the ground, those areas are far more culturally porous. Around the borders of Europe, for instance, you’ll see the distinct influence of the neighbouring country: in the food, the architectural style, even the language: one country slowly morphs into another rather than suddenly transforms. In Africa, most borders bear virtually no relation to the ethnic groups within them.
In the case of Ireland and Britain, it’s a bit more straightforward because we are separated by a sea. But, of course, there is a border. There’s also not a border. When I drive there, I always play the game with myself of trying to identify the exact spot when I enter Northern Ireland. I always fail to do so. It is, perhaps, left deliberately vague.
On the streets of Belfast or Derry, it always feels and looks like Ireland, but with a slight difference (apart from the street signs) that I can’t quite put my finger on. The history of the last century may be a factor: this territory is still part of the UK. But its “Britishness” doesn’t feel dissimilar to what you might find in other parts of this island: squint and Dublin can often feel like Manchester.
Or it could just be that Northern Ireland feels a little different in the way Carlow feels different from Cork. Even within countries, there’s a little bit of foreignness going on. These are just my impressions, as someone who lives in Dublin. But a person who lives in Donegal would probably have far more in common with someone who lives in Tyrone than they would with me.
People who get greatly exercised about borders usually don’t live anywhere near them. Those who do – more aware of the nuances of identity – go about their daily lives acting, as much as possible, as if those borders don’t exist.