Don’t be one of the T**Ts. We get along just fine.
The first time I ever went to Ireland was in 1995. I’d just finished University and had been invited over by my Irish friend Rory. We left Manchester, England with his sister and his Mum who drove us to catch the ferry from Holyhead, Wales to Dublin, Ireland. I was really excited about the week ahead. Rory and I had planned to travel all over Ireland visiting his relatives as he had family in the North and South of the island.
We boarded the ferry, found somewhere to sit and started to work our way through the mountain of cheap fags (that means cigarettes here) that you could buy back then and smoke on the ferry (those were the days…). Two American ladies were sat on a nearby table. I started to chat to them and asked them where they were from — expecting them to narrow down from America to at least a US state or city. “We’re Irish” — they replied. “Oh, I thought you were American” — I responded. “We are, we’re from Texas”. They then went in to what can only described as a rant against British atrocities in Ireland as if I was personally responsible for them all. “I wasn’t even born when any of those things happened” — I advised them. Apparently, “That’s no excuse” — they seethed.
It’s not that I ended the conversation. It seemed to end itself at that point and I was left a little stunned as I struck up another fag and offered anther to my friend’s Mum. A brief pause from lighting her fag and she then announced in the loudest stage whisper I’ve ever heard — “Christ, those two are fucking fat”. I still chuckle at that. That certainly got rid of the tension in the air.
Here’s a fact. During that week in Ireland, I never received any such similar hostility from ANY of my friend’s family in Northern Ireland (all strongly republican, Irish Catholics), ANY of his friends or ANY of his family in the republic. NOT ANYONE. I’ve been back to Ireland many times since, and I’ve never received any hostility for being British ever. I have, however, been to America many times over the last 20+ years and I have had numerous situations (similar to that on the ferry) where “Irish-Americans” have been extremely hostile in relation to my British-ness, bordering on — if not actually being hatred.
I’ve always found it strange that Irish people are actually so much different than those who self identify as Irish.
One of the most poignant words I ever heard in America, issuing forth from the mouth of an “Irish-American” was “We love the IRA in America…well, we used to until 9/11”. Essentially, he was saying that they loved and actually supported the bombings and the terrorism carried out in the UK via the provisional IRA but once similar horrendous crimes occurred on American soil then they realised it wasn’t very nice.
Similarly, I remember the “Irish-American” rap band — The House of Pain — being interviewed many years ago, singing the praises of the IRA whilst also extolling the virtues of smoking weed. To which the interviewer reminded them that the provisional IRA knee-capped drug dealers in Northern Ireland (you can google knee-capping).
Here’s another fact. The provisional IRA were not heroes. They stole and killed their supposedly “own” people — I know many Irish people who have experienced this, yet to many Irish-Americans, they were romanticized freedom fighters battling the English (not British).
I don’t like to use the term good as it seems inappropriate in relation to the horrors of that day but if there was one “good” thing that came out of 9/11, it was that for many Americans it demonstrated the sickness of such events first hand, on their soil. In my experience, there was definitely a lot less anti-British sentiment from the US following those events and a global repulsion of such acts.
Unfortunately, I think that is changing.
After becoming the POTUS, Joe Biden was asked by the BBC’s New York correspondent Nick Bryant for “a quick word for the BBC” as he passed by.
“The BBC?” Biden responded and then smiled — “I’m Irish.”
Perhaps a little playfulness and nothing serious?
Perhaps but coming from a man who has the same amount of Irish ancestry as I do (and I’m not Irish) and the same amount of English ancestry as I do (and I’m English), I found the comment a bit strange. But regardless of that, who am I to question what he has chosen to self identify as.
However, it’s no secret that Biden has always offered support to the provisional IRA and Sinn Fein, being quite happy to be photographed with his arms around an IRA fugitive who fled to America whilst on Bail, following arrest for attempted murder for example. Joe Biden also once revealed that his mother hated England so much that she chose to sleep on the floor rather than in a bed in which the Queen had previously slept and wrote poems calling for God to ‘rain blood’ on the English.
I do worry therefore what the future holds for us in the UK & Ireland if this is the sort of rhetoric that is coming so openly from the most powerful man in the world.
If you are an Irish-American then please do not be take in by this language.
Here’s a fact. Apart from a few twats (google it), most Irish and British people get a long just fine and none of us want to return to the days when terrorists blew up and tortured civilians, making many people’s lives a misery.
Nearly all of my friends have some sort of Irish heritage (many British people do). Yet, we’re all British. My Irish friend who I started this story off with is married to a / and has two children with a British woman.
If you are Irish-American and you really do identify as Irish then be Irish. As the Irish don’t hate us and we don’t hate them. Don’t be one of the twats.
