"They"(a growing percentage of people in Northern Ireland) "did not see Britishness or Irishness as being mutually exclusive and rejected the notion that these identities are opposites," said Prof Muldoon."
So true, I'm going to type that fact again!
Britishness or Irishness are not mutually exclusive; they are not opposite identities!
Meanwhile, back in the land of the dinosaurs:
Yesterday Sinn Fein Minister Conor Murphy, who prefers the term north of Ireland to Northern Ireland, issued another Department of Regional Development Press release referring to the north of Ireland..
*(Debate in The Newsletter and also covered by Chekov and Conall).
5 comments:
Obviously it's understandable that the vast majority of northern nationalists would not recongnise Northern Ireland as a state. With the changes that the AIA brought about as well as the GFA though I for one have become comfortable with the term Northern Ireland. The state is Northern Ireland anyway.
Has nobody ever returned Conor Murphy's, for want of a better word, essay's corrected as would have happened in school.
The state is Northern Ireland anyway.
Darren
Of course it is, which makes the actions of the likes of Mr Murphy that more childish. He has no responsibility whatsoever for Donegal, so he should drop the pretense that he speaks for the north of Ireland. On the larger question of identity, SF and the more prehistoric wing of Unionism simply refuse to recognise the changes which are happening; I'd say there are three main streams:
1. An increasingly stronger Northern Irish regional identity across the board
2. An increasing (passive) acceptance of the union and its benefits amongst non-unionist voters.
3. Perhaps most intriguingly a strand of unionism (of which I'm part) *claiming back* our irish identity
Stonemason,
Occasionally his civil servants "forget" Mr Murphy's instructions...or so I've heard;)
My wife - a Canadian - exhibits "Englishness" and "Canadian-ness" (or North-American-ness).
However, her national identity is Canadian not English (or British).
Don't confuse Irishness with Irish national identity.
Try breaking your identity down. For example mine is:
Ethnic identity: English
National identity: English
State identity: British (UK)
If I exhibit anything it is Englishness (characteristic) - Britishness being a neologism that never really existed.
I'll break down my wife's identity.
Ethnic identity: English
National identity: Canadian
State identity: Canadian
Charateristic: Mostly Englishness, I'd say.
I wish Brown would stop using "Britishness" when what he's really taking about is British national identity (building Britain as a nation rather than a multi-national state).
People can live in places all their lives and 'become native' to all intents and purposes, but they may never self-identify with (or feel a sense of belonging to) the country/state that they live in.
Don't confuse Irishness with Irish national identity.
I start from the fact that I was born on the island of Ireland, so that make me as technically Irish as Gerry Adams. My interpretation of "Irishness" is different to his obviously and the challenge for irish nationalism (which it has singularly failed to even acknowledge up until now)is to accept that my Irishness (intermingled as it is with my British national identity) is as valid as theirs. What is the Irish national identity (rhetorical question!)? Does it involve only one interpretation of history, one version of the "national" culture, one set of heroes and villains? Or is it capable of accepting and accomodating diverse variations?
Again, at the minute, unfortunately a rhetorical question.
Ethnic identity: English
National identity: English
State identity: British (UK)
You know, I started on this and apart from the state identity, I couldn't give a one word answer for either ethnic or national identity. If I were forced to choose one national identity, then I would say British; but, that's the point, I don't want to be forced to!! I'm proud of my Irishness and proud of my Britishness, my pride in Ulster as my region would come after those first two. IMO, I believe I share similar or the same ethnic traits as someone born in either Cork or Cambridge, so what does that make my ethnicity?
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