I’m Protestant, I’m British and I’m Irish – why is that a problem? |
WHEN it comes to identity, everybody has an opinion on what Protestants are. We are talked at, not listened to.
Everyone wants a Protestant on their panel, but few want a Protestant voice.
When I attend events, there is always a tedious man in the audience who thinks he’s the first person in the world to reveal that the Brits don’t care.
Identity is complicated in Northern Ireland.
Sarah Creighton: I’m Protestant, I’m British and I’m Irish – why is that a problem?
Cormac Moore: New treasure trove of census data sheds light on Protestant flight from Free State after partition
Within my family, some of my siblings are Irish and the tricolour is their flag. Some are British and nothing else. Others are Irish but in a Northern Irish sense.
One family member calls himself an Ulsterman, neither British nor Irish.
How people identify is up to them and nobody else should care.
I am British and Irish. My Britishness is uniquely Northern Irish. While I consider Britain to be “the mainland”, my sense of identity is different and I’m proud of that.
My Irish identity comes from my connection to Ulster and the island of Ireland but I’m not Irish like my nationalist friends.
To identify with one and not the other would feel like cutting off a part of myself.
With respect to Brian Feeney’s column in this paper earlier this week, I am not deluded or suffering from colonisation syndrome, whatever than means. Neither is anybody else who feels British. I think Brian knows that it’s more complicated than that.
Partition cut northern Protestants off from their southern brethren. The north culturally, institutionally, became more British.
During the Troubles, many people stopped calling themselves Irish because the Provisional IRA said that they were Irish.
They murdered Protestants for being Protestant. Every bullet and bomb told us that we weren’t Irish.
The Good........