Have yerselves a hooley this Hibernalia

As anyone who knows the Deptford Croppy will happily/ruefully tell you, there are few more fond exponents of cawbogourery, paddywhackery and outrageously tenuous claims of Irishness for unlikely candidates from A to Z -- (Muhammad) Ali to Zorro -- than yours truly.

Indeed, as my put-upon flatmates would no doubt exhaustedly testify, this relentless Irishry can take its toll. They might even reckon they could sleepwalk their way through our paramedic training modules on ‘Recognising Radicalisation’ after living with me for two years.

Identity is a recurrent leitmotif here at the Rusty Wire Service and frankly, it never gets old. So what better time to revisit the theme than on the weekend of our annual Hibernalia?

In fairness, much as I revel in the jubilant silliness of taking irrational pleasure in the (often exaggerated) fables of the land of my forbears, I’d die roaring before I’d allow myself to be called a nationalist. Even growing up during the Troubles in Ireland when ‘nationalism’ meant the moderate and parliamentary strain of aspiration for a united Ireland, I was loath to label myself thus.

As an early student of history (literally learned at my mother’s breast; thanks for that Mammy, your history degree has stood me in good stead), I’d learned to view the term ‘nationalism’ with profound distrust even though it pretty much underpinned my Planxty-soundtracked West-of-Ireland childhood.

Nationalism to me has always been a deeply ambivalent term. On the one hand, the re-surgence of Irish culture at the end of the 19^th and early 20^th century is the wellspring from whence we all draw. A pride in the language, the literature, the music, the games, a belief in the ark that was our island in the Dark Ages; all of these things that had been for centuries seen as badges of shameful subjugation and second-class culture began to mean something again.

Our first faltering steps into independence among the community of nations were basically the result of a bunch of erudite dreamers with guns saying: ‘You know what? We used to be the Island of Saints and Scholars and we can be again. To the barricades!’

It was all of a piece with what was happening in the rest of Europe at the time. A Serbian nationalist kicked off the First World War a couple of years before our terrible beauty was even born or resurrected at Easter 1916. And then, when the chance came in Ireland to exchange the crown for a harp on post boxes and summons letterheads, it was the nationalist middle not the working internationalists who ultimately carried the day. Nationalist historiography has always been adept at airbrushing the likes of the Lockout or the Limerick Soviet from its folkloric/heroic narrative.

The real problem with revolutions is that they have to end sooner or later and on our sainted wee isle we had the added challenge of partition. The Free State turned in on itself, carving up the 26 counties administration with the Church while in the North, that famous work ethic was employed creating a Protestant state for a Protestant people. And both sides, in their insular nationalism and settler loyalism were largely indistinguishable in their preoccupations from many of their ethnically uneasy European neighbours at the time. We all know how that ended right?

A great lexicographer apparently once said that politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel. But within that (neologism alert) scoundrelarchy, there can none more venal than the nationalist. Not 'nationalist' in the sense of Irish people not being able to admit that they wanted an end to the border without sounding like a ‘Tiocfaidh’ (prounounced ‘chucky’ if you’re not conversant, from: ‘Tiocfaidh ár lá’ – our day will come; Irish Republican crie de guerre). Not at all. More nationalist in the sense of ethnic particularity and purity.

This usually comes down to: My ancient culture – using rules I pretty much just made up – trumps yours (and by coincidence, we’re a bit down on our luck and you happen to be part of a very visible/successful/vocal minority, here at our sufferance) so you better knuckle under or we’ll send you back to where you (or your parents/grandparents) came from. That kind of nationalism: it’s got to be the scummy tideline around the bottom of the scoundrelarchy’s unflushed toilet.

While I’m proud to be Irish (or at least I take great pleasure in the culture that was handed down to me and I’m mindful of the sacrifices made for me to do so), authentic Irishness to my mind should never be viewed in solely Gaelic terms. Sure, these are the cultural touchstones available to all in Ireland and to all the diaspora and it offers a common vocabulary of Irishness to Gaels, newcomers and exiles alike. 

However that hiberno-argot is evolving. The past couple of decades have seen a significant influx of people from Europe and beyond and while there will always be a nostalgic and fearful constituency in any country when they see old certainties changing, this is, on the whole, a country growing more comfortable in its skin (whatever ‘tinge’ that might be).

The endless re-invention of this now global Irish trope is nothing new. One thing history teaches about Ireland is that even with wave after wave of invaders, everybody is Irish within a generation (or two at most if you’ve just moved to one of those really parochial wee places) and everybody leaves their mark. Lebor Gabála Érenn or the Book of Invasions is a good early medieval example of national mythmaking masquerading as monk-written history. We've been making up stories about ourselves for centuries and, as is our wont, most of the narrators are unreliable; after all, they tell the best stories. 

So in the end, who are the Irish? After all the ethnography, the ontology, the epistemology and the codology, I honestly couldn't tell you. We’re a complicated bunch though and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I pressed however,  I'd rely on a quote attributed to an Irish patriot: It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish Nation. If Thomas Davis was right, being Irish is a state of mind, it's being a citizen in a Republic of the imagination.