"If I was born in a field would I be a horse?" is my usual retort to people who try and tell me who I am, and who I belong to, like a slave who was sold at market, I have never belonged to one nation.
Yeah I was born and schooled in Manchester, I was born to Irish parents, I am indeed the son of an Irish immigrant, an economic Irish immigrant
My parents came to England to look for work in the early '60s. Work in Ireland was scarce, due to centuries of fighting with, funnily enough.. the British.
Schooling wasn't that bad as it goes, you learnt all about the history of Britain, or the parts that you were supposed to know. It was only when the IRA were bombing the British mainland in the '70s and '80s did you get accusing fingers pointed at you.. you were Irish, you were scum, get back to Ireland blah de blah..was the bile fired in my direction.
In fact, one old dear in my street used to shout at me, then a 7yr old, '"get back to where you came from", like you were dirt...
I questioned why people would fire disapproving looks at me, I wasn't English, I was Irish, I was proud to be Irish, proud of who I was, but it sure was tough.
Every summer for as long back as I can remember .. I went to Ireland for SIX weeks on my summer holidays. My Uncle Paddy used to take me and my family to Co Mayo, via Holyhead on the ferry then the drive down from Dublin port to the beautiful county of Mayo in the wild, wild west of Ireland.
For that short period, I wasn't scowled at, I wasn't looked at with disdain, I wasn't judged... I was home.
Eventually, when I returned to Manchester in late July ready for the start of school in August, I'd catch up with my Manc pals, about what we did on our holidays, invariably, the majority never left Manchester, I felt like a king, as we did when we left the greyness of northern England, for the beauty that was southern Ireland.
Later in life when I left Manchester for London and I discarded my northern British upbringing. I got myself what I had believed was rightfully mine many years ago.. I got my Irish passport..
I still attracted the usual.. you are not Irish.. little doubts would litter my thinking, after all, if stuff is said to you long enough, you start to believe it right.. wrong..
The facts are.. yes I speak in a Mancunian brogue and not an Irish lilt.. I do not class myself as English. My family, and you can go back 10 generations.. are not British.. we are Irish, I am Irish and proud of it.
I spend at least a week a month in Ireland, and I have done so for over 40 years, but who am I, where do I belong, if I can't speak Irish, how can I be an Irishman? This is the racist shit I have had thrown at me for decades, and all because I question life and who I am.
When I go on holiday to foreign shores I avoid Britishness, I avoid the local pub, I avoid the egg and chip mentality of the British abroad, I run for the hills.. why.. because I do, it's embarrassing. it's not a slight on the British, it's just one of those things that shouldn't be encouraged to grow.
In 2011 the census has hit the UK streets to encourage ' Irishness' . The UK census is asking people of 2nd / 3rd generation Irish, to write Irish in the nationality box if you wish, as they would like to ascertain the levels of Irishness in Britain.. or do they?
After all.. the biggest arms producer in the western world, Lockheed from USA is collecting our data.. why?
People don't question who they are or where they come from, they accept what is asked of them, however suspect it may appear to be.
My motto is.. question everything, accept nothing
© - Words Paul Gallagher/ ZANI Media
