Opinion

Alex Kane: I wouldn't feel comfortable in a united Ireland, but my children might

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

Sunrise on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin Picture Mal McCann.
Sunrise on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin Picture Mal McCann. Sunrise on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin Picture Mal McCann.

There are moments when I think I should feel Irish. My adoptive parents were born before partition: into an Ireland that was united, albeit as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

My Dad, born in 1906, had family in Sligo and happy memories of spending time with them—before and after 1921. It hurt him when tensions between north and south in the late 1960s/early 70s slowed his regular cross-border visits down to a trickle: and then a full stop.

I remember some of those visits to Sligo and further-afield trips to Cavan, Meath, Monaghan, Leitrim, Galway and on down to Cork and Waterford. Farms and beaches were my favourite places, but I have lingering memories of how laid back everyone and everything seemed to be. But, as I said, the visits stopped.

Long after my dad died I asked Mum what had happened. She told me it was because he was an Orangeman and member of the Ulster Unionist Party and just felt increasingly uncomfortable with what he described as the ‘border mentality’ of those he once regarded as friends and boyhood neighbours. As she put it, he had a growing sense he was now regarded as an outsider, an enemy of those who wanted to unite Ireland again.

He wasn’t. He was fascinated by ‘Irish’ culture and even spoke the language reasonably well. He read the Irish Times until his final illness made it too difficult for him to read. He was an expert on the drawing of the ‘line of separation’—as he described the border—and often told me of the damage it had done to communities where Protestants, Catholics, nationalists and what eventually became ‘Ulster’ unionists had lived reasonably peaceably before 1921. He was born in a united Ireland and had no difficulty in recognising the Irish dimension of his identity.

But never once have I felt Irish. I never describe myself as Irish, or even Northern Irish. That said, I have no hatred, or even dislike of Irish: culture, language, history, or people. I may not have liked some of the decisions taken by Irish governments on Northern Ireland, and I always had difficulty with the seeming reluctance to extradite suspected members of the IRA; yet those personal dislikes and difficulties have never embraced the Irish people or Irish society and culture as a whole.

But as I’ve got older and as demographics and political circumstances have changed (particularly post-Brexit), I’ve found myself wondering how I would cope if Ireland were united again. I think it’s fairly likely a border poll will be held within the next decade or so and that will force me to think about what a ‘new’ Ireland would look like. It would also force me to think about what advice to give my children.

I’ll tell them what my dad told me when, in 1973, at the age of 18 and casting my first vote, I told him I supported Brian Faulkner’s willingness to cut a power-sharing deal with the SDLP (then regarded by many unionists as a front for the IRA). I wondered if he’d mind. His answer was, as ever, honest and straight to the point: “Don’t carry my political baggage with you. You’ll have enough baggage of your own when you get to my age.”

The Ireland he stopped visiting in 1972/73 no longer exists. The Ireland I’ve heard unionists and loyalists talk about for most of my life doesn’t exist any more. The Ireland of bumpy roads taking over from the solid northern roads when you crossed the border has gone. The Ireland of Rome rule and crushingly inhibitive social conservatism has gone. Dublin often feels more British than Belfast. The poor-looking-over-its-shoulder-in-envy-at-its-cross-border-neighbour Ireland has gone.

Could I imagine my children living in and being comfortable in a ‘new’ united Ireland? Yes: but only if they don’t carry my baggage and my memories. And that’s because the ‘new’ Ireland would be as new to them as it would be to everyone else living in it. Hopefully most of them wouldn’t insist on carrying someone else’s baggage, either, for that’s the only way to bring both parts together and create an entirely new whole that will be something that can grow and build its own history and story.

And me? My sense of identity is deep and entrenched. Too many of my memories are nudged by the shadow of the pain and grief that touched too many lives for far too long. My personal baggage fills too much of my hallway to embrace something entirely new and I don’t think I could just leave it behind me at this point.

But if Ireland is united again I hope we’ll collectively learn from all of our mistakes since 1921 and achieve genuine reconciliation and common purpose.

:: This essay is from the just published anthology, Being Irish: 101 Views on Irish Identity Today (published by The Liffey Press)