| The Joe Horgan Column By Joe
Horgan
I could well be missing the point here, but apart from the
predictions that he will be a superstar, the fact that the Celtic
footballer Aiden McGeady opted to represent Ireland rather than the land
of his birth, Scotland, obviously stirred more than just sporting
interest.
Certain sections of Scottish society have not reacted kindly to young
McGeady’s international preference and there are reports that he is
already singled out for abuse at some games purely on that basis. Now
I’ll have to admit at this point to having more ignorance than knowledge
about Scotland, but like anyone else I have been aware of the rumblings
that there exists an anti-Irishness that is of a strain and virulence
not really found anywhere else but the north of Ireland.
Like many others, both here in Ireland and from Irish families in
Britain, I have a strange affinity with Celtic based purely on their
embodiment of Irishness. I have never been to Glasgow, never been what I
would call a true Celtic fan but I have an attachment to them that I
have for no other club beyond the one I grew up with. More than once
when I was growing up I used to wish that we had a Celtic in England.
It may well be that there is just an anti-Celtic football club flavour
to the feelings surrounding McGeady or a despair at the state
of Scottish international football, but somehow I doubt it. Some
writings in the Scottish paper The Daily Record seem to confirm those
doubts. “It’s time all Scottish Celtic fans got over their obsession
with Ireland,” one wrote. “The word that immediately springs to mind is
patriotism, the commitment to the country of your birth, a value McGeady
has chosen to throw away like the joke in an old Christmas cracker,”
said another. Ah, now we are on familiar territory.
So Aidan McGeady has to be Scottish, feel Scottish and represent
Scotland just because he was born there. There is to be no account of
his family, his upbringing, his formative years, his own society within
Scotland. It must all boil down to the simple matter of his place of
birth. This is the common theme amongst so many people of a particular
mindset, that the complexities of life are a nuisance best ignored and
that things can be reduced to simple statements such as place of birth.
If only life were that simple. But the one truly simple statement is
that life is not.
Many families in Scotland have an Irish link going back generations and
in a society that many admit suffers from sectarianism this Irishness is
a defining factor for them. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of
these families will have an Irish background that originates in Ulster,
so their identity will already have been an issue.
What some people seem to find hard to accept is that growing up in an
Irish family in Britain is a definitive experience. Though born in
Britain, it cannot be assumed that individuals are having the same
relationship with their place of birth as those growing up in a British
family next door.
Now some people grow up in Britain in Irish families and the link with
Ireland is only that they originally came from there. They don’t go back
there, talk about it or see themselves in any strong way connected with
it. They may have an Irish surname and an affection for the place but
they feel, and therefore are, British. Not by birth but by inclination.
That is the nature of identity.
But for others the presence of Irishness is definitive. It is their
identity. It is who they are. They have been raised in an Irish family
and though they stay by and large in Britain and have British accents
they are Irish. That is how they see themselves. Their parents or
grandparents, the music, the long summer holidays in Ireland, their
names and their religion all combine to create an identity for them that
is inherently Irish. That is the nature of identity too.
Now I don’t know about Aiden McGeady. Perhaps his Irishness is more of
the John Aldridge or Andy Townsend kind, something that becomes very
committed but that remained dormant until given a professional
opportunity. Or maybe, and the fact that he first declared for Ireland
at the age of fifteen seems to suggest this, it is more of the Gary
Breen or Kevin Kilbane kind and is just an essential part of how he sees
himself. Either way, because bigotry deals in simplistic stereotypes and
identity is superbly complex, an expression of identity is so often met
with derision or objection. Isn’t it?
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