I is for IRELAND

I’m confused about my nationality. Sometimes I feel Irish, sometimes I’m British, at other times I’m from Ulster, occasionally from Northern Ireland and once or twice I’ve been European. I guess it’s all to do with where you are and whom you’re with at a particular time that often determines your identity, because in truth, I’m actually all five. Take sport for example. When Ireland plays rugby, I’m Irish but when they play soccer, I’m not, yet when the Ireland soccer team plays in the World Cup, I would support them. And when an Irish man or woman is representing their country at the Olympics or another major sporting event, I want to see them do well. When it comes to soccer, I support Northern Ireland but in rugby, it’s Ulster. And while I follow my beloved Liverpool in the Premier League, I never support England, or indeed any of the other countries on the mainland at soccer, though I might have a soft spot for the Scots.
I travel on a British passport but drive a German car so I suppose that makes me part European and I often holiday on that continent, being part of the European community. Of course the whole issue is further complicated by the fact that ‘Ulster’ is often used as a loyalist term for Northern Ireland, when it actually includes the counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal from the Irish Republic, so I guess it’s not only myself who is confused!

But, as I say, there are times when it can be more appropriate to be from Ireland than from other parts of the UK. Like when you stay in America, particularly in any of the major east coast cities such as Boston or New York with their strong Irish connections and you know that coming from Ireland will sometimes open doors that no other nationality could.
Then there was the time when wife and I were returning from France and waiting for the ferry at Cherbourg, quietly minding our own business in a café, when several young lads in their late teens or early twenties got chatting with us and asked us where home was. This was one of those times when it seemed easier to say that we were from Ireland rather than go into the complexities of our province. They were from Libya, home of Gadaffi and became immediately excited at knowing some Irish people, uttering words like IRA, guns, bombs, killing, shooting along with phrases of how much they would like to go there and help. Coffee was swallowed fairly quickly that afternoon and a hasty departure made, lest they discover our true identity and maybe be tempted to begin their campaign of help on foreign soil!

And of course Ireland has so much to offer. Beautiful landscapes, a very acceptable pace to life, a warm and friendly welcome in every town and village, a wonderful sense of humour, green fields, lots of craic and, despite all our differences, both religious, political and cultural, a warmth in people's hearts that you will not find anywhere else in the world. This is the country that gave the world Arthur Guinness and the dark stuff, Ernest Shackleton the explorer, Harry Ferguson and his tractor, Dr Barnardo and his children's homes, John McCormack and his tenor voice, writers such as James Joyce, Seamus Heaney, Patrick Kavanagh, George Bernard Shaw, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, WB Yeats, the music of The Chieftains, Van Morrison, U2, Snow Patrol, James Galway, Westlife and even Daniel O'Donnell, actors of the calibre of Daniel Day Lewis, Pierce Brosnan, Richard Harris, Liam Neeson and Pete O'Toole and I that's only a fraction of the talent that has been exported from the green isle.

But while my national identity is sometimes in question, my spiritual identity is safe, secure and clear, for that identity is in Christ. In Corinthians, Paul reminds me 'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come' and later in his writings to the Galatians, he adds 'You are all sons of God through faith in Christ' and in Colossians further cements my identity with the words 'you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.' So while I may struggle with my nationality at times, from where God sits, He cannot see any divisions or borders and I am never in doubt that in the greater plan of life I am God's child through the sacrifice of his son and my faith in Him. May you also find your true identity in the God of St Patrick.