Northern Irish Identity: Where Am I From?

Nationality should be the simplest thing in the world. For the most part, it’s not something we choose, but mere chance regarding which mass of land we happen to be born on. But there’s more to it than that: culture and a sense of collective belonging shared by citizens of a particular nation often shape personal identity, too. Heritage, politics, music, flags, sport and religion can play a major role in how many people define themselves and their relationship to their nation. However, his becomes difficult when the nationhood of the place where you were born is so disputed and ambiguous; that’s Northern Ireland, the North of Ireland, Ulster or the Six Counties depending on who you ask.

I hold two passports. Granted dual citizenship by birthright, I am entitled to do so. This makes me a European citizen and grants me almost complete freedom of travel for most of the world. I almost always travel on my Irish passport, yet I’m the only member of my family to avail of this right to both British and Irish citizenship. So if citizenship is described as a sense of national belonging, denoted legally by the passport a person holds, then where does that leave the 1.8 million people like me who don’t have one specifically-defined nationality? How is it that people from the same region claim vastly different loyalties — and sometimes none at all? Two people born on the same street in Derry, living in almost identical conditions, could view their national identity as worlds apart, even at odds.

By pure accident of birth, a person’s very sense of self could have been completely different. Many would decisively class themselves as British only or Irish only, for whom my sense of alienation is not shared. For many members of the younger generation, Catholic and Protestant alike living in a post-conflict society, the dividing lines of British and Irish have become blurred, birthing a new sense of identity, the love child of a tumultuous relationship: ‘Northern Irish’.

Places and identity are inextricably linked, with emphasis on an individual’s sense of ‘home’. There is a sense of irony then that the British and Irish of Ulster, the former aligned to the UK and the latter to the Irish Republic, share the same homeland but not culture. These exclusive forms of identity, sometimes based on little more than their distinction from one another, assume that there is one unchanging truth and set of values to being British or Irish, when they are in fact constantly evolving. Very rarely do new national identities emerge, but that’s where the increasingly popular and cross-community ‘Northern Irish’ comes in. Whilst lacking a unique flag, anthem or passport, it’s a nationality that nearly 30% of the population adhere to. Hence it begs the difficult question: what does it mean to be British, Irish or even Northern Irish, for that matter?

It could be argued that both British and Irish in Northern Ireland tribally cling to a sense of nationhood and weaponised identity to which neither fully belongs. I class myself as Irish, but would be foolish to deny the subtle British influences in my upbringing (for example, the education system). Similarly, I would struggle to deny being Northern Irish, whether that be through simply emphasising my birth in the northern part of the island. I was brought up in a Protestant household which is neither strongly unionist nor nationalist, so statistically I fit the so-called ‘Northern Irish’ demographic almost as a textbook example. However, as I grow up, my politics lean much more towards Irish nationalism, which further complicates my sense of belonging as a young person from the North who may not be viewed as ‘truly’ Irish by some in the Republic. Equally, many in Britain would view me as Irish as someone from Cork.

Identity here is multifaceted and diverse, characterised by endless pedantry. Italian writer Claudio Magris perfectly encapsulates that awkward lack of belonging faced by dual citizens in saying, “Every identity is also a horror, because it owes its existence to tracing a border and rebuffing whatever is on the other side.” Or in the case of my hometown of Belfast, literal walls. We Northern Irish — either with a small or capital N — can love our cities and our culture but perhaps not our country, as we can’t all agree exactly where we belong. It’s an identity crisis that affects us all to varying degrees. Some people I ask assure me that they don’t care; the identity of student, friend or family member defines them much more than nationality ever could. Our search for a shared identity and concrete sense of belonging will continue, on the ever-evolving spectrum of British-Irish-Northern Irish. Or perhaps a hybrid of all three.

This article orginally featured in Longing for Home zine, curated as part of Manchester International Festival’s Creative 50 in 2017. Read on Issuuhere.

Originally published at http://kristensinclair.blogspot.com on July 12, 2017.