I also have dual UK-Irish citizenship and passport. I agree it's mostly a great convenience but there's more to it. I feel more connected to the land of my parents, more belonging and sense of place in the world. There's always background talk of my parents going "home" even though they have lived in the UK 50+ years and it's not going to happen.
I see your point though that for most people recently it's just about ease of travel.
It doesn't really apply in the UK/Ireland case but I think dual citizenship is important to connect people to their wider family. I will ensure my future kids get registered as citizens of my wife's country for at least being able to visit their grandparents without a complex visa process every year, but also the ability to live and work their should they wish in the future.
A final aside, I used my Irish passport when I solo travelled to Iran 10 years back. A particular case where it was definitely better not to "be" British. A young solider checking my documents on a bridge at the Iranian border saw my passport and launched 5 minute discussion about his admiration for Bobby Sands. The film on the hotel room TV that night was Braveheart.
I’m not eligible for an Irish passport (despite my surname I’m too many generations removed) but even if I was I wouldn’t have one as a matter of principle. And that’s not because I am a die hard Brexiteer, although I am, but because the concept of dual nationality strikes me as inherently flawed, indeed wrong.
In my view one’s nationality should be a question of fact, the place where one ultimately belongs, analogous to the tax concept of domicile. My home has been England since I was born and that is where my remains will be for ever when I’m gone. I’m British and cannot in an meaningful sense have any other nationality even if by some quirk of ancestry I could tick the bureaucrat’s box.
I can accept that one’s nationality can change, but in so doing the first nationality would be superseded, not augmented, by the second. No dual nationality should be permitted!
I was born in Northern Ireland, and I've had both British and Irish passports for over 20 years. Exactly like you describe Ed, it's purely a matter of convenience. I have zero loyalty to the Irish state and indeed in my Irish passport photo I'm wearing an Ulster Rugby shirt because I'm petty that way. I usually take both when travelling and like your mother, I would happily claim whichever citizenship would be most convenient in a scrape (often Irish but not always).
The point of all this is to say that whilst I understand the point about the haves and have nots, I don't think you need to be so scrupulous about it yourself, just take the win, as Biden told Netanyahu.
I think the benefits of an EU passport are overstated. The people I hear moaning about it often work and travel to places like Singapore and the states and don't feel the need to moan about how much easier it would be with a green card. Your average hairdresser isn't desperate to spend a couple of years working in Romania.
Widespread use of dual citizenship is part of the fantasy that modern individuals, if affluent and with transferable skills, don't need a country. Are, in fact, superior to such petty nationalist concerns.
In an increasingly alarming world, it looks likely that many of these riders on magic carpets, are going to land on terra firma with a bump.
I have rather mixed feelings about this post (and likewise, I respect your position that it would be hypocritical to take Irish citizenship after voting Leave, yet would half encourage you to do so anyway!). I see where you're coming from, and I can see why you're annoyed at the kind of person who will seize an Irish passport while despising Ireland's traditions and historic values. At the same time, I think the issue is nuanced enough that it needs to be evaluated on a case-by-base basis.
I am a dual citizen myself - British-German. As the grandson of refugees who came to Britain from Germany in 1934, I qualified for "restoration of citizenship" under Article 116 of the postwar Constitution. In 2012 I visited an American Jewish friend then living in Berlin who was in the same situation; he urged me to take German citizenship, as he was then doing, since it granted the right to live and work in the EU. In those naive days, I laughed and said that there no need, since I was already an EU citizen. I acquired a German passport in 2020.
There are some limitations; because I've never lived in Germany, I can't vote there. But on the whole, I got a very sweet deal. Since offering re-naturalisation to the descendants of Jewish refugees was part of postwar (West) Germany's "reapplication to rejoin the human race", applicants didn't need to meet many of the requirements normally expected of prospective citizens. I didn't have to demonstrate any knowledge of the language, for instance. And while German nationality law, until recently, prohibited dual citizenship in most circumstances, someone in my situation has been permitted to hold two passports since Article 116 was enacted in 1949. The postwar West German government rightly understood that few people who had been driven into exile by Nazi persecution would be willing to give up a hard-won foreign citizenship in order to regain German nationality, so they made a decent exception.
I took German citizenship mostly for pragmatic reasons; I would take a job in the EU if I was offered one in my field; and it often makes travel easier (not just in Europe - as a German citizen I was recently able to spend two weeks on holiday in China, visa-free, whereas as a British citizen I would have had to apply for a visa in advance). Having said that, I'd have felt like a bit of a fraud if I didn't also feel some kind of tie to the country. I visit Germany two or three times a year, and I admire many things about German culture: I love Wagner and Rilke, Theodor Fontane, Caspar David Friedrich and F.W. Murnau; I like German wine and beer and even sometimes enjoy German food; I appreciate the steps postwar Germany took to repent its sins and I respect most of what modern Germany has made of itself. The only thing I really complain about when I visit the country is Deutsche Bahn, and in that I am at one with every other German.
Do I have dual loyalties? Well, I'm not sure I feel "loyalty" to Germany - what I feel is gratitude and affection. And I'm not sure I think loyalty is quite the issue here. First and foremost, being a citizen of a country grants you certain privileges and subjects you to certain duties. Dual citizenship can be a burden as well as an opportunity. As we've recently seen, the British government takes the view that it can strip dual citizens of their British nationality if it judges them dangerous - it couldn't do this to someone who only held a British passport, since it has a commitment not to render people stateless.
Two personal anecdotes on this subject. A friend of mine who was the daughter of an Anglo-American marriage and who accordingly held British and American passports recently renounced the latter on the grounds that the US government taxed even its non-resident citizens and was going to demand a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of her house. And a Turkish American friend of mine couldn't actually visit Turkey for many years because he hadn't fulfilled his obligation to complete military service. Eventually, I understand, the Turkish government came to an agreement about this matter and he was excused. Now, if he (hypothetically) were to commit a crime in the United States, he could, I suppose, flee to Turkey, which doesn't extradite his citizens. But the point stands: being a dual citizen can create drawbacks as well as bestowing advantages.
As for loyalty, it's a real thing, but it's not necessarily a thing that correlates fundamentally with the nationality you hold on paper. I hold two citizenships but in the end, at heart, my loyalty is here. If there was another war between Britain and Germany, I'd feel very sad about it, but in the end, I'd side with the country where I was born and live over the country that has kindly granted me a passport. More powerful than one's official nationality, surely, is the undocumented yet profound loyalty created by the personal ties we have. You make the point at the end that, even if you now only hold a British passport, you still take an interest in Ireland's wellbeing. I work in a field related to Japan. Although I only lived there for three years, haven't been there for many years now, and can't envisage a situation in which I'd realistically take citizenship there, I still have friends and colleagues there, and I care about the country's fate. There's a sense in which I still have more meaningful ties to Japan than to Germany.
My boss is a Frenchwoman married to an Englishman. By an ancestral quirk, they and their children have managed to acquire Swiss citizenship. She once told me that they kept it in case there was a war between Britain and France, since they would find it impossible to choose between them. That, I suppose is a real example of dual loyalties, and I thought it was rather sweet.
But on the whole, the elite class cannot be suspected of having dual loyalties. It has no loyalties, except to itself.
I have a French and American passport, having taught university in the USA for over 30 years…and am now retired in France, living the dream…we do pay taxes to Uncle Sam thoughas a consequence and I’ll keep doing so, as all 6 children live and have their careers all across the USA…we travel to visit them often…hassle free with an American passport for longer visits coast to coast. But my heart is truly here in France…my dear family in Normandy and Bretagne are lovely, but we chose to hang our hearts and hats in sunny Nice.
I did a job a few years ago in London where I had to check people’s ID before interviewing them - nothing to do with their status, just to establish that they were not an imposter. There are tons of people who can barely speak a word of English yet who readily flourish UK passports as required. They are just travel documents now. Irish, UK, EU. Take your pick.
How do you keep coming up with these bangers? I almost doubled over! “In which case, it seems galling for a member of the White Star Line Iceberg Look-out Committee to join the throngs for a lifeboat while everyone else has to take their chances.”
I once seriously considered retiring to France and both travelled about and spent time with friends there. The climate and food, and the sheer beauty of the place were the draw of course. I rejected the idea because my French would never be fluent enough, the French socialise primarily with colleagues and extended family so you inevitably need to be around other immigrants, and the endless eating out and discussion about various wines just got to be tiresome and vacuous. I loved the French culture when I could access it ‘in translation’ but after a time I was so very very bored. Then we left the EU and the vague fantasy drifted away on the currents of history, finally clobbered by what can happen to the value of your pension and watching the depressed elderly forced to return to a life in the UK just in order to survive financially….
I was born and raised in Irish London. Catholic Church, Catholic school, church clubs, Irish pubs, big family parties for christenings, communions, weddings, funerals, cousins newly over sleeping on the couch, Big Tom and Margo on the cassette player for the drive over for our holiday every year.
In common with many in my generation the bonds began to dissolve when I left school to go to university rather than on the buildings and discovered that the world was a bit bigger than I expected and that in much of it you could stand in the sea for more than three minutes. However, when my parents died, I gave in to a sudden urge and put my inheritance into an old cottage in Ireland in 2015.
I finally put in for a passport about a month before the referendum. It was on my mind, but to be honest less than the wish to protect myself against any restrictions or penalties on foreign property ownership that a future Sinn Féin government might cook up - watch this space. Though I really dislike the powers and direction of the EU, I voted remain (undecided until the last week), as I thought their influence would continue over us regardless . By staying in we could bolster the internal resistance, by leaving we would be in line for exemplary punishment.
When I fly to Europe, I bring both passports . The one place I needn’t bother is, of course, Ireland, where the 1920s act remains in force fortunately, despite some Covid era stroppiness. They don’t even look on the ferries most times, though that might become a signature policy of hopeless Simon Harris.
My kids were horrified at how Brexit had stolen their future so I went through the laborious process of “registering their foreign birth” so they could apply for their own passports as the grandchildren of Irish-born forbears. I handed the certificate over to them and…nothing after four years. My youngest daughter was even offered a huge bribe to get a passport and live in our house for three months so she could go to Edinburgh University for free (an absolute scandal that I’m amazed wasn’t thrown out by the courts) and it was too much trouble for her.
Over in the Glen, it’s pretty clear that despite my Irish lessons and my family story, I’m the Englishman in the Curran’s place. I’m not bothered, I still feel my Celtic blood stirring there even if no-one can see it. Up Tipp today!
I have an Irish passport. I asked for diplomatic help several times in Peru. I got none. Ireland had no legislation in Peru. Apparently things were managed from Santiago There had been a honorary consul general in Lima who was dismissed for selling fake visas.
The UK, did give me diplomatic help. Very nice staff- who seemed to spend most of their days perparing the sort of folk who who would be turned away from a flat roofed pub in Paisley or Rochdale for their deportation from Peru
Ireland does not allow visa free entry from Peru or Colombia. Colombia is off limits due to some gentlemen who were once photographed with Gerry Adams, and happened to be doing some welding in the jungle. Whence a series of misunderstandings happened
Why Peru is not given free entry is a mystery. Bolivia is- Bolivia which murdered an Irish citizen in the 00s, As Ireland is neutral and everyone loves them. I must have misunderstood-maybe it wasn't murder. Maybe Martin Dwyer committed suicide naked and handcuffed on the floor
Anyway last year my ex wife and daughter where in these islands for a wedding There was a complication with Peruvian passports last year and I asked the Irish goverment if they could allow me to start the visa application and fill in the details later. The answer was no. I made alternate arrangements.
The main benefit of having an Irish passport in South America was people realised I had been baptised and blessed. So people would smile and say I remember sister Assumpta or Father Connor.
Los Olivos where I lived in Peru, was founded by a Fr Grant, who managed to get RFK to stop and look at his plans for a new suburb. My mother found a school for my daughter by ringing the Columban Fathers pointing out she had bought their Far East magazine for 20 years. After a morning of exchanging phonecalls. The Columban fathers found a school mere streets away- The school governor being a Fr Cathal late of North London.
As Ireland moves into a future of Educate Together -They will lose this. Then they will be what Denmark, without a functioning military, Latvia with different accents.
Having read an earlier post of yours about going to a strict Catholic state comprehensive in Shepherd's Bush, I think I possibly went to the same school as you - Cardinal Vaughan, by any chance?
If so, I am sure you remember it being a school where the majority of pupils, and even teachers, had Irish backgrounds - second or third generation. This was still the case when I attended after you.
Speaking purely from personal experience, myself and my peers were always content both with our Englishness and our Irishness. We would just as happily wear England football shirts as we would Ireland football shirts, in a way that would probably confuse most English people and disgust most Irish people. I can't speak for everyone but I always had the sense that being relaxed about this contradiction was an attitude shared by a lot of the Irish diaspora in England/London. The alternative would have been to be one of those awful people who profess their Irishness and hatred of Britain in a broad cockney accent.
That being said, I only got my Irish passport at the insistence of my father - who had voted leave in the referendum. At least you stuck to your convictions....
I also have dual UK-Irish citizenship and passport. I agree it's mostly a great convenience but there's more to it. I feel more connected to the land of my parents, more belonging and sense of place in the world. There's always background talk of my parents going "home" even though they have lived in the UK 50+ years and it's not going to happen.
I see your point though that for most people recently it's just about ease of travel.
It doesn't really apply in the UK/Ireland case but I think dual citizenship is important to connect people to their wider family. I will ensure my future kids get registered as citizens of my wife's country for at least being able to visit their grandparents without a complex visa process every year, but also the ability to live and work their should they wish in the future.
A final aside, I used my Irish passport when I solo travelled to Iran 10 years back. A particular case where it was definitely better not to "be" British. A young solider checking my documents on a bridge at the Iranian border saw my passport and launched 5 minute discussion about his admiration for Bobby Sands. The film on the hotel room TV that night was Braveheart.
I’m not eligible for an Irish passport (despite my surname I’m too many generations removed) but even if I was I wouldn’t have one as a matter of principle. And that’s not because I am a die hard Brexiteer, although I am, but because the concept of dual nationality strikes me as inherently flawed, indeed wrong.
In my view one’s nationality should be a question of fact, the place where one ultimately belongs, analogous to the tax concept of domicile. My home has been England since I was born and that is where my remains will be for ever when I’m gone. I’m British and cannot in an meaningful sense have any other nationality even if by some quirk of ancestry I could tick the bureaucrat’s box.
I can accept that one’s nationality can change, but in so doing the first nationality would be superseded, not augmented, by the second. No dual nationality should be permitted!
I was born in Northern Ireland, and I've had both British and Irish passports for over 20 years. Exactly like you describe Ed, it's purely a matter of convenience. I have zero loyalty to the Irish state and indeed in my Irish passport photo I'm wearing an Ulster Rugby shirt because I'm petty that way. I usually take both when travelling and like your mother, I would happily claim whichever citizenship would be most convenient in a scrape (often Irish but not always).
The point of all this is to say that whilst I understand the point about the haves and have nots, I don't think you need to be so scrupulous about it yourself, just take the win, as Biden told Netanyahu.
I think the benefits of an EU passport are overstated. The people I hear moaning about it often work and travel to places like Singapore and the states and don't feel the need to moan about how much easier it would be with a green card. Your average hairdresser isn't desperate to spend a couple of years working in Romania.
I keep forgetting about getting Italian passports for my boys…
Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be data on how many MPs have dual nationality https://www.theipsa.org.uk/freedom-of-information/rfi-202111-16
Widespread use of dual citizenship is part of the fantasy that modern individuals, if affluent and with transferable skills, don't need a country. Are, in fact, superior to such petty nationalist concerns.
In an increasingly alarming world, it looks likely that many of these riders on magic carpets, are going to land on terra firma with a bump.
I have rather mixed feelings about this post (and likewise, I respect your position that it would be hypocritical to take Irish citizenship after voting Leave, yet would half encourage you to do so anyway!). I see where you're coming from, and I can see why you're annoyed at the kind of person who will seize an Irish passport while despising Ireland's traditions and historic values. At the same time, I think the issue is nuanced enough that it needs to be evaluated on a case-by-base basis.
I am a dual citizen myself - British-German. As the grandson of refugees who came to Britain from Germany in 1934, I qualified for "restoration of citizenship" under Article 116 of the postwar Constitution. In 2012 I visited an American Jewish friend then living in Berlin who was in the same situation; he urged me to take German citizenship, as he was then doing, since it granted the right to live and work in the EU. In those naive days, I laughed and said that there no need, since I was already an EU citizen. I acquired a German passport in 2020.
There are some limitations; because I've never lived in Germany, I can't vote there. But on the whole, I got a very sweet deal. Since offering re-naturalisation to the descendants of Jewish refugees was part of postwar (West) Germany's "reapplication to rejoin the human race", applicants didn't need to meet many of the requirements normally expected of prospective citizens. I didn't have to demonstrate any knowledge of the language, for instance. And while German nationality law, until recently, prohibited dual citizenship in most circumstances, someone in my situation has been permitted to hold two passports since Article 116 was enacted in 1949. The postwar West German government rightly understood that few people who had been driven into exile by Nazi persecution would be willing to give up a hard-won foreign citizenship in order to regain German nationality, so they made a decent exception.
I took German citizenship mostly for pragmatic reasons; I would take a job in the EU if I was offered one in my field; and it often makes travel easier (not just in Europe - as a German citizen I was recently able to spend two weeks on holiday in China, visa-free, whereas as a British citizen I would have had to apply for a visa in advance). Having said that, I'd have felt like a bit of a fraud if I didn't also feel some kind of tie to the country. I visit Germany two or three times a year, and I admire many things about German culture: I love Wagner and Rilke, Theodor Fontane, Caspar David Friedrich and F.W. Murnau; I like German wine and beer and even sometimes enjoy German food; I appreciate the steps postwar Germany took to repent its sins and I respect most of what modern Germany has made of itself. The only thing I really complain about when I visit the country is Deutsche Bahn, and in that I am at one with every other German.
Do I have dual loyalties? Well, I'm not sure I feel "loyalty" to Germany - what I feel is gratitude and affection. And I'm not sure I think loyalty is quite the issue here. First and foremost, being a citizen of a country grants you certain privileges and subjects you to certain duties. Dual citizenship can be a burden as well as an opportunity. As we've recently seen, the British government takes the view that it can strip dual citizens of their British nationality if it judges them dangerous - it couldn't do this to someone who only held a British passport, since it has a commitment not to render people stateless.
Two personal anecdotes on this subject. A friend of mine who was the daughter of an Anglo-American marriage and who accordingly held British and American passports recently renounced the latter on the grounds that the US government taxed even its non-resident citizens and was going to demand a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of her house. And a Turkish American friend of mine couldn't actually visit Turkey for many years because he hadn't fulfilled his obligation to complete military service. Eventually, I understand, the Turkish government came to an agreement about this matter and he was excused. Now, if he (hypothetically) were to commit a crime in the United States, he could, I suppose, flee to Turkey, which doesn't extradite his citizens. But the point stands: being a dual citizen can create drawbacks as well as bestowing advantages.
As for loyalty, it's a real thing, but it's not necessarily a thing that correlates fundamentally with the nationality you hold on paper. I hold two citizenships but in the end, at heart, my loyalty is here. If there was another war between Britain and Germany, I'd feel very sad about it, but in the end, I'd side with the country where I was born and live over the country that has kindly granted me a passport. More powerful than one's official nationality, surely, is the undocumented yet profound loyalty created by the personal ties we have. You make the point at the end that, even if you now only hold a British passport, you still take an interest in Ireland's wellbeing. I work in a field related to Japan. Although I only lived there for three years, haven't been there for many years now, and can't envisage a situation in which I'd realistically take citizenship there, I still have friends and colleagues there, and I care about the country's fate. There's a sense in which I still have more meaningful ties to Japan than to Germany.
My boss is a Frenchwoman married to an Englishman. By an ancestral quirk, they and their children have managed to acquire Swiss citizenship. She once told me that they kept it in case there was a war between Britain and France, since they would find it impossible to choose between them. That, I suppose is a real example of dual loyalties, and I thought it was rather sweet.
But on the whole, the elite class cannot be suspected of having dual loyalties. It has no loyalties, except to itself.
I have a French and American passport, having taught university in the USA for over 30 years…and am now retired in France, living the dream…we do pay taxes to Uncle Sam thoughas a consequence and I’ll keep doing so, as all 6 children live and have their careers all across the USA…we travel to visit them often…hassle free with an American passport for longer visits coast to coast. But my heart is truly here in France…my dear family in Normandy and Bretagne are lovely, but we chose to hang our hearts and hats in sunny Nice.
I did a job a few years ago in London where I had to check people’s ID before interviewing them - nothing to do with their status, just to establish that they were not an imposter. There are tons of people who can barely speak a word of English yet who readily flourish UK passports as required. They are just travel documents now. Irish, UK, EU. Take your pick.
How do you keep coming up with these bangers? I almost doubled over! “In which case, it seems galling for a member of the White Star Line Iceberg Look-out Committee to join the throngs for a lifeboat while everyone else has to take their chances.”
I once seriously considered retiring to France and both travelled about and spent time with friends there. The climate and food, and the sheer beauty of the place were the draw of course. I rejected the idea because my French would never be fluent enough, the French socialise primarily with colleagues and extended family so you inevitably need to be around other immigrants, and the endless eating out and discussion about various wines just got to be tiresome and vacuous. I loved the French culture when I could access it ‘in translation’ but after a time I was so very very bored. Then we left the EU and the vague fantasy drifted away on the currents of history, finally clobbered by what can happen to the value of your pension and watching the depressed elderly forced to return to a life in the UK just in order to survive financially….
I was born and raised in Irish London. Catholic Church, Catholic school, church clubs, Irish pubs, big family parties for christenings, communions, weddings, funerals, cousins newly over sleeping on the couch, Big Tom and Margo on the cassette player for the drive over for our holiday every year.
In common with many in my generation the bonds began to dissolve when I left school to go to university rather than on the buildings and discovered that the world was a bit bigger than I expected and that in much of it you could stand in the sea for more than three minutes. However, when my parents died, I gave in to a sudden urge and put my inheritance into an old cottage in Ireland in 2015.
I finally put in for a passport about a month before the referendum. It was on my mind, but to be honest less than the wish to protect myself against any restrictions or penalties on foreign property ownership that a future Sinn Féin government might cook up - watch this space. Though I really dislike the powers and direction of the EU, I voted remain (undecided until the last week), as I thought their influence would continue over us regardless . By staying in we could bolster the internal resistance, by leaving we would be in line for exemplary punishment.
When I fly to Europe, I bring both passports . The one place I needn’t bother is, of course, Ireland, where the 1920s act remains in force fortunately, despite some Covid era stroppiness. They don’t even look on the ferries most times, though that might become a signature policy of hopeless Simon Harris.
My kids were horrified at how Brexit had stolen their future so I went through the laborious process of “registering their foreign birth” so they could apply for their own passports as the grandchildren of Irish-born forbears. I handed the certificate over to them and…nothing after four years. My youngest daughter was even offered a huge bribe to get a passport and live in our house for three months so she could go to Edinburgh University for free (an absolute scandal that I’m amazed wasn’t thrown out by the courts) and it was too much trouble for her.
Over in the Glen, it’s pretty clear that despite my Irish lessons and my family story, I’m the Englishman in the Curran’s place. I’m not bothered, I still feel my Celtic blood stirring there even if no-one can see it. Up Tipp today!
I have an Irish passport. I asked for diplomatic help several times in Peru. I got none. Ireland had no legislation in Peru. Apparently things were managed from Santiago There had been a honorary consul general in Lima who was dismissed for selling fake visas.
The UK, did give me diplomatic help. Very nice staff- who seemed to spend most of their days perparing the sort of folk who who would be turned away from a flat roofed pub in Paisley or Rochdale for their deportation from Peru
Ireland does not allow visa free entry from Peru or Colombia. Colombia is off limits due to some gentlemen who were once photographed with Gerry Adams, and happened to be doing some welding in the jungle. Whence a series of misunderstandings happened
Why Peru is not given free entry is a mystery. Bolivia is- Bolivia which murdered an Irish citizen in the 00s, As Ireland is neutral and everyone loves them. I must have misunderstood-maybe it wasn't murder. Maybe Martin Dwyer committed suicide naked and handcuffed on the floor
Anyway last year my ex wife and daughter where in these islands for a wedding There was a complication with Peruvian passports last year and I asked the Irish goverment if they could allow me to start the visa application and fill in the details later. The answer was no. I made alternate arrangements.
The main benefit of having an Irish passport in South America was people realised I had been baptised and blessed. So people would smile and say I remember sister Assumpta or Father Connor.
Los Olivos where I lived in Peru, was founded by a Fr Grant, who managed to get RFK to stop and look at his plans for a new suburb. My mother found a school for my daughter by ringing the Columban Fathers pointing out she had bought their Far East magazine for 20 years. After a morning of exchanging phonecalls. The Columban fathers found a school mere streets away- The school governor being a Fr Cathal late of North London.
As Ireland moves into a future of Educate Together -They will lose this. Then they will be what Denmark, without a functioning military, Latvia with different accents.
Having read an earlier post of yours about going to a strict Catholic state comprehensive in Shepherd's Bush, I think I possibly went to the same school as you - Cardinal Vaughan, by any chance?
If so, I am sure you remember it being a school where the majority of pupils, and even teachers, had Irish backgrounds - second or third generation. This was still the case when I attended after you.
Speaking purely from personal experience, myself and my peers were always content both with our Englishness and our Irishness. We would just as happily wear England football shirts as we would Ireland football shirts, in a way that would probably confuse most English people and disgust most Irish people. I can't speak for everyone but I always had the sense that being relaxed about this contradiction was an attitude shared by a lot of the Irish diaspora in England/London. The alternative would have been to be one of those awful people who profess their Irishness and hatred of Britain in a broad cockney accent.
That being said, I only got my Irish passport at the insistence of my father - who had voted leave in the referendum. At least you stuck to your convictions....
My sister sent me this a couple of weeks ago. Don’t have nightmares.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbCHyolbB5E