Una Mullally - Anti-English sentiment in Ireland had healed. But Brexit has brought it all flooding back
Brexit has created
many nightmares, but a particularly unpleasant one is the rise of anti-English
sentiment in Ireland.
British-Irish relations have not just cooled on a diplomatic and political
level, but among the Irish population. The anti-Englishness born of past
oppression had, we thought, been confined to the past but has resurfaced. And
whose fault is that? The emotional trauma of Ireland’s treatment by Britain,
and England in particular, is usually delicately contained but now it is
spilling over.
I grew up in Dublin,
far removed from the conflict north of the border but I went to an
Irish-speaking secondary school, where boys wore balaclavas to school Gaelic
football matches for a laugh, and “IRA” was carved into desks with maths
compasses. As the painful peace process concluded, and the Good
Friday agreement came
into force, God Save the Queen was sung in Croke Park, the hallowed ground of Gaelic sports, and the Queen spoke in Irish at a state dinner in Dublin Castle.
It seemed as if anti-British sentiment was at least covered over with a healing
gauze if not completely healed. But Brexit, and the behaviour and rhetoric of
British politicians, the tone of the trightwing British press, and the constant
stream of ignorance about our island from across the Irish Sea, has ripped that
bandage off. Everything is exposed now, and it’s a wound that has been, and can
be again, mortal.
“The English are at it again.” “The state of
the Brits.” These are daily articulations of frustration from Irish people.
Being hostile to our neighbours was briefly taboo among Irish liberals. But the
Irish capacity to grit our teeth has turned into a daily grind. Every clanger from a
British politician – Karen Bradley’s offensive and ignorant statement exonerating British soldiers for their crimes in
Northern Ireland; the border mess, exacerbated by the Conservative government’s
tactical alliance with the DUP; the clueless remarks emanating from the House
of Commons – has not just confirmed, but elevated our suspicions that English
(and Brexit was always about Englishness, not Britishness, nor the oxymoron
that is now the “United” Kingdom) apathy, ignorance and entitlement towards
Ireland is as dominant as ever... read more:
