|
(Continued from page 27)
in a heart-searching article reflecting on the implications for him of the Good Friday Agreement: "If the traditions of Britishness and Irishness can be reconciled in Ulster, then surely we, the diaspora scattered about this country, can acknowledge what we are: both British and Irish."
I proposed in my lecture "Reimagining the British-Irish Islands: the creative hyphen" to the John Hewitt international Summer School this year. that it was high-time we got used to the "and" or hyphen between British and Irish or Irish and British. That we in these islands are inevitably mixed up' and outside the contested land of Northern Ireland get on remarkably well. Indeed, we already share full reciprocal rights of citizenship.
If the present political logjam can be broken, then the proposed British-Irish Council, linking both islands, can come into being. This should provide a new political and cultural space in which the nations, regions and localities of these islands, and their varied cultures, can meet visibly in friendship and equality. Politics would finally catch up with the daily reality of our islands.
This article was first published in the Irish Post 17 October 1998.
|
|
