“He had a small incident down on the beach”

ONE thing I noted after moving to Ireland from England 20 years ago was the delight people showed on discovering that my ancestry didn’t peter out at a disappointing dead end in London, but could be traced back to Ireland — my father’s birthplace — in a short, straight line.

However, this didn’t stop the anti-English jibes from being flung in my direction.

I was surprised they were aimed at me: I’m a racial salad of genes — Catholic father from Dublin, mother from Venice — born in London with 8 million other hybrids, so I’ve had about as much governance over the Black and Tans as I’ve had over the FTSE 100 index or FIFA.