We can all play the blame game till kingdom come

WE don’t credit the Brits with ‘giving’ us our country; or, at least, giving us the idea of it.

Prior to the first English occupation of Ireland, this island was a patchwork of kingdoms, sometimes allied, sometimes warring: and it was when Johnny Foreigner arrived that the concepts of ‘Ireland’ and ‘Irishness’ took hold.

Because we are a small, gossipy country, the primary importance of the local has not gone away. Your neighbour, whom you know and trust, will always be preferable to some stranger in Dublin or Kerry, no matter how important they might be. So much of Irish culture, in song and literature, is rooted in place. We get homesick if we travel down the road.