David O'Mahony: Identity is a malleable thing — don’t forget to shape yours how you like

'A hundred thousand years ago, when I was a younger, unmarried man living in Abu Dhabi, my passport had been issued under my Irish-language name.' File picture 

None of us are who we were when we started out. And indeed, none of us are who we are going to end up.

This might seem self-explanatory. But, at the same time, we tend to forget that living is in many ways a constant process of invention and reinvention, of calling ourselves one thing and then another, then maybe trying something else on while living abroad or travelling through parts of the world where nobody knows you.

Because when you’re never going to see certain parts of the world again, why not live a little?

As we dance, skip, or stumble through life, why not see if there’s more to you than meets the eye?

Identity is as much what you make it as it is what’s expected of you. As Shakespeare put it: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.”

Identities are malleable, fluid, even contradictory things existing in many worlds at once. Mother’s Day and St Patrick’s Day are reminders of that.

Mothers already wear many hats. Many identities, if you will, and not all of them by choice. Mum, maybe Nan too, maybe wife as well (families are beautiful in any configuration), caregiver (for children or parents), taxi, cook, perhaps family diarist, and that’s before adding professional identities into the mix from work. 

Or personal ones — I refer to Beloved Wife in these pages to give her a modicum of privacy rather than using her actual name, even if I actually call her that in real life (or what passes for it).

Every mother reading this will have a string of other identities to add. Every spouse reading would do well to remember that; even if they have their own string of identities, not all labour is divided equally. And while it’s alarming that as much as a third of Gen Z males think wives should obey their husbands, it’s not clear if Gen Alpha, nipping at their heels, will take any such crap. Anybody who’s watched Louis Theroux’s voyage into the manosphere on Netflix will have a gut-wrenching worry.

Still, woe betide any man who pulls any such stunt with Daughter. Not just from me or Beloved Wife, either, but from her. Even at 7 she packs a powerful kick in taekwondo and can wind her brother with a deft punch. Though she be but little, she be fierce. And given how she’s been practicing with her troupe in the St Patrick’s Day parade, she would probably win a dance battle too.

St Patrick’s Day tends to make many people feel a touch Irish (or live up to the stereotype by getting legless), but most of our ideas about what the man was like were bolted onto him over the course of centuries in a masterful branding campaign by the clerics of Armagh. It’s easy to forget that the man himself built an identity that was less razzle-dazzle wonder worker and more a mix of prophet and coalface diplomat.

'St Patrick’s Day tends to make many people feel a touch Irish.' File picture

If you read Patrick’s Confessio (I did so you don’t have to, but it’s free online) you’ll find that not only was he being sincere in his Christian identity, he was convinced that by preaching to the island of Ireland he was actually fulfilling a criterion to bring about the end of the world (I wrote a PhD on this idea, it’s not as doom and gloom as the Third World War rumbling around us).

That’s quite an identity shift from priest’s son to slave to shepherd to priest to, well, channeling the spirit of a biblical prophet. He’s not even being mean about it, either, even if I’ve seen social media posts recently wondering if he had embarked on a revenge conversion mission for having been enslaved.

I mean, who among us wouldn’t have considered it? Just me? Ah well… I’ve never done something so radical as that, but I was, briefly, kind of, another person once.

A hundred thousand years ago, when I was a younger, unmarried man living in Abu Dhabi, my passport had been issued under my Irish-language name.

An antique form of it too, because I’m pretty sure I was born old and had been forging out my own identity in school and college by being a bit different. Clue: It wasn’t Ó Mathúna. Think more medieval.

Now think of how you’d approach it while having to transliterate it to Arabic, or even trying to pronounce Dáithí when you’ve never heard of Irish.

My admiration for the people phoning from call centres who decided to ignore the surname and use my middle name instead magnified with every attempt, so much so that I still occasionally, and fondly, think of myself as “Day-thee Mykell”.

Given that my ancestors were, at different times and different places, Mahoney, Mahony, O’Mahoney, and O’Mahony, maybe that’s not so strange after all.

So for the weekend that’s in it, remember to celebrate mothers in all of their facets, and for the week to come, remember that just because you start out doing one thing, there’s nothing to stop you changing completely into something that is wholly and uniquely you.

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