A Border Identity

Both of you may have grown up to the banal ding-dong of the RTÉ Six One. Both of you may have washed down McVitie's Rich Tea biscuits with a tall glass of Robinson's diluted juice as a treat after school. Both of you may even have sat down to a typical Irish dinner of potatoes and casserole on a rainy November evening after your hurling training on a soggy local pitch.

You may now sit next to this person in a class, on a bus or at a computer in work. Ireland is a relatively small country, with a population of approximately 4.5 million, of course you were raised the same, you are probably both very similar people, with similar values, similar morals and similar outlooks on life.

But of course not, the average Irish person scoffs; He wears the red and white of the Rebel County, I myself am a Noresider, she hails from the Marble County, I was born and bred in the Kingdom, he chooses to support the Tribesmen of the West, I have and always will be, a Lilywhite.

For a country so small we strive to differ ourselves from one another through county borders, some only a few kilometres long. The local person whose back garden lies in Roscommon and front in Mayo is of incessant wonder to others; Who do they support in the local hurling? What happens in the provincial football final?

It must be comedy-worthy to see tourists arrive in Dublin, to ask for a route to the coast of West Cork and Kerry and it be treated like they suggested they wished to speak to Cú Chulainn himself; "Why travel all the way down there now when you've only the week here? It's miles away, you'd be mad". For a European who commutes double the distance on a daily basis or an American who travels ten times the distance to visit family it must be eyebrow-furrowing.

A people whose lives have been brought up according to borders will probably not change their attitude, possibly not even in several generations time.

A wedding at the weekend was hosted by a Limerick bride and a Kilkenny groom. A county jersey was presented to the groom, for him not to forget his roots while he moves a few miles further west. On the same weekend Croke Park presented its annual final battle with the white leather ball  for the coveted Sam Maguire. In current affairs, the presidential race features a man we all associate with the border of Northern Ireland. Local, regional and national borders seem to frame our daily lives. The groom wearing the Kilkenny jersey with emotion and pride is only a microcosm for Ireland and our culture as a whole.

A country steeped in border mapping, fighting and gaining history featuring Celts, Normans, Vikings and English is the country in which we live in today. Ireland, where local, county and national pride differs like no other before.

"Oh, really?

...Because in Cork we don't do it like that."