TIPPING POINT:That a middle-class boy from Holywood defines himself as 'Northern Irish' should be no source of controversy, but of course it will be
IT WAS once said Canada is the only place in the world that knows how to live without an identity. This was not meant as a compliment, although you’d have to sometimes wonder how much of an insult it actually is.
We are, after all, talking about a country that continues to have an economy that works, an efficient health system, has managed to work out that too many guns in the hands of morons can lead to stray bullets ricocheting around its vast hinterland, and has a deep unease at anything that smacks too much of exhibitionism, like self-aggrandising talk of unique identities.
There’s a wonderful understatement about Canada. It’s a massive yet virtually empty place which during the two World Wars lost more than 100,000 of its citizens and yet you never hear anything about it.
There were five beaches on D-Day, two American, two British, and 14,000 Canadians stepping ashore at St Aubin, making for Bayeux and Caen. They were absolutely vital, yet we’ve never heard a peep, not a Band of Brothers in sight. You’ve gotta like that.
Canadians as a rule think talking about identity is distasteful. They insist on not being English, or French, or Indian or Innuit, but not emphatically. That’s surely to be applauded. It illustrates a nation at ease with itself, not feeling the need to “U-S-A/U-S-A” and “Enger-lund” its way around the world.
But even Canadians, the very essence of composed equability, are susceptible to less positive definitions of what they’re not, and what they’re most definitely, 100 per cent, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-freeze-in-the-snow NOT, is effing American – eh.
It is amazing how even the most sensible people can allow nagging ticks of negative irrationality burrow into their collective consciousness.
No good, pragmatic Canadian might admit to it, but it really does grate that much of the world regards them as unarmed Yanks with healthcare. The only consolation is they’re not alone when it comes to being vehemently NOT.
Ireland, or at least most of this part of Ireland, is defined by the fact we’re NOT effing British.
Oh sure, there’s the usual vague aspirational cant about unique values, and ideals, and cultural heritage. Religion had a role, but that’s gone; language too. Boil it down for the ubiquitous Martian just arrived on Earth, though, and the distinction pretty much remains NOT.
Which is why, in some parts, Rory McIlroy’s supposed peeing on the national spuds has gone down as well as a few bars of The Boys Of Kilmichael at an Orange Lodge meeting.
Because there are certain things that continue to be taken as read on this island, even if any cogent analysis suggests the case might be otherwise. And one of those is that a Northern Catholic has to be one of “us”.
And then Rory goes and shatters the illusion, says he feels more like “them”.
You gotta like McIlroy. As well as being the best golfer in the world, he manages to remind an entire country that culture is a fluid concept, something that really should be obvious to anyone on an island where identity fluctuates from parish to parish, never mind across jurisdictional boundaries.
Some of the reaction has been hilarious, like a spurned lover flouncing off, deciding he wasn’t worth it anyway. There are people out there genuinely mystified that a middle-class boy from Holywood might feel this way. And that he defines himself as “Northern Irish”.
But he kicks with the right foot; he’s from Down; his name’s Rory; he’s got curly hair, for God’s sake.
Remember that kerfuffle not so long ago where some Armagh Gaels got all teary about Laois patriots referring to them as British? There was outrage. It was partitionism, a bit like that Monty Python scene in Life Of Brian – “Splitter!” – no bigger insult possible.
It’s as if Wayne Gretzky suddenly announced he feels more Septic than Canuck. Except in Canada, the layers of meaning would be as comparatively straightforward as their US border. The political nuances in this part of the world are much more Balkan.
Andy Murray has a fair idea of the tightrope McIlroy has to navigate. After his Olympic triumph, the Scottish Nationalists ached to promote him as an independence poster-boy.
No doubt aware of the wider English public’s comparative lack of warmth towards the Scottish star, and the grotesque spinning of a harmless World Cup jibe about supporting anyone but England, there were hopes that Murray might prove a player in the current debate about the union.
By now the old chestnut about sport and politics not mixing has been exposed for the rubbish it is. The emblematic power of a sporting celebrity is known only too well, its potential for getting through to a jaded public, cynical about its elected representatives, all too obvious.
Has a complex political argument ever been boiled down better than via Ali’s famous anti-draft stance – “Ain’t no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.” It’s perfect. And it was fed to the boxer by a spin merchant from the poisonous Nation Of Islam.
Ali spewed Elijah Muhammad’s race-division claptrap for years, long enough for anyone now looking back to wonder in amazement at the veneration accorded a supreme boxer but also a political patsy with a bad line in poetry.
Murray, in comparison, has little of Ali’s charisma, but has navigated a true course through the political minefield so far, wrapping the Union Jack around him on court and stressing his Scottishness off it. However, that’s a balancing act infinitely easier than the one McIlroy is faced with.
The sight of goose-stepping fascists parading their stupidity unimpeded through Donaghmede recently is a reminder of how volatile the question of identity remains on this island, even amongst the majority who can spot the moronic rump for the opportunistic inadequates they are.
It would be lovely to think a new inclusive Ireland could examine McIlroy’s honesty, digest its implications, and truly continue to regard him with the same fondness as before.
After all, there’s something wonderfully appealing about that fairway strut and the triumph of natural, unaffected talent over a grim, sour-pussed, corporate drive that characterises so many of his colleagues.
That a young fella from Down is the undisputed best exponent of a global game, and manages to play with an appealing freshness that then translates off-course as well, is a thing of wonder, and something everyone on this island should continue to marvel at.
But in this part of the old world the way things should be are often not the way they are.
And there’s no getting away from it: a lot of people on this island will conduct a different relationship with young Rory from now on. It will be a lot more subtle, with what’s left unsaid more significant than what is. To suggest otherwise is a cop-out.
McIlroy might be young but he’s no mug and must have known there would be reverberations arising from his comments.
That they should be so seismic, though, will probably have unsettled him. That they should continue to have such resonance on this island says a lot more about what our various identities continue to be NOT.
