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I was writing last week about the strange historical relationship between Ireland and ideas of racial identity and suggesting that it may contain some kinds of ambiguity that might be useful in the search for a more generous and open-ended ended sense of Irishness in the years to come. I promised, or, as some readers may feel, threatened, to return to the subject this week.

The first thing to be said is that the presence of ambiguity doesn't minimise the Irish history of racism, but it does allow us to suggest that there was more going on than simple bigotry. One of the things that was going on was the Irish using racial discourse as a way to explore their own contradictions.