You are nobody until somebody knows you

The fact that St Patrick's Day and Holy Week fall so close together this year set me to musing about Irishness, which is not the easiest of qualities to describe.

Some countries have a very strong sense of their national identity. Tarnished it may be, but the relentless optimism of the American Dream still holds sway over the imagination of Americans.

As a summary of their collective identity, the Scandinavians have the Jante Law, originally formulated by Danish-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose in the 1930s, but still quoted ironically today. The 10 commandments of Jante are: Don't think you are somebody; don't think you are as good as us; don't think you are smarter than us; don't think you are better than us; don't think you know more than us; don't think you are more important than us; don't think you will ever be anybody; don't think you can laugh at us; don't think anybody gives a damn about you; don't think you can teach us anything.

Although they are to be taken with a large dose of salt, or better still with that distinctive mordant humour which characterises Scandinavians, they do embody a certain egalitarianism that is recognisably Nordic. The Jante Law is the most negative possible way of stating rules that also have some positive side-effects. Danes and Swedes dislike ostentatious displays of wealth and privilege, and no-one should be considered to be better than anyone else simply because they are richer or more intelligent. Such an outlook makes sense of their generous social welfare system, for example. While no one should dare to think themselves better than anyone else, neither should people be forced to feel inferior to anyone.

On the other hand, we Irish have often been accused of having a rigid class system, while pretending not to have any. I think it works a little differently. We are very conscious of two things - connections and status. We like to be able to place people, not just in putting energy into discovering that the man opposite you on the train was at school with your cousin, but in far more subtle ways.

Ireland is still small enough to make "knowing all belonging to you" a national pastime. In spite of the anonymity of modern commuter belt estates, the Republic remains a country of parishes, whether those parishes are the cumann, the Law Library, the school gates, the Traveller encampment or the GAA club. We like to find out immediately from which parish you hail, and whether that qualifies you as "one of us" or not.

Parochial is a pejorative word, but it has its positive aspects, including the rich networks of connections which Robert Putnam calls "social capital". It also has its negative aspects, as when many of the inhabitants of the parish named journalism are excited by a big shopping centre opening in Dundrum, and therefore expect their readers and viewers to be.

An important part of placing people is deciding what status they have. The Scandinavians may declare that "you may not consider yourself to be somebody", but we break out in rashes if we cannot place what kind of somebody you are.

In the past, though we like to paint it as due only to ignorance and repression, Ireland was a very Catholic country in no little part because of our obsession with connections, and status. Membership of the church made us members of literal parishes, and connected most of us to each other, while still leaving a satisfying number outside. Having a family member as a priest, nun or brother conferred a kind of status that was worth having.

That may seem dismissive of faith, but it is not intended to be dismissive of authentic belief. The Irish are often said to have a natural spirituality. I think that there is an affinity for the spiritual in the Irish heart, but that it has become woefully undernourished of late. Many of us may, ultimately, be more pragmatic than spiritual, and if being spiritual will not ensure the right connections or status, we may turn our attention from it to some more profitable sphere.

We pride ourselves on having moved on from our past, but we still define ourselves by the people we confer status on, only now we bestow status on a collection of people who are mostly defined by being well-known. We now have an obsession with what could loosely be termed as celebrity. Barriers of class, education and wealth can all be transcended by becoming famous.

Perhaps as a protective mechanism, because we spend so much time scrutinising each other, and deciding whether someone is "in" or "out", large portions of our psyche remain hidden from each other, and from ourselves. Honesty and openness were never as valued in Ireland as flexibility, and the ability to adapt to the group you find yourself in. Certainly, we are friendly and chatty, but often, it goes no further than that.

Maybe our watchfulness and caution explain our national obsession with alcohol. We have declared alcohol to be our personal playground, a place where we can all relax, and act in ways which would otherwise cause us to be excluded from our respective groups. We declare an amnesty for anyone who is drunk. However, we are deeply suspicious of those who do not drink. Are they sitting in judgement on us as we get steadily more drunk? And how could anyone survive without the safety valve of letting off steam when drunk? Such people must be very strange.

So perhaps an Irish version of Jante might run: You are nobody until somebody knows you. Your group defines you, but don't think you can pick your own. If you don't know whether you are one of us or not, you almost certainly are not. Core values may be subject to change, but we will always have some. Honesty is the best policy, except where pragmatism gets you further. If you really want to know what we think about you, look at what we slag you about. We will look benignly on you if you drink.

If you do not drink, we will worry about your mental health. If you are well-known, that automatically makes you interesting. Luckily, it is not difficult to become well-known.