A kind of patriotism

As the bottles whizzed over my head last Saturday and I tried to avoid a Charlie Bird-style lynching, I was struck by something…

As the bottles whizzed over my head last Saturday and I tried to avoid a Charlie Bird-style lynching, I was struck by something one of the thugs, sorry protesters, said to me as he tried to justify the mayhem. "Inside every Irish man and woman there is a republican dying to get out," he declared.

If he is right, I must be missing a vital piece of the Irish genetic jigsaw puzzle. I have no interest in a united Ireland. Not after all the death and destruction that has accrued in the name of that cause. If it's an issue that causes even one bottle to be thrown in anger, then I want nothing to do with it.

I am about as patriotic as a hamster, as republican as a mouse. I've always believed that no good can come from too much attachment to the flag of the country where you happen to have been born. It was just an accident, I've always reminded myself. It might have been anywhere. It could have been Timbuktu. Or just as easily Tehran.

I feel the same way about religion. I don't understand how people can define themselves by it when that religion was thrust upon them only because of the circumstances in which they were born. To me, Christianity is merely the particular creed that through a series of incidents became indigenous to this country in recent centuries. .

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I've always felt more like a member of the human race than a member of this intangible notion called the Irish nation. Despite what my passport insists, I am more citizen of the world than of Ireland. I don't understand the need to belong to a country or a county or a village or a team. I don't understand why some people insist on attaching themselves to a particular region in the world and expending all their energy defending their right to be attached to this religion, that territory or this colour flag.

When I was explaining my anti-patriotic stance to someone recently, they said I'd feel differently if Ireland were invaded, if my home and family were under threat. Perhaps then I'd know what patriotism felt like. And maybe I would. I am well aware that living in a democratic state I have the luxury of taking or leaving my Irish identity, safe in the knowledge that nobody is about to try to steal it from me.

The only exception to my anti-nationalistic streak comes when we are involved in an event such as the World Cup. It seems like a lifetime ago now when we'd all have reason to watch the same soccer match, and O'Connell Street would be deserted and I'd make green fairy cakes and try to remember the names of players and to sound educated when explaining why we were robbed.

I instinctively join in the national fervour at these times because I view events such as the World Cup, the Eurovision, the Six Nations and the Olympics as the benign bits of patriotism. The part where, mostly, it really is all harmless fun, nothing more sinister than an occasion when this small island can take pride in a sporting or a cultural accomplishment. No harm done.

Not then. But then I think of all the lives lost all over the world because of an attachment to territory or a religious ideal. I think of Bosnia, Israel, Germany, Northern Ireland and Iraq. I think of all the lives lost - Irish lives, British lives - during 1916.

Despite the violence, despite the blood that was shed, the Government is planning to commemorate this event with military displays and urging us to feel proud of what they call "the spirit of 1916".

The Government won't say this but the real reason they want us to reclaim the event from Sinn Féin is to stop people voting in increasing numbers for that party. Even as politicians condemn the violent protests near the GPO on O'Connell Street last Saturday, the Government is preparing a parade commemorating another version of the kind of "patriotism" we've just seen expressed on our streets.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines patriotism as "love of or zealous devotion to one's country". While I'll always have a very soft spot for my native country, there are parts of France, parts of India, parts of England and parts of America that I love just as much or even more. And "zealous devotion" to anything, I believe, is a dangerous thing.

I am with Samuel Johnson on this one. He described patriotism as "the last refuge of a scoundrel". There were plenty of those in Dublin city-centre last week.

roisiningle@irish-times.ie