Conference is told of `death' of traditional Irish identity

Traditional Irish identity is dead and the idea of nationalism has run its course, Fintan O'Toole told a conference on "Emerging Irish Identities" in Trinity College Dublin at the weekend.

In his keynote address, Mr O'Toole, an Irish Times journalist, said Irish identity was "invented" at the foundation of the State and derived from a combination of land, nationality and religion.

"So a `real Irishman' was someone who lived on the land, was in Fianna Fail and who was a Catholic. But none of this works anymore, nor has it for some time," he said.

For example, land was no longer fundamental to Irish people, most of whom lived now in towns and cities. The notion of a united Ireland was rejected by the vast majority in the vote on the Belfast Agreement. Finally, Catholicism has ceased to be a mark of political identity, though it remains important in other ways.

However, the undermining of this fixed notion of Irish identity would not necessarily make people more open-minded. "Whenever there is less of something, people tend to hold on more fiercely to what is left".

Thus, Irishness was increasingly being expressed in racial terms as "whiteness" or "European-ness".

Notions of identity, which are crucial to the most creative and generous impulses of humanity, were still important. It was historically inevitable that the vacuum would be filled by stereotypes, ignorance and the work of manipulators.

Even liberals made the mistake of positing current challenges as a conflict between a notion of identity which was stable and fixed and confident on the one hand, and all kinds of contradictions coming in from outside on the other hand. "Irish identity is gone for reasons which have nothing to do with immigration or the challenges of a multicultural society.

"The question is not about `them', it is about `us'," he said. Mr Philip Watt, of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, told the conference that the controversial "onestop shop" run by the Department of Justice in Dublin is highly regarded by the refugees and asylum-seekers who use it.

Mr Watt criticised Government plans to house asylum-seekers in residential centres and to replace social welfare payments with vouchers. While residential centres could be justified as a temporary measure, the experience in other countries showed they evolved into places of "semi-imprisonment" and became the focus of racist attacks.

The voucher system would lead to a diminution of choice and a "wide range of petty humiliations" being meted out to asylum-seekers, he said.

Mrs Rabia Naijair, of the Dublin Islamic Centre, related her experience of racism in Ireland. "My children have abuse hurled at them every day. When I go to the post office, people clutch their handbags, stuff their wallets into their pockets. "Do people want to burn me at the stake, exile me - is it enough, the stone-throwing, the eggs on the window, the refusing to serve me?".

The twist in this account is that Mrs Naijair is a Dubliner who converted to Islam when she was 17. She left for north Africa with her husband in 1989 after racist attacks, then came back three years later "to almost an entire nation of racists".

Prof Mairtin Mac an Ghaill, of Sheffield University, said Irish people and Irishness had become "cool" in Britain. Stereotypes such as "Paddy the drunk" or "Paddy the urban terrorist" had been dumped in favour of "Paddy the icon of cool".

"The Irish have joined blacks and gay men as cool icons, while English masculinity finds itself in crisis," he told the conference.

Yet the reality for many older Irish emigrants was that they suffered from massive health and social problems.

They had shorter life expectancies, and higher rates of suicide and mental illness.

Prof Mac an Ghaill outlined the many personal indignities suffered by homeless Irishmen in Birmingham, such as being beaten up by Asian children in poor parts of the city or having doctors give them injections through their coats.

Ms Aine Ni Chonaill, of the Immigration Control Platform, suggested the reason there was a "higher level of pathology" among Irish emigrants was that families, communities and even the legal system in Ireland sought to have people with problems such as alcoholism or criminality removed from their midst.

Prof Mac an Ghaill said he found such an explanation "ironic" in view of the financial and abuse scandals which have broken in Ireland.

Mr Michael Collins, of the Pavee Point centre, said Government statements of the 1960s advocating a "final solution" to the Traveller "problem" amounted to a form of genocide, involving the destruction of a distinct culture and its traditions and language.

Throughout their history, Travellers were constantly being defined as deviants and misfits, he said.