English Girl, Irish Heart
November 27, 2007
As a young girl growing up in a predominantly Protestant suburb of Leicester City in England, my friends found it strange that I was Catholic. I got used to fielding questions like “Do you want to be a nun?” since I was five years old and always answered with a polite, and slightly shy “No!”. I didn’t mind these questions as they were never intended to hurt my feelings, but stemmed from their childlike curiosity about an aspect of me that was different to them.
However, they became even more confused when the subject of my nationality was brought up. “I’m Irish!” I would say, in my midlands accent, which was a terrible mixture of a Birmingham and London accent. This proclamation was met with varying reactions from astonishment right through to downright mockery.
I will never forget the World Cup of 1994. When me and all my schoolmates went soccer mad, and for the first time this tournament meant something to us. Everyone had the Merlin World Cup sticker album and every break all you could hear was choruses of “Got, got, got, got, got, NEED!” as kids tried to find the elusive Jurgen Klinsmann to complete their German squad. It was almost the summer holidays and everyone was excited. On this particular Friday, my elder brother and I were more excited than most because the next day Ireland would be playing Italy in the World Cup. My friend Michael Colangelo, (who was Italian), and I were swapping stickers in the playground when I came across my double of Jason McAteer. He then turned to me and said “What is the difference between Italian Football and Irish Football?” I replied saying that I didn’t know, thinking that Michael, (who I also had a huge crush on) was about to impart some piece of football knowledge that I could impress my Dad with later, when he rudely knocked my stickers to the ground, pushed me over and said “In Italian football we kick the ball, but in Irish football the ball kicks them!” He then ran away laughing, calling me a “Paddy!”. I started crying as it was the first of many times where my Irish nationality would be ridiculed.
A few days later came Monday morning, and the now famous match had already taken place. My brother Daniel and I strode straight into the school yard our heads held high, walked straight up to Michael and said in a very mature and dignified manner, “1-0! 1-0! 1-0! 1-0! 1-0!” we then spent the rest of the day following him around singing “Give It a Lash Jack!” A bittersweet lesson in karma for the young Michael, that Daniel and I were only too happy to dish out.
As I grew up I got used to defending Ireland and the fact that I was Irish to almost all of my friends. So imagine my delight when my parents sat me down one day when I was eleven and told me that we were moving home to Galway. I thought finally I would stop being ridiculed and would be with my cousins and good friends from near where my Grandmother lived in Loughrea, who I spent every summer with as I was growing up. As it turned out I was very naive. I knew it wasn’t going to be as straight forward as that when on my first day in Ireland I pronounced the name of a small village, near my school, Crag-well (in my English accent), when it should have been Craughwell. All my new school mates, my cousins included, laughed and that is when the name-calling started. Yet again I found myself in tears in a playground.
I remember thinking that I just couldn’t win! I was bullied in England for being Irish, I was being bullied in Ireland for being English and as for my family holidays in Armagh, where my other Grandparents lived, the kids didn’t know what to make of us and decided to beat us up anyway, just so they had their bases covered.
Luckily, within a few weeks I lost my English accent. A few months after that Brendan and Gerard, who still bullied me on a regular basis, stood in front of me in the playground and wouldn’t let me pass them to play football. In unison they put their fists to their hearts and started humming the tune to The Soldier’s Song. I stood their and waited till they had stopped laughing over how clever they were. I put my hand to my heart and this little English girl, with an Irish heart sang word for word and note for note the entire song of Amrhan na bhFiann.
