Deep irony

I have been meaning to blog for a while about the fact that there is a deep irony in the fact that i chose to name my blog "la petite Irlandaise" which means little Irish Girl. The irony is that if anyone calls me Irish i am quick to correct them and tell them that I am Northern Irish which makes me British and not Irish. The name is a nickname I was given when i worked in France, my efforts to explain the anglo-irish conflict in schoolgirl French didn't quite work. It's the only slightly interesting nickname I've ever had - the other one being Boydie. Not exactly catchy.

The whole Irish/british/northern irish thing remains complicated. I think if you ask my extended family what nationality they are half would say Irish and half British. Many people in Northern Ireland would appear to be fairly indifferent to the new power-sharing arrangement. Many years of expecting good stuff to be ruined by the bad makes for a cynical nation. Belfast is changing fast though. I was stuck by something Will Self wrote in the USA Today the other week describing a recent walking tour of Belfast. He compared it to his visit in the middle of the troubles. Then he said the Falls Road in belfast felt that a surreal but fairly secure place as the kind of vilence that did go on there was so "non-apprehensible" (his word!) that you could never imagine it happening to yourself. Now walking around some areas you can see disaffected youths vandalising the neighbour and it is easier to expect that a more "workaday beating" might come your way.

I for one am very happy to see British Ian Paisley and Irish Martin McGuinness working together in apparent good humour.