2 days ago
No wonder Ed Sheeran identifies as Irish – no one wants to be British any more
Ed Sheeran has prompted an online backlash for telling Louis Theroux that he is 'culturally Irish'. Speaking on The Louis Theroux Podcast, the star said 'I class my culture as Irish. I think that's what I grew up with'. 'Just because I was born in Britain doesn't necessarily mean that I have to just be [British], there's loads of people I know that are half this or quarter this', he continued.
You and every other kid with Irish parents, Ed. Sheeran 's father is from Belfast – mine are from the Wicklow mountains. In fact, bar the international fame and musical talent, me and Ed are pretty similar. I too spent every summer holiday in Ireland, my parents played De Dannan, my favourite band was Westlife and almost all of my family live in a small village called Donard. And yet, I too was born and raised in England and have no desire to bring my children up in the homeland, either. So why would me or Ed call ourselves Irish?
It's easy to scoff at plastic paddies – as many have, causing Sheeran to mount a rather touchy defence of his background on social media. He wrote on Instagram: 'My dad is Irish. My family is Irish. I have an Irish passport. The culture I was brought up around is Irish. The first music I learnt was Irish. Just coz I was born somewhere else doesn't change my culture, I can be allowed to feel connection to a place half of my family is from.'
Every American and their mother wants to claim a familial link to the Emerald Isle because Irish culture is, well, cooler. There's music, dancing, poetry and craic. The Irish can poke fun at each other which has always seemed more attractive to me than the po-face tendencies of my English friends. As opposed to the rather staid or even stifling picture of British life growing up in Suffolk that Sheeran paints in some of his other songs, perhaps there's no wonder he's keen on identifying with something a little jollier.
It's also worth remembering that being Irish – culture and craic withstanding – wasn't so hot not so long ago. Like my own, Sheeran's father would have memories of the prejudice Irish people suffered while living in the UK. My maternal grandfather, who came to the UK to build the roads and the Blackwall Tunnel, would have had no choice but to identify as culturally Irish, taking refuge among his fellow navvies in the face of 'no Irish, no blacks, no dogs' signs.
Paul Brady released his angry song Nothing but the Same Old Story in 1981, 10 years before Ed and I were born, detailing the Irish experience of hatred and suspicion while Bobby Sands died in Long Kesh. Irish people have today completely assimilated into British life, the pubs have mostly shut and much of the prejudice is gone. But none of this is ancient history; it's no wonder many of us can't quite stomach lining up behind the St George's Cross.
But while it might be the experience of many immigrants that hostility forced a deeper need to create a home away from home within their British lives – giving their children Nigerian or Bangladeshi or Irish upbringings on a British street – it's also true that first-generation immigrants tend to be less bothered by their cultural identity.
I know from my own experience that the fervour of a second-generation child's need for authenticity can make a bigger deal out of cultural identity than necessary. You hear the stories your parents tell of home and want them as your own. In many ways, this simply reveals the importance of family ties. My children have complicated Irish names with fadas and gh's, in part because I married an Englishman and didn't want to lose the small thread that links me and them back to something my family belongs to.
Cultural identity is a thorny and important issue. Years of political elites pushing multiculturalism – effectively encouraging immigrants not to assimilate – has meant that not only do many people not feel culturally British, they have no sense of what a British national identity is. In many towns and cities across the UK today, clashes of cultural identity are causing major problems.
But what are British values? No politician has been able to answer that question in decades. They resort to mumbling about fish and chips and how good we are at being nice to immigrants. In order to achieve an organic sense of national and cultural identity, you need to have the political will to communicate a national story that people want to identify with.
On a holiday to Cornwall, my husband's school friends insisted on sticking a Devon flag on the beach. You don't need to get all David Goodhart to know that a sense of place and a desire for strong roots matter to most people – this means familial identity is often stronger than a national one. But if we want to build a British cultural identity that is more substantial than cliches and more politically attractive to a young generation, we need to think about what we stand for. Jamaicans and Irish and Indian immigrants of the past wanted to become part of British society, we need to ask ourselves why, today, so many immigrants – and their children – do not.
