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Short thread re Identity. This happened 20 years ago - Drumcree 2nd July 2000. You can see me in the photo - I'm watching my cameraman's step ladder being hurled at the army barricade. I'm surrounded by 'Loyalists'....
Northern Irish people who identify as British (like I did). They wanted to march through a nationalist area in Northern Ireland to commemorate the Battle of the Somme which began on 1st July 1916. Both my grandfathers fought in that battle, but these people....
wanted to smash my head in because I worked for the BBC. I think this was the moment I started questioning my British identity... I'd always thought of myself as British, but I really had nothing in common with these protestors.
It was a bit unclear to me exactly what they were "Loyal" to. Their focus was on the Loyalists who died at the Somme... but of course many Irishmen of the other tradition also died there (something that was not talked about or remembered for many years).
My journalistic experiences over the following 10 years challenged my identity further - the behaviour of some England football fans in 2006... the invasion and occupation of Iraq... lots of things made me question whether I was or wanted to be British....
...Father to son I can trace my family back for hundreds of years in Oxfordshire. I was born and educated in England. But I always felt a bit of an outsider, and had always taken a keen interest in my Irish grandmother's history (see here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-became-irish-citizen-patrick-howse/
While the UK was a member of the EU I could maintain my Britishness, because I could also be European. After the Brexit vote I decided that European identity was the only one I could be comfortable with. I became and Irish citizen and I live in Germany. That process started...
during that riot at Drumcree on this day in 2000 when I was surrounded by hostile, violent people who were supposedly my fellow countrymen.
The photo was taken by a PA snapper and appeared in several papers on Monday 3rd July 2000.
The photo was taken by a PA snapper and appeared in several papers on Monday 3rd July 2000.
