Britishness and direct rule

For once a thought-provoking piece by Newton Emerson which makes some pretty pertinent points about how – for some, a certain sense of Britishness developed due to direct rule. And he has some thoughts about television which while overstated – and perhaps rather narrow – aren’t entirely I think wide the mark.

Oddly enough I was discussing something about the manner in which the conflict impacted on people in the 1980s (particularly in the South) with a friend recently and suggested that it was quite strange how despite the reality of that conflict, with events a near nightly occurrence reported on television news, yet other issues, life itself, music, whatever loomed as large or larger still. And that was for two people who would both, in different ways, have been heavily politicised. And both of us, I think, were in and out of the North on a regular basis in the late 1980s. Perhaps that was understandable. Neither of us was directly at the hard end of it. Or perhaps it was our age at the time or whatever. It wasn’t that it was unimportant, anything but, but my focus was on political activity in Dublin more than outside it, obviously because that was where I was active.

Anyhow he points to how that particularly sense of Britishness may have ended since the GFA. Or rather for many who are younger than he it isn’t an issue. Interesting.