Northern Ireland: Insular Evidence

Many people assume that Northern Irish people are joking about how insular our wee country really is. They imagine knowing everyone in your town or school is simply a metaphor for being quite sociable. No, really. It’s true.

In Leicester, people with my dulcet tones are few and far between. Indeed, I’ve only come across 4 Ulster people. That’s not many I know, but considering the University I go to is off the beaten track for most N. Irish people, and while popular in England, I was the first person to go to it from a school with 90% of pupils continuing into further education.

The estate agent that showed us our future house for September 2007 was from a small country town called Cookstown – and went to school with my cousins, my uncle was his doctor. A student I served at the bar in the Student’s Union was babysat by my Godmother. A male student I met on the plane on the way back after Christmas was in a French A Level class with my gay best friend in another country town, Omagh. A girl who sings in my choir from Belfast, her best friend from home has played the organ for me at a church service a few years back.

Maybe I’m just well networked or something, but that can’t be normal. With a population of 1710300 are we all related? Can we ever escape the ties of our wee country?