<\/p>\n
Oh no. \u201cEd Sheeran sparks backlash from fans after revealing he \u2018identifies culturally as Irish\u2019.\u201d However will he recover?<\/p>\n
That Mail Online headline<\/a> leads, of course, to a mere trickle of X posts raising largely facetious objections to the ginger guitar-basher\u2019s recent affiliation with the land of his fathers. <\/p>\n Obviously, some folk (ahem) who don\u2019t enjoy Sheeran<\/a>\u2019s brand of inexplicably popular busker folk have done a bit of performative grumbling. Not everyone (ahem, ahem) loves the ubiquity of his chosen verb. People are forever \u201cidentifying\u201d as something these days. In times past you just were what you were. Those are the sort of whinges people who aren\u2019t me were making.<\/p>\n On balance, however, Irish people seem relaxed about Sheeran\u2019s comments<\/a> on The Louis Theroux Podcast<\/a>. He certainly looks Irish. He inherited an Irish name from his Belfast-born father. The nation seems prepared to draw a veil over Galway Girl<\/a> and allow him into the larger camp. \u201cI identify culturally as Irish, but I was obviously born and raised in Britain,\u201d he told Theroux<\/a>.<\/p>\n It helps that he seems a nice enough fellow. It helps further that he is among that sizeable portion of the diaspora, a few other celebrities also among them, that I am going to identify as the Holidayed with Granny cadre. <\/p>\n We have long been a tad wary of the third-generation immigrant to the United States who thinks his Irishness is equivalent to those who grew up with Bosco and warm Cidona. You know who we\u2019re talking about. Patty\u2019s Day, Irish car bomb cocktails, corned beef and cabbage, dying the river green. All that baloney. We\u2019ll put up with it while he\u2019s paying for the drinks, but we\u2019re sniggering behind hands as we\u2019re doing so. <\/p>\n The descendants of immigrants to Britain tend to have a more dynamic relationship with the home country. They watch much the same telly. They listen to the same music. Even before the advent of budget flights, they were only a relatively cheap train and ferry journey away from the old country.<\/p>\n So they Holidayed with Granny. On the evidence of interviews in this newspaper and others, Ireland was, during summers from the 1970s through the 1990s, groaning with future celebrities of the diaspora. \u201cWe\u2019d spend all of our holidays in Ireland,\u201d Sheeran said. \u201cMy first musical experiences were in Ireland. I grew up with trad music in the house.\u201d <\/p>\n Liam<\/a> and Noel Gallagher<\/a> spent the summers in Charlestown, Co Mayo. Martin McDonagh\u2019s holidays in Galway influenced his subsequent plays and films. Shane MacGowan<\/a> knocked about Tipperary in the warmer months. Back in 2013 I talked to Steve Coogan<\/a>, raised in Manchester, about his own travels back to the sod. \u201cSome people went to Spain every summer, I went to Mayo,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cWhen I left people would ask me when I was coming \u2018back home\u2019 again.\u201d<\/p>\n Coogan, who also has family in Cork, discussed a relaxed blending of cultures. There is no sense of any chips on the shoulder. No attempt to be something you\u2019re not. \u201cThere was never an anti-Englishness,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe supported the England football team. My mum would support Ireland as well.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0<\/span>From the archive: \u2018I\u2019d abolish the royal family\u2019 – Steve Coogan on what separates him from Alan PartridgeOpens in new window<\/span><\/a>\u00a0]<\/span><\/p>\n In a perfect world (or nation) no purity tests would be invoked when someone \u201cidentified\u201d as Irish. We do not live in that world (or nation). Racists bristle when people of colour \u2013 even those born and raised here \u2013 declare themselves of the flock. The kaleidoscope of traits that can get you labelled a \u201cwest Brit\u201d has scarcely diminished through the years. And look how unfairly columns such as this slag off perfectly decent Irish Americans as they try to connect with the home soil. We should be ashamed of ourselves.<\/p>\n The offspring of immigrants to Britain \u2013 the Holidayed with Granny cadre \u2013 have, however, always found it relatively easy to slip back into their parents\u2019 and grandparents\u2019 culture. For the most part they understand the barriers as well as the stubborn connections. Coogan feels this is particularly so of those who grew up in the north of England. \u201cIn London they maybe felt the need to assimilate more,\u201d he told me. \u201cThey lost the \u2018O\u201d from their names more often than in Manchester. The London Irish felt more need to refine themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Anyway, we should be enormously flattered that so many people yearn to be \u201cculturally\u201d Irish. One gets no sense that similar numbers are queuing up to be seen as culturally Dutch, Canadian or Maltese. Yet not everyone has the determination to pull it off. Born and raised in Cabra (or maybe Phibsborough), the late Michael Gambon<\/a>, actor and raconteur, approached the issue in mischievous fashion when, in 2010, he was asked<\/a> whether he was English or Irish.<\/p>\n \u201cI suppose I can\u2019t get away from it, I\u2019m English, aren\u2019t I?\u201d he said. \u201cAll my things are here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.irishtimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh no. \u201cEd Sheeran sparks backlash from fans after revealing he \u2018identifies culturally as Irish\u2019.\u201d However will he recover? That Mail Online headline leads, of course, to a mere trickle of X posts raising largely facetious objections to the ginger guitar-basher\u2019s recent affiliation with the land of his fathers. Obviously, some folk (ahem) who don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[414783,38262,309963,339322,390064,328799,414782,403377],"class_list":["post-2162063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","tag-common-ground","tag-ed-sheeran","tag-liam-gallagher","tag-louis-theroux","tag-michael-gambon","tag-noel-gallagher","tag-shane-macgowan","tag-steve-coogan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2162063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2162064,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162063\/revisions\/2162064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2162063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2162063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2162063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}