“It is not the literal past, the ‘facts’ of history, that shape us, but the images of the past embodied in language”. The words of Hugh in #Brian Friel’s play Translations highlights the complexity of the relationship between language, landscape, culture, and the realities of history with its wars and economic systems. This image of the “Tinnies” sculpture replaces the dominance of the former British Army checkpoint. Are images even more important than the language which describes them or does language shape our mental images or is it a mix?

Anglicised place names remain a point of tension. Gerry Anderson, a local radio presenter nicknamed Derry “Stroke City” to dodge the conflict over the British-identity Derry/Londonderry. His humour created a road sign towards a new era heralded by writers like #Lisa McGee of #Derry Girls. Peace sculptures are dotted around border towns including this Strabane sculpture, nicknamed the Tinnies, celebrates  peace and music. Tinney is a family name in Ireland and someone once told a taxi-driver in Abercorn Square that four Tinneys were waiting for him at the roundabout and it is only when he arrived there looking for his passengers that it clicked. Can humour and culture be an antidote to the toxic traditions mixed with polarised politics in Ulster?

The language of Ulster which intertwines Gaelic, Ulster Scots and Ulster English dialect is buried deeper in our consciousness and ripples out across these islands. Ulster Scots is a powerful reminder of the centuries of connection across the causeway between Ulster and Alba before colonisation. Gaelic rich in words for which there is no English, once named perceptions and emotions which remain now as mere echoes in the cave of the heart.

When we Irish adopted the English language of  development, progress and literature, we internalised the conflict between our Irish and British cultures and identities on this island. We embraced the realities of development in our daily lives and left the rest to religion and romance. Citizens caught between British and Irish identities are marginalised into silence. The Irish state and its citizens bulldozed across the island to build houses, hospitals, hotels, schools, colleges, and retail parks. We chose development and survival of the fittest as we recovered from poverty and submission. Along the way we lost a sense of priority. We paid no heed to the side effects on our health, culture, and the wealth of nature when we polluted our waters and tore up roots older than colonisation.

The post UlsterBorder Nineteen first appeared on Margo Gorman.

The farmer buys diesel at a service station in #Pettigo which has petrol pumps in both euro and sterling. Ireland joined the euro as a common currency but the UK kept sterling and miles. When you cross the #Ulsterborder in recent years, the end of kilometres, the beginning of miles and a change in currency are the only obvious differences. #Brexit and new trade barriers highlight how the borders created in the aftermath of colonialism, the industrial revolution and national self-determination in the last century need to be reassessed in the 21st century. Is it possible to talk about the historical impact of plantations, British Imperialism, and national self-determination as history without recrimination? Do we Ulster folk understand the mix of Irish and British in our identities, economies and cultures before and after #Brexit?

The ties between the communities on these islands are closer than retro-nationalists would have us believe. The poet Nora Hughes, now living in London, echoes the cross-community hunger marches in Belfast in 1932 “before the start of the war/when people of the city/ left their safe havens to chant in unison the old/ droll song…Yes we have no bananas…” Nora’s poem acknowledges the bonds of hunger, slavery, war, and colonialism which reverberate to the Windward Islands and beyond. In Great Britain, “Black British” can be a non-binary plural identity for those, including the many Irish in England, who do not readily claim English identity. Are the labels Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, British, European or British-Irish or Irish-British equal in Ireland or is any dealings with the Brit label seen as a betrayal?

The post UlsterBorder Sixteen first appeared on Margo Gorman.