Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain

by Fintan O'Toole

The official Irish culture of my childhood and youth was one that defined Ireland as whatever England was not. England was Protestant; so Catholicism had to be the essence of Irish identity. England was industrial; so Ireland had to make a virtue of its underdeveloped and deindustrialized economy. England was urban; so Ireland had to create an image of itself that was exclusively rustic. The English were scientific rationalists; so we Irish had to be the mystical dreamers of dreams. They were Anglo-Saxons; we were Celts. They had a monarchy, so we had to have a republic. They developed a welfare state; so we relied on the tender mercies of charity. In other words, I know exactly what an either/or identity looks and feels like.