HOME. Although I’ve lived off and on in Scotland for the best part of 40 years now, that word still makes me think of a council house in Coleraine in County Londonderry. Three bedrooms, two sisters, Radio 1, Spacehoppers and football on the green. An eternal 1970s of the mind.
Like WB Yeats, “I am of Ireland.” But the northern bit. I am Northern Irish or so I consider myself even though I’m not sure what I mean by that particularly. In my head the term triggers a reel of fuzzy images: family, friends, the Giant’s Causeway, Mary Peters, Georgie Best, Gerry Armstrong scoring against Spain, the Undertones, Dana, Kenneth Branagh in the days he still had an Ulster accent, Barry McGuigan and Tayto crisps (the ones from Tandragee not the ones from County Meath)