Joyce’s story “THE DEAD” has been hailed by many giants of Literature as the greatest
short story in the English language.
Joyce was born in 1872 the year in which men sharing his surname and speaking and
understanding only Irish were sentenced to death in Ireland following a trial conducted
in English (without translation) which accepted perjured “evidence.) Three of the eight
men condemned were hanged the following year. It is quite likely some of the remainder
were still in prison when my father was born in 1899. Though my father was not brought
up speaking Irish, Gaelic Christian names such as Brian, Donal, Dermot and Ruaraidh
were not recognised for legal registration before 1900.
My Lancashire born wife whose English family remained Catholic despite the attempted
suppression for centuries had an Uncle, a senior technical Civil Servant Baptised
Ignatius. To his Mother’s chagrin he called himself “Ian” for promotion might have been
denied him in 20th Century England. I have met Goans who answered to the surname
“Cross” because answering to “De Cruz” identified them in their homeland during British
rule as dark-skinned Papists who spoke Portuguese. In Britain itself, well into my
lifetime in the 1940s Welsh Schoolchildren were severely beaten for speaking their
own language, and all Court procedings were conducted in English.
It is a Great Irony that the “Miss Ivors” in “the Dead” who called “Gabriel Conroy”
a “West Briton” was, in real life Kathleen Sheehy, mother of Conor Cruise O’Brien,
whose remaining admirers are largely West Britons themselves.
For much of my life O’Brien was a hero of mine.
My own understanding of the term “West Briton” does not include Orangemen.
When I came to London sixty years ago I found that most people born on the island
of Ireland, whatever their creed never sought to be considered English and we all
considered Ireland OUR country. I drank and associated with Belfast Unionists and Cork
Protestants, indeed ex -“B” Specials and occasionally went to Ceilidhs.
West British denotes for me Irish people who have an inferiority complex, wishing
they were English.
I have no wish to be anything I am not. I consider all the human species my equal
unless they prove otherwise.
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