Ok, the passport/nationality thing. If you’re born in Northern Ireland you are automatically a British citizen with nothing to do with the rest of Ireland. However, you are entitled to apply for an Irish passport if you wish. Parents can also choose to list ‘Irish’ as the nationality on a birth certificate. So it’s literally one of the only countries in the world where you can choose your nationality or switch it about whenever you wish. However, unless you choose to be Irish, you will automatically be born British in Northern Ireland.
I am and choose to remain British, but my choice isn’t political, it’s because I’m very much an English girl (despite being born & raised in Belfast). My father is English, born & raised (and my family on his side are all English and still live there) and my mother’s family are from Scotland. I also lived for almost four years of my life in London. So, my alliance with Britain is not in keeping with any political alliance to Unionism, because that’s not my case (I’m an independant).

It’s a tricky situation. When I’m abroad, or even when I was living in London, most people don’t even realise that the island of Ireland is made up of two countries. A lot of my friends in London were shocked when I told them I was every bit as British as they are, by law.

However, it’s obviously quite a touchy subject – given that we’ve had over fifty years of horrendous violence over the situation, leaving over 5,000 dead in a 30 year span. I try not to get too into it, because I have friends with strong opinions on each side of the divide, but I do like to explain that it’s not as simple as ‘I’m Irish’, because the reality is my citizenship, passport, nationality are not Irish.

Complex, eh? Sorry if I’ve thoroughly bored you. I love your blog, so much, and I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t seen any posts in ages until I realised your blog feed hadn’t properly loaded on my Google reader!

Beautiful photographs. I especially like the one of the Titanic mural on the side of the houses – I like how the, erm, crane things disappear into the mist. Amazing.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned in a previous comment that my boyfriend is Irish (he’s from Donegal). A few days ago we were talking about ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ and were wondering what the nationality section of passports in Northern Ireland said. He said British, but I assumed it’d be Irish. Forgive our ignorance – we can’t work it out!

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