The social divide between those living within the six county area of Ireland still governed under the British and those living in the Republic is one in which I never encountered in such depth until I moved to Galway to begin my studies.
I come from a border community only 30 minutes from the Cavan/Fermanagh border in a town called Enniskillen. Growing up within a Catholic nationalist background, I always felt comfortable with my Irish identity.
In one sense I’m proud of my background, culture and Irishness. Many people assume that the Catholic and Protestant divide still stands greatly and that the two refuse to mix. While in some instances this may be the case within larger cities, however, Fermanagh has never felt that way.
With multiple cross community clubs, people’s backgrounds became something we would laugh about and have the odd joke, but this was never deep rooted in hate. Living within the North as a nationalist Irish woman, I often felt trapped in an identity crisis, feeling as though there was no way out.
I would find myself annoyed and questioning as to why it was fair that someone living 30 minutes down the road never faced this dilemma. The dilemma in question is too Irish for the North, Not Irish enough for the South.
In one sense I should not care, at the end of the day I know my identity and I’m proud, but why do I feel the need to constantly have to prove and scream about how Irish I am, just to feel the validation from others.
Overall, this dilemma was not one I encountered too much living within the North, but once I got my results and made the move to Galway, that is when the experience truly began for me. During Fresher’s Week the usual conversations began. ‘What are you studying?’ and the dreaded, ‘where are you from?’
I found myself hating saying I was from Fermanagh as I could predict the response. Oh, so you’re Protestant? Oh, so you’re English? I found these assumptions to be deeply frustrating. Throughout my first weeks I would be held back at doors being questioned with my UK driving license more than all my friends.
It began to tear me down, I had never felt like an outsider until this point. I would get angry as to how people would scream the Wolfe Tones and other rebel songs with such pride but then hold a sectarian nature towards me.
I would get told the same stories of how people went up to the North with a GAA top on and got “stared at” and felt unsafe and create this wrong negative narrative that everyone in the North is British and thinks the same reiterating the broken narrative of the North being completely separate universe from those living within the 26.
The frustration surrounding this identity crisis and feeling has never left. There are so little Northern students attending Southern universities. Many rather fly to England as the entry requirements have made it nearly impossible for many in the North to apply to universities within the south.
The issue, in my opinion lies within the system. Change needs to begin from the formative years, the narrative of the North being a foreign place with no connection to the rest of Ireland needs to end. Students from the North need to feel included and welcomed, not made to feel like an outsider and different, and be labelled as “fake Irish”.
Within a recent Irish Times article, it was shown that only 1% of CAO applicants come from the North due to cost of living, entry requirements and guidance culture. This must change; it creates a brain drain of Irish talent flocking to England.
Being from the North and studying in a Southern university can become exhausting with every social event becoming subject to stereotyping and a constant self-defence with a need to explain your level of Irishness in which many other students simply don’t face.
This article is not a bashful tale of North vs South but rather a need to strive for greater awareness and knowledge surrounding the stigma, stereotypes and pressure that students from the North face.
The change needs to start from the root through stories, education and awareness. Until this change begins, students from the North will continue to feel like outsiders on their own island.
