Deep down we really like the British

WHEN a cinema in Greystones announced that it was showing the royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (below), offering breakfast, wedding cake and some bubbly in return for €15, I and many online warriors thought it was one of the most Protestant things to happen since lemon curd and amateur drama.

As it turns out, there’s a few places showing the wedding around Ireland, proving that, besides the odd sneer, we embrace moderate royalism. Queen Elizabeth’s visit was a success, some of us loved Diana, and most of us – certainly most females – will watch the wedding on May 19 in some capacity, if only just to see what everyone’s wearing and how not bloated they all look. How do they do it? All that standing around.

I do fear the pending birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate’s, third baby and the upcoming nuptials may send us over the edge in terms of tweeness and thundering Britishness.

Is this ‘Hello’ magazine or Ireland, online commentators may ask. Why do we really care? Are we in some English rose garden eating scones with clotted cream or are we in a boozer down by the Liffey or in Limerick or the Burren or somewhere? Plus, what have the Brits ever done for us?

Sure, the Brits threw their weight around, built an empire which fell apart and inflicted 800 years of suffering, starvation, oppression and death onto our people, but we’ve kind of gotten over that and we’re all friends now. No?

Hold the cucumber sandwiches. When there was discussion around the fact that the soon-to-be-married couple could possibly receive the titles of the extinct dukedom of Connaught, some were not best pleased. Mullaghmore author Joe McGowan said it was “anathema” to Irish people, plus the Brits should keep “their noses out of it”.

Oh dear. Once you scratch the surface, how we really feel percolates out. I asked a few friends – “I can’t bear the smug, patronising, superior, arrogant, uncultured lot of them,” one said. “Royal family, poxy food, over opinion of themselves as a world superpower, hubris, crap reality TV shows, largely crap music scene, beachside humour.”

“That’s why we go to New York,” said another friend. You get a mixed bag. Luckily there are always a few buts – they do great comedy, have phenomenal journalists, created ‘Withnail and I’. That kind of thing – “but I still hate them”.

As a nation, we are never allowed to support England as a team in any sports ever. Not even curling. It’s an unwritten part of our Constitution. That’s OK though. I’m happy they gave us the swinging 60s, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, but if they win the football World Cup in my lifetime, I’ll retreat to the far north and spend the rest of my life as a shell-shocked igloo-bound Inuit, never to speak of football again. I’m safe in the knowledge that any self-respecting Irish person feels this way too – a rare thing. Unanimous agreement on a subject, apart from ‘Sir’ Bob of course. We’ve been pretty peeved with him since he showed up outside the Mansion House sporting his Freedom of the City scroll demanding that “pig”, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, an “accomplice to rape” and a “handmaiden to ethnic cleansing”, be relieved of her own freedom of Dublin. They both got the boot. Now he wants his back. Scarlet for him.

But why did he not give up his freedom of the city of London, or indeed why hasn’t he handed in his knighthood in response to British intervention in Syria? He tried his best to explain on the ‘Late Late Show’ and many armchair warriors were having none of it. Clearly he likes his adopted home of 40 years more than he likes us. Ouch. Simpering anti-British rhetoric bubbled to the surface.

Calling the 1916 rebels a “bunch of geezers” who were “delusional” and that Ireland was better off as part of the British Empire is on par with Holocaust denial. Or, dare I say it, wondering why famine victims didn’t eat fish that time.

“Sir !*!*, go back to Britain!” The taunts were endless.

I don’t hate Sir Bob, though.

SURE, he might want to research his heroes a little more, plus his black-and-white attitude to global issues is unsettling, but at the same time he was responsible for Freddie Mercury at Live Aid, one of the greatest performances of all time, plus he did some good stuff ... he meant well. No? Maybe we should be a little more lenient on ‘Sir’ Bob. He’s done more than the rest of us. Anyone who puts on Live Aid with a landline is a hero to me.

We should, also, perhaps, be more accepting of those closest to us.

I’m even going to suggest some gratitude for the lovely buildings, tramlines, trains, basically doing a pretty good job of city planning – which the newly independents made a balls of by sleeping for 50 years after our oppressors departed. Can I say that? No? Credit where credit is due?

I know on a normal day we don’t hate our neighbours; we live there, have friends there, enjoy their fantastic shows and ceremonies.

But whatever happens, to all the people of the world and people of the UK, please don’t think we’re from there. Ever.