What DOES it mean to be Irish?

With the coming and going of Paddy's weekend I, like many others in the media and in the country at large found myself pondering the big question as stated above. I found myself looking around at our country and scratching my head over the furore and drinking plans being made by so many over our national saints day.

I read in the newspapers how kids in primary schools have no idea who St. Patrick was, I heard from a priest I know that the only child called Patrick in a local national school recently visited by him was a little Jehova's witness boy, who really couldn't care less about the patron saint of this country.

And then I watched the parade in Dublin on Friday from the safety and comfort of my sofa, to see if I could glean some inspiration about why we feel need to celebrate our Irishness in such a loud and boisterous way. I was left feeling a bit bemused and even more confused by that experience I have to say. Apparantly Irishness is about dressing up in silly costumes and/or playing brass instruments, or as in one very memorable display, wearing a bikini in the freezing cold and pretending that your're Brazillian and it's Mardi Gras??? I'm very confused about that one.

And still I was left without an answer about what it means to be Irish.

Saturday however brought a whole new set of experiences for me to ponder and it also brought some results.

You see I now am firmly of the opinion that what it means to be Irish is simpy that we prove that we are better than the English.

Our wonderful, dogged and talented men in green showed me on Saturday that even when I had given up, there is still hope that we can win. I was so sure that it would be another gut wrenchingly disappointing day of rugby, with the English finding their courage and their mark and wiping the floor with us, as has happened so often in the past. But this weekend it didn't. That victory together with the fantastic record 10 wins at Cheltenham by Irish trainers showed me what it means to be Irish without a shadow of a doubt.

My faith in this small nation, and my pride in being part of it despite all of its failings and the aspects of our culture which I feel is not to be lauded, was in fact reinforced. So there you have it, it was a momentous weekend for me in many ways!