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The Disunited Kingdom of Quietly-Great Britain and Ireland
And why it’s good for everyone involved.
I was born in the British Isles. I was raised on everything from Alfred the Great to Alf Ramsay. I’ve walked the shoreline of a thousand estuaries. I have friends and family from all four nations of the UK. But I can’t say I’ve ever really thought of myself as British.
What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word Britain?
Perhaps its shakespearean actors turned Hollywood villains, a classic enemy for the writers in the former colonies.
Maybe a romanticised land of King Arthur and Robin Hood, Castles and Queens. We do certainly have a fascinating history.
Or an Imperialistic antagonist who ruined your homeland. This was not our finest hour and I apologise if this was so.
People tend to think of Britain, or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to give it its full and unwieldy title as one land and one nation, split by varying degrees of culture into historic not-quite-countries previously conquered and now ruled over by the London city-state and its reigning monarch. And from the outside this might appear to be true but from the inside this is all a lie.
