Identity Crisis

‘A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.’ – Coco Chanel, The Gospel According to Coco Chanel.

Being half English and half Irish and living in Wales, one could say I’ve had a confused identity for most of my life. I’ll rule the Irish side out of me immediately, since I’ve only ever been to Ireland once, when I was six months old, and I definitely don’t remember that trip. I expect I was cooed over and that I cried, ate and slept like most other six month old babies, and that was about it. I do know I have Irish roots, and one day I suppose I’ll go and explore those roots, and I’m sure Ireland is a beautiful country and my family are all marvellous, but right now, there is no desire in me whatsoever to visit and I can’t see one rising in me any time soon, either.

So to the half-English but living in Wales thing. As you’ll know from my ‘Political Ambitions’ post, my family moved to Wales when I was nine. For a long time, right up until fairly recently really, I kept a stubborn hold on my English heritage. I continued to support England in both rugby and football. I told people I was English. I often visited relatives back in Suffolk, my birth county, and other places in southern-eastern England. I was ribbed quite a lot in Wales for being English (that long and bitter rivalry…) but I defended my origins and stood my ground…

Then I went to uni and things got more complicated. My new friends knew where they were from. They were either Welsh, or they were English (I had other friends from different nationalities too, and they knew where they came from too!). There was none of this in between nonsense. I’d always backed up my ‘stout’ English claims with a weak ‘But I’ve lived in Wales for <insert number of years here>, trying to make my Englishness sound a little more Welsh and I found I couldn’t do that anymore. So when in 2007 England played in the Rugby World Cup Final and I cheered them on loudly with the rest of them, I was lambasted for supporting the wrong team. Told I should be supporting Wales, since I was Welsh.

Soon, I found myself having to defend my Englishness even in that very country, to fellow English men and women, who all thought that because I lived in Wales, I should be supporting the country I lived in. It might sound silly, but for quite a while, I felt like I really didn’t have any sort of nationality, no identity to a country that I could truly claim as mine.

After uni, I moved back to Wales, where I live to this day (give or take a few months when I lived temporarily and quite disastrously in London). And slowly, the Welsh took a hold. My old uni friends told me I was getting a Welsh accent (I don’t hear it myself, and neither do my Welsh friends, they think I sound posh). My heart, which had always loved the hills and the valleys and the streams (forgive me for sounding so poetic, but I bloody love this country, and especially this part that I live in), only felt right when it was here, in my home town, with my life here. I got fidgety and restless anywhere else, if I stayed away too long.

I love Wales. I cheered as loudly as the next person in my local Welsh pub when Wales played in the 2011 Rugby World Cup Semi-Finals, and was gutted when France beat them. I cheered even louder when they won the 2012 Grand Slam. I finally felt I belonged somewhere, and although my friends still give me a gentle ribbing for claiming I am now Welsh, I don’t mind. I feel like I belong here, more than anywhere else in the world. It truly is the most beautiful country, and I’m lucky enough to live right in the heart of it, right in the middle of a tiny little town where everyone knows everyone and your private business is never private for long.

Nowadays, I can’t imagine calling myself English. I will never move to live in England permanently, and Wales, here, this town, is my true home. My friends are here, my family, my life, my heart. I feel I finally have a sense of identity here, and that I am valued. However, I wouldn’t call myself Welsh either, as it’s not true. I may have a sliver of Welsh blood from my mother’s side, but not enough to claim rights. Although I live here and belong here, I’m not Welsh.

So if I’m not English or Welsh, and I don’t care about being Irish, what do I call myself? Well, if anyone asks, I say I’m British. I’ve lived in England, I have family there, I’m half-English and I’m half-Irish, I live in Wales, and my world is in Wales. To call myself British seems the best option. Maybe I’m sitting on the fence a bit, but hey, I’m good at that, and if I’m happy with it, then who cares? I do feel a bit bad for Scotland though… I bet the Scots are dying for me to have some sort of link with them somehow, a distant relative called Hamish… Well, I don’t have a distant relative called Hamish, but I did go on holiday there once, but that’s another story, for another post and another time!