Loss of Irishness May Lead to Health Issues 

By Sarah McInerney, Sunday Times

August 2, 2009

United Kingdom

People living in Britain who continue to assert their Irish identity suffer from isolation and anti-Irish discrimination

People living in the UK who think of themselves as Irish are more likely to suffer from bad health than those who identify themselves as British, new research has found.

Researchers at Warwick University believe this is partly due to an identity crisis, where people living in Britain who continue to assert their Irish identity suffer from isolation and racial discrimination. They are also rejected by native Irish people, who regard them as “plastic paddies”.

The study, which used data from Britain’s 2001 census and included details of 17,523 Irish people, is the first to investigate the effect of Irish identity on a person’s health.

“There is a lot of pressure on minority groups living in Britain to conform to a homogenous society,” said Marie Clucas, author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Ethnicity and Health.

“Northern Irish people and second-generation Irish can find it very difficult to build a positive sense of self if they hold on to their Irish identity. It can create conflict with the people around them. It can mean they’re not accepted by the British, and often are not accepted by the Irish either. They are denied their Irishness from all sides, and cannot form a sense of identity.”

Clucas adjusted the findings to take into account the age, social class, education and occupation of those studied. This had a big impact on the findings with first generation Irish, whose older age profile and lower socioeconomic status could be used to explain the higher levels of poor health.

“However, even after we took social and economic factors into account, the Northern Irish and second-generation Irish continued to be significantly more likely to report long-term illness and poor health,” said Clucas.

Simon McCarthy, a second generation Irishman who works as a welfare officer with the Coventry Irish Society, said that the findings did not surprise him. He said that a loss of identity and anti-Irish discrimination were factors. “For a lot of the first generation, who arrived here in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when there was trouble in the north, there was a lot of pressure to keep the head down and try to assimilate into British society as quickly as possible. But at what cost to themselves? Who had to give up their identity? I don’t think you can underestimate the impact that had on the first generation and on their children.”

He acknowledged that anti-Irish sentiment in Britain had receded somewhat in recent years, though not entirely.

“I grew up thinking that all Irish people were stupid, and I was always conscious of the terrorist aspect as well,” he said.

“There are lots of new migrant groups settling in England now, and the discrimination focus has moved to them a bit. The anti-Irish jokes and jibes have faded in the last 10-15 years, and it’s become almost trendy to be Irish. But you only have to scratch the surface for it to emerge again.”

The Coventry Irish Society is now conducting its own research to get specific data on the health profile of Irish people living in Coventry.

It then plans to use the data to lobby the British government for funding for targeted Irish health programmes.

“We want to find out why it’s happening and then we want to start trying to fight it,” said McCarthy. “It’s taken us too long to mobilise. It’s time we started fighting back.”

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