Am I Irish Yet?

A one-woman show by author Kate Kerrigan.

I always wanted to be ‘Irish’.

Stone walls, green fields, miraculous medals, Tayto crisps, red lemonade - they all just felt like ‘me’.

But being bought up in London as second generation Irish during the 70s/80s things just weren’t that simple.

In England we were the ‘bombing Irish’ mistrusted and abused. In Ireland we were the English cousins - the subjects of hurtful, teasing antipathy.

All through my childhood and teens, I longed for Irishness. But no matter how many of the songs I sang or poems I learned - I was only ever a plastic paddy, a fake. Ireland was the teenage crush who didn’t love me back and, like an infatuated teen, I clung on. In my twenties the craving was so strong I left behind a successful life in London to move here in search of the answer to who I was.

35 years later, two Irish children and Irish husband and a career as an ‘Irish writer’ I am still wondering ... Am I Irish Yet?