Reply #42: 100% Irish [View All]

My dad is from Belfast and my mum was born in Nigeria to parents from Donegal and Mayo.

I love going back. I want to go to Grace Neill's and shop in Eaton in Bangor. I want to stay with my auntie by the seaside. That'll happen more often when I move for good to England (an hour from Liverpool so I can easily take the ferry to Dublin and drive up!).

I am absolutely surprised with the changes going on with Ireland right now. In Belfast, I could easily be shot for my Irish Gaelic (Catholic) name for walking down Ormeau avenue, one of the march routes for the Orange Order and I saw the tri-colour Irish flag in St George's Market. There I said, "HOLY SHIT! The Irish flag in Northern Ireland!!!!" some of my family (my mum's side) are IRA and some (my dad's side) are Orange Order.

I'm proud that it's changing for the better. There's more integrated schools (in the 1970's to early 1990's, Protestants and Catholics were segregated) and a little more civil rights for Catholics.

My mum survived Bloody Friday and protested William Craig. My dad had to ask illegal paramilitary Protestants (even though he himself was Protestant) for permission to go to work. You don't see that much. The only people who make the news are the stubborn ones who refuse to change.

Right now half of Northern Ireland has gone to Sinn Féin. 45% to Ulster Unionist Party, and the rest to DUP and SDLP. The reason is the Protestants have gone to England permanently because they don't want their kids to go to Queen's University because it's majority Catholic. My grandfather was the first Catholic to get University Blue from Queen's (many Protestants protested him getting it) in the 1940's.