A Throne of Ulster Day - a question of belonging

Should this blog ever get any readers, they might wonder about the name. Most literally, it's a Van Morrison lyric, from the song "Orangefield" on the album "Avalon Sunset":

On a golden autumn day
All my dreams came true in Orangefield
On a throne of Ulster day
You came my way in Orangefield

Far be it from me to suggest what Northern Ireland's grumpiest man was trying to say, but what the phrase means to me is one of those days when you feel you could only be in Ulster, something to do with the quality of the light, the way the place looks and feels and smells, the way its people behave.

I get this powerful surge of "Ulsterness" when I listen in particular to Van Morrison's East Belfast songs, the aforementioned Orangefield, Cyprus Avenue, Hyndford Street etc, because that's where I grew up, I recognise the places to which he refers and the things that happen, or at least their equivalents thirty years on (and in NI we know that often there's not that much differece!). I'm writing this just before, weather permitting, heading back to Belfast for the stag do of a friend who grew up a sreet removed from Cyprus Avenue. My aunt and uncle's house was in Cherryvalley, another of Morrison's places of references. He's singing about stuff I know well and hold dear. But he doesn't have a monopoly on it, and it isn't just places. Ash's Oh Yeah is perhaps my favourite song by a Northern Irish artist, capturing the almost limitless possibilities at the beginning of a nine week school holiday that is considerably longer than its mainland equivalent. The fact that Ash are my generation and the song appeared just as I started a memorable summer when I was 17 make it even more special. While I like the music of Snow Patrol, Two Door Cinema Club et al, Tim, Rick and the big lad on guitar will always be MY Ulster musical heroes.

I also get the feeling when I'm back, particularly in areas that I know particularly well, the East, the City Centre, the Ards/Bangor/Donaghadee triangle, the Mournes and the Coast Road. Whether I'd get as strong sentiments when visiting the Lakes (which I have rarely) or the Sperrins (to my knowledge, never been) is perhaps more open to debate. It's a sense of belonging, and of pride in the many things that recommend this wee land, and that it's "special". The throne of Ulster day, a crowned monarch of the greatest land on earth, "God's own country", there's nothing like it and nothing beating it.

Except, of course, that there is. I've recently been to the Lake District, and also read some of Hunter Davies and Stuart Maconie on it, and it knocks the bag out of anything Northern Ireland has to offer. I've been to other places, Norway's Lofoten Islands, Egypt, Iceland, the Austrian Alps, Brazil, where, quite frankly, you can see things which are far more impressive than anything Northern Ireland has to offer. Even in London, much derided and, at times, a monotonous drag of a place to live and work, there are a range of things to see and do that far outstrip what you can find over the water. Standing on the Castlreagh Hills looking down on Belfast is something I'd heartily endorse. But it doesn't compete with standing on the highest point of Hampstead Heath looking out over London.

So why the throne of Ulster day? Well, just because something isn't the best doesn't make it any less special. And having a sense of pride and belonging can transcend one's experience of things. The North Down coastline doesn't get the publicity of Noway's west coast because, err, it's not as good. but I'd far rather be in Donaghadee than Bergen, nice though the latter is. (I've a friend living there who comes from Comber, which maybe tells you more about Comber...) A sense of place is no bad thing, as long as there is, with it, a sense of perspective, for, without that, nationalism (in the general, not the Iris, sense) lies. Mooching around the Upper Netownards Road on a high summer's evening, grabbing chips from the Fryar Tuck, perhaps having a pint in The Point, seeing people you vaguely recognise, bumping into an old friend you haven't seen for donkeys', nodding to an old fella out for his constitutional, thinking about wandering up to Stormont for a walk but being too lazy, realistically this isn't the best possible use of one's time. But, to me, it sounds brilliant, sounds like the throne of Ulster day, something that couldn't be recreated anywhere else in the world.

As I said, I get these feelings at places I know well and I speculated on whether I'd experience a similar sense at less familiar spots. But the keen reader (don't laugh, someone will read this sometime, even if it's only my mum under duress) will notice that the examples remained within the six counties. I don't get any emotions of belonging when I'm over the border. Which isn't to say that I don't appreciate Dublin or Donegal, and I'd love to explore the west coast more fully as it looks truly amazing. However's it's not mine, not my country, not peopled by my kin. I'm Irish and proud to have been born on this island. But I'm as much Republic of Irish as I am Belgian, i.e. not at all. They have a foundation myth I don't recognise, they speak differently, the whole place feels different, the border is definitely and defiantly there in a sensual sesnse for me.

I feel British, but I recognise I am not English, nor Scottish, nor Welsh. I'm Northern Irish and that's why I feel the way I do, think the way I do, speak the way I do and (much to the chagrin of Mrs Ram, a Wiltshire lass) behave the way I do. I'm stubborn and just a bit emotionally stunted because I'm an Ulster male, and I use Ulster interchangeably with Northern Ireland unapologetically. Could a nationalist feel the same way as me? No, almost certainly not, because they come from an alternative, no less valid tradition. But I fail to see that anyone but the most blinkered Republican could delude themselves into thinking that a Ulster nationalist (in the Irish sense, not an Ulster Nat in the DUP bible-belt sense) has no difference to a citizen of the Republic of Ireland.

It's sometimes said that there are two traditions on the island, but really there are three, Republic of Irish, (mainly) Ulster nationalist and Ulster unionist. There might be a bit of blurring amongst the staunch Republicans of, say, Louth, but they are as clearly divorced from the mainstream Republic of Irish as their fellow travellers in "da North". So do Ulster's nationalists reconise their own thrones of Ulster day, maybe not in the leafy suburbs of East Belfast and North Down, but in the imposing grandeur of certain parts of the north of the city, or in the Glens, or up in the Mournes. To some extent, I think yes, but they will clearly feel less "abroad" when straying over the border. That's natual and to be expected. However, the challenge for Northern Ireland going forward is to build a kingdom where the throne can sit as conmfortably in west Belfast as in east, and I mean that both in a hearts-and-minds but also a practical nitty-gritty way. It's the only path of lasting peace and prosperity.

Elsewhere in "Orangefield, Van the Man sings:
And the sun shone so bright
And it lit up all our days

All our days? In East Belfast? Catch yerself on, Ivan, that's an impossibility and you know it. Building a shared Northern Irish society, where the sun might light up all of our lives, might seem equally implausible, but it's not and it has to be done. The alternative is unsustainable, and the gold autumn days by the riverside will eventually be numbered.