Several months ago, a Norwegian tourist left a negative review under a Dublin tourism advert, complaining that an Irish man in Temple Bar tried to start a fight with him over the Viking invasion of Ireland in 795. More recently, at a nightclub on Camden Street, an English tourist apologised to me for his nationality, claiming that he “wasn’t like the other English people.”

A sense of defeatism and self-flagellation over the past seems to be a uniquely English trait on the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. During a visit to London, I was frequently asked by the English why I’d even bother visiting the city. English ex-pats stand in stark contrast to their Irish counterparts, who often romanticise their homeland; instead, the English tend to disparage theirs. Whilst ethno-masochism isn’t exclusive to England, the English have a particular brand of self-denialism.

Street interviews with English people about whether they identify as “British” or “English” reveal an overwhelming preference for “British”. Many interviewees cited the association of Englishness with backwardness, the far right, and a narrow “little Englander” worldview. This shift in self-identification is reflected in census data. In 2011, 60.4 per cent of respondents identified as English only, but this figure plummeted to just 15.3 per cent in the 2021 census. By contrast, in Scotland and Wales, identification with their respective nations far outweighed identification with “Britishness,” with only 8.2 per cent of Scots and 18.5 per cent of Welsh respondents identifying as British.

Whilst I suspect that the radical right’s championing of English identity and the cultural fallout from the Brexit backlash have contributed to the ghettoisation of English self-identification, the erosion of Englishness has been a long ongoing process.

The Protestant Reformation in England led to a crackdown on folk facets of Englishness, which were deemed pagan or remnants of Catholic culture, such as church ales, May games, and communal celebrations. The Acts of Union in 1707 established the British state, followed by the 1800 Acts of Union, which united the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. However, this union was not one of shared sentiment amongst the nations of the islands but rather a geopolitical manoeuvre by Protestant rulers in England to safeguard the state from Catholic Europe. The necessary creation of a British identity meant it lacked the linguistic, historical, cultural, and genetic bonds that shaped the older identities of the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh. In effect, to be British was to be culturally Protestant.

I’m glad that there’s at least one Irish man that feels strongly enough about the Viking invasion to start a drunken brawl

In an effort to reinforce this Protestant British identity, Catholics were excluded from full participation in public life, and barred from voting and holding public office. They were often portrayed as a fifth column within the British state. Ironically, it was English Catholics who appeared most committed to preserving the image of “Merrie England” and its associated folk customs.

Universalism is an intrinsic characteristic of expansionist endeavours, and “Britishness” functioned as the mechanism for this universalising impulse. Irish writers of the time criticised the implementation of British public education in Ireland, perceiving it as an attempt to assimilate the Irish into “good British boys.” This push for cultural homogenisation was evident in various policies, such as the Dress Act of 1746, which banned traditional Highland attire, and the use of the Bata Scoir in schools to suppress the Irish language.

This dynamic, however, allowed the Irish to position themselves in cultural opposition to “Britishness” in a way that the English were not able to. It is a great irony of our histories that of all the identities on these islands, it has been Englishness that has been most displaced by Britishness. In comparison to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, many English folk traditions and national symbols have gone out of fashion — from maypoles, wassailing, and Morris dancing. It’s a tragedy that I suspect that much of English folk culture would feel and look alien to the modern English person, in comparison to their Celtic counterparts.

As Protestantism collapses in Great Britain and the population becomes more religiously diverse, there have been efforts to remould British identity around a bedrock of Liberal democratic abstractions. The effort to redefine the foundation of British identity highlights a malleability that Englishness does not have — but this is a strength of English identity. 

Nationality and national consciousness are profoundly human phenomena — emotional, intangible, but deeply felt. Being rooted in the particularities of strong national consciousness enriches human-life by making the past feel personal and familiar. I doubt many Irish people feel strongly enough about the Viking invasion of Ireland to start a drunken brawl over it, but I’m glad that there’s at least one man on the island that does. This reflects a depth to Ireland’s national consciousness — something that feels increasingly rare in much of Western Europe.

Pearse predicated his argument for Irish independence from the Union on the grounds that “Nationality be regarded as the sum of the facts, spiritual and intellectual, which mark off one nation from another, and freedom as the condition which allows those facts full scope and development” It strikes me that English nationality has also been stunted from “full scope and development” as a consequence of its place in the union. 

England is an ongoing casualty of the British imperial project. But I promise that the grass is greener, and life does get better outside the Union. England should leave the Union, bring back wassailing and Morris dancing, and start some bar fights with Scandinavians over Lindisfarne. 

As Chesterton said “I would defend England against the whole European continent. With even greater joy would I defend England against the whole British empire”.