5,600 people packed into the Convention Centre in Dublin recently to officially declare their
fidelity to the Irish nation, a massive bureaucratic event that highlights the evolving identity of
the island.
Joe decided to wander into the ceremony to figure out exactly what these new citizens were
signing up for, only to promptly plunge himself into a mild existential crisis about his own
national identity.
From interviewing a newly minted Brazilian-Irish woman and a Sri Lankan man who has
seemingly adopted a Wexford accent, to stumbling through a satirical, fake citizenship
ceremony at the National Gallery orchestrated by the artist Asbestos, Joe earnestly attempts
to pin down a neat dictionary definition of Irishness.
Naturally, our intrepid host discovers that trying to categorize a culture defined by both a
complex history and a complete refusal to take anything too seriously is a near-impossible
task.
After a slightly desperate phone call to his poet friend Emmet O’Brien in search of
philosophical clarity, Joe ultimately realizes that defining a nation is a messy
business, and perhaps a sociological exercise just a bit above his pay grade. Explicit.
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