Fly Cork Flag in Belfast

14th Jan 2013

Just before Christmas controversial singer/rapper Chris Brown and boyfriend of pop singer Rihanna was rounded on after he made what appeared to be a big boo-boo at a gig above in the Pale. He told the audience that “Dublin was the best city in the UK”.

Dirty Aul Town’s media went into overdrive at the insult. Some of the crowd booed – allegedly - which means many of Chris Brown’s Dublin fans are possibly confused at just what country Dublin is actually in these days with the ECB, IMF and Angela Merkel all running the show to some extent.

Chris Brown* thought Dublin was in the UK. Who could blame the langer?

To be fair to Mr. Brown, it’s easy to forget that Dublin isn’t part of the United Kingdom at times – even stepping off the train at Heuston does feel like you could be in Hull, Wolverhampton or any other low-rate English city so Corkonians would give Mr. Brown credit for calling it as he sees it.

The amount of Manchester United and Liverpool jerseys in the capital always far outnumbers any local GAA jerseys so why get insulted when a foreigner shows up and says what seems obvious to him?

Belfast City Hall: why don't we just fly the Cork flag on it and make everyone happy?

Last weekend bus loads of seething Nordies threatened to make their way to Dublin to protest at the Irish tricolour being flown at Leinster House. Again, it seems, more people are questioning Dublin’s credentials as an Irish city.

The loyalists are livid because Belfast City Council have limited the amount of days the Union Jack can be flown over City Hall to just fifteen days and they’re making an almighty clamour and racket every night about it.

And you know Nordies interviewed on TV are really angry when they start mangling their words so much that their accents become unintelligible and you get worried that they might actually swallow their own tongues.

If the gang of 150 protesters destined for Dublin arrived in Cork instead we would happily join them on their protest outside our City Hall. That would throw them a bit wouldn’t it?

You see, ideally we’d like to see the flag of the People’s Republic of Cork flying over Cork City Hall and wouldn’t it really stop these loyalists in their tracks if councillors here put down and passed a motion to stop flying the Irish tricolour on it?

Some county councils further up the island have leaked plans to join Norn Iron.

If everyone quit the practice of flying national flags over civic buildings it would end all of this petty  identity politics pretty quickly and let Belfast get on with its recovery from decades of sectarian hatred and become a normal city without weird giant ‘peace walls’ between housing estates and gaudy kerbstones painted in whatever faraway capital city you happen to pledge allegiance to.

After the loyalists make their point peacefully at City Hall we’d invite them for a pint or two of Murphy’s and a friendly chat about our mutual distain for Dublin. There’d be so much to talk about: from the Dubs making a mess of our economy to our joint dissatisfaction with the FAI (they keep robbing Nordie players) to a bit of craic and banter about who has the better Titanic visitors centre.

Titanic Visitors Centre in Belfast: shows how everything put together up north ends up with holes in it

No doubt our fellow-islanders would be delighted, if a little surprised, to find another group of people on the island who have no interest in being ruled by Dublin. It might soften their attitude to the “Soyith” and give them some perspective on the feelings of everyone else on the island when it comes to national identities. 

* (Fitzy). Sorry that is you Chris, isn't it?!