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3.
AOTW: A few years ago, Frank McCourt told Bookreporter.com, "The English are getting out of Hong Kong this year. Ireland is next. They say the sun never sets on the British empire --- well, baby, it's setting." What are your feelings about the Brits?
Malachy McCourt: I'm fond of the Brits when they stay domiciled in Brit land. I disagree with my brother Frank about the Brits and the sun setting on the empire.
You see the sun never set on the British empire because God could not trust the English in the dark.
Maureen Dezell: The British have given us some great theater and literature over the centuries, haven't they? For this they should be admired. Note well, however, the signal contribution Irish writers have made to those traditions. To paraphrase James Joyce: the Irish wrote in a language that was not their own, stamped it with their genius, and produced what would then be called English literature.
Niall Williams: I don't have any strong feelings about "the Brits." I believe it is almost inevitable that Ireland will become a thirty-two county state again. It is only a question now of how soon. I did think one time it would be a hundred years from the signing of the original Treaty. But perhaps it will be sooner.
Mary E. Lyons: After September 11, I wanted to marry Tony Blair. I'd marry Frank McCourt, too, but I should probably consult with my husband first. Children depend on adults to make mature judgments. For that reason, I tried to present a balanced view of mid-19th century England while writing the introduction to FEED THE CHILDREN FIRST. The British Relief Association, a group of private citizens, donated broth and rye bread to the children of Donegal during the famine. If not for them, my great-grandparents might have starved. Children should know we can despise a government without hating the people. As for present day politics, it's a shame Bill Clinton (I wouldn't marry Bill, but I miss him) didn't have more time to bolster the peace agreement.
Regina McBride: Cruel, inhumane governments rarely represent their people. I have many "Brit" friends and like the "Brits" as a people.
Marita Conlon-McKenna: I have some lovely English friends including my U.K. agent and editor, but going over there I always feel a bit of a square peg in a round hole. Everyone is so polite and reserved and it scares me when no one talks on the train or bus. I think the day of The British Empire has thankfully gone and Ireland as always stands proud on its own two feet, but as near neighbours we must try to get along.
Eoin Colfer: Like many people of my generation, I am trying to be a citizen of the world. People are people whatever their nationality, and as we have seen with the latest world atrocities; it's always the little guy who gets hurt. I find it difficult to hate a bricklayer in Manchester for something a group of kings did 700 years ago.
Jamie O'Neill: I don't go for this Brit-baiting nonsense. The English are our neighbours, our partners in Europe, and it behooves us to behave neighbourly towards them. England took me in when my own country had little use for me. It gave me work when I wanted it, healthcare when I needed it. It opened its libraries, museums and galleries to me. A churl would be ungrateful for that. And this business about the sun never setting --- it's very rare you'd hear an English person remarking it. For the English now the empire is long-forgotten, or it's an invasive shadow, ever threatening to consume their budget and welfare. They have no more wish for the top right-hand corner of Ireland than have the Eskimos. I doubt, however, that Englishness will ever be got entirely out of Ireland, or that Irish people wouldn't feel homesick if it were. It runs too deep. See it in our legal system, the way we shop, the numbers on our cheques that follow the English code --- it's everywhere. Even our postboxes are British: overcovered with a green splash of independence. The people are different; but the countries are very very similar. I won't deny I find the British soldiers in the North an affront and a menace. Driving there with local nationalist friends is opening yourself to insult and threat. But the problem lies not in the British troops, so much as in the majority population's desire for their presence. The North is not Ireland's British problem. It is Ireland's Irish problem. Whether, how or when the British leave is irrelevant to the solution of that conundrum. Until some way is found of redefining Irishness so that the loyalist population once more can share in it (as it did en masse before the 1920s), Ireland, divided or undivided, will never be at peace.
Morgan Llywelyn: Americans are much more inclined to call our nearest neighbours "the Brits" than Irish people do. We are more aware of their diversity. Scotland and Wales, for example, share our Celtic heritage as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon. Like Ireland, they both have long struggled for their freedom. My personal feelings for the people of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are the same as my feelings for people all over the world: they are a mixed bag of good, bad, and indifferent, and I respond to each person individually. My only quarrel is with the extremely oppressive policies which first the English rulers and latterly the British government have pursued in relation to Ireland.
Emma Donoghue: Oddly warm, because I spent eight happy years in the peculiar environment of Cambridge University. I think I'm typical of my generation of Irish from south of the Border (I was born in 1969); having no memory of being ruled over, or even dominated culturally, we have no bone to pick with the Brits.
Liam Clancy: With Tony Blair and Prince Charles apologizing to the Irish people for past wrongs --- with the Northern Ireland peace process up and running --- with the integration of Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales into the European Union --- I can see nothing but a much more normal and neighborly relationship developing between Britain and Ireland.
Andrew M. Greeley: Brits out!
Máire B. de Paor: The English people have an inalienable right to their own part of the island of "Great Britain" (excluding Wales and Scotland) and to their language and culture. Intelligent English people know full well that we Irish have the same inalienable rights in the island of Ireland "from the centre to the sea!" If they wish to settle among us as Irish citizens they are very welcome!
If I had a choice between a Gaelic-speaking Irish nation immersed in our Faith and culture under English rule, and political and territorial "freedom'" without the Gaelic language, Faith and culture under Irish rule, then I would opt for English rule in Ireland without the bat of an eyelid! "Gan teanga bíonn an tír marbh; gan tír bíonn an leanga bácach."
Martin Roper: Britain gave us Shakespeare. That's quite a lot. They also gave us the language I'm writing in, and it's a fascinating, frustrating and complex language. As far as the idea of an Empire goes, it seems there is only one now, the one I'm living in, the United States of America. The British are our neighours and we both (The Republic of Ireland and Britain) owe it to all the people of Northern Ireland to discover a way of living in peace. The vast majority of the Northern Irish people --- from all sides --- are astonishingly hospitable people. I teach for the University of Iowa and we take our students to Ireland for six weeks. We spend a week in Belfast and it's always the highlight --- and it's not easy for a conceited Dubliner to praise another city.
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