Ireland: Why nobody really loves Dublin

last updated 8 January 2015

Trevor White

The Irish Times

Part of being Irish is to be always asking what it means to be Irish, said Trevor White. In our “ruminations on the Gaelic soul,” we’d do well to ask ourselves why most of us take no pride in the city of Dublin. “Of course, slagging is part of what makes us Irish,” but we aren’t joking about our disdain for the capital. “Most of our citizens can’t stand Dublin, and that includes many Dubliners.” In a recent survey, three out of four Irish people said they felt no emotional connection to the capital. There are good historical reasons for rural distrust of Dublin. It was the seat of colonial occupation and “still resembles a British city” more than an Irish one. Some resent the disproportionately “large slice of the national pie” the city receives of government spending. But Dublin has been Ireland’s social, cultural, and economic engine for decades now, and you’d think we’d learn to love it a little. Instead, it is “like a long-suffering wife who does most of the work and gets none of the praise.” Even Dubliners don’t identify with the city as a whole, but call themselves Northsiders or Southsiders. “We are so small we can’t get over a river.” How, then, will we ever create “a positive, shared vision for the future of our nation”?