“Bás in Éirinn.” Death in Ireland. That was my uncle Jimmy’s toast, his Déise accent untouched by decades in Bristol.

He did not get his wish. He died in England, although he was then buried in the graveyard of the church he attended as a boy.

If you ask me to define Irishness, I can’t. I once would have said that it included having distinctive customs around death, a comfort with having a dead aunt in a coffin in the livingroom, as some pray, some kiss the corpse and some drink tea. But that is changing for younger generations, who often are unnerved by death in the same way we once found odd in our UK neighbours.

I would also have said that it had to do with a sense of place, an attachment like an umbilical cord to a landscape, beach, winding street or urban skyline. But umbilical cords get cut.

In the Pennsylvania Avenue big house, it was the Potus Plámáser’s turn in the bully seat

Ireland joins the hunt for Russian submarines

Postponing parenthood: How Ireland’s housing crisis is forcing people to delay having children

Nick Cave: ‘How did I stay so young? Twenty years of drug addiction and a good face cream’

The one constant for centuries for the Irish is that they migrate. Whether it was monks carrying the Gospel message to the furthest corners of Europe, the earls hoping to stir up support from Spain, or starving people fleeing famine,........

© The Irish Times