Frank Coughlan: Masters champ Rory McIlroy represents a unity on this island that brings into question the need for a border poll
Thu 17 Apr 2025 at 02:30
I didn’t intend to stay up. Switched over just as Rory McIroy turned into the back nine at Augusta on Sunday night. Simply to check in. I was curious in a casual way, expecting to snatch a moment of his procession to a Masters title that had eluded him his entire career.
My interest was not as a golf aficionado. I was simply there for the coronation, a happy ending to the movie that was a long time in the making. Golf’s finest finally getting his hand on the Oscar.
That’s eventually what happened, of course, but the drama along the way turned a sporting achievement into something that has, in a matter of days, entered the realm of the epic.
You’d find few who would argue that the Grand Slam winner is possibly the greatest sports star we have ever produced. Up there for sure. It might be an emotional and arbitrary call, made in the first flush of hyperbole, but it feels just about right.
Although born, reared and having golfed in Northern Ireland, Rory McIlloy has, through osmosis or quiet deliberation, made himself available to the entire island of Ireland.
He is a telling example of the hybrid Hiberno-conscious and comfortable with his Britishness and his Irishness at the same time.
These dual identities are often regarded as mutually exclusive, when really they are nothing of the kind. Both can sit happily together, if only we’d let them.
Raised a Catholic in a majority unionist town – he went to a Catholic primary and mixed grammar school – his dual identity sits easily with him now, though he did have to grow into it. In 1972, long before Rory was born, his granduncle Joe McIlroy was murdered at home by the UVF. But this was never allowed to taint or poison his upbringing.
Indeed, when asked in 2010 if he was British or Irish, he told the PGA Tour website: “Pass. I’m Northern Irish, I hold a British passport, so there you go.”
A year earlier, when asked by The Telegraph who he would represent at the Olympics, he said: “I’d probably play for Great Britain.”
As it happened, he represented Ireland in both 2021 and 2024. The choice had weighed on him, though. He told the Sunday Independent in 2015: “Who am I? Where am I from? Where do my loyalties lie? Who am I going to play for? Who do I not want to upset the most?”
In some ways he is representative of a new generation of Northern Catholics and Protestants who refuse to allow themselves to be defined by their bequeathed tribe.
The British Institute for Government noted in 2022 that an astonishing 40pc of Northern Irish adults see themselves as neither unionist nor nationalist, up significantly from around 30pc in 1998.
Maybe when this much-heralded border poll on unity does happen there should be a third box to tick. Something like “Not Bothered”. Or “Fine As I Am, Thanks”.
This cohort might include people like Rory – a boy when the Good Friday Agreement was signed – who refuse to see their identity defined by labels a tortured history bestowed on them.
Someone who can proudly parade the ancient flag of Ulster when playing for Europe in the Ryder Cup – and as cheerfully play under the Irish Tricolour at the Olympics.
The very term “border poll” suggests territory and legacy, something weighed down by the tiresome labels of “us” and “them”, triumphalism and resistance, forcing a binary choice on people who already know who they are.
Those of us old enough can vividly remember where all that incoherent hate and vengeance got us in that utterly pointless, slow war from 1969 to 1997. There are many in the Republic who harbour misgivings too. In a 2023 Irish Times poll, 66pc gave a thumbs-up to unity, but a solid third hedged their bets.
A report last year, written by Trinity College Dublin’s Dr John FitzGerald and suggesting that unity could cost the Republic’s taxpayer as much as €20bn a year, would not have reassured them.
While a question so fundamental should never be about money, the answer could well be defined by it.
A conundrum for some date in the middle distance. In the meantime, Rory McIlroy showed us what real unity looks like.
m.independent.ie
As the Shinners are confused and at odds with each other over the Transgender debate one could easily make the case that it is exactly the same case as Northern Ireland.
It is a hard held belief that politically this Island is a binary position. By doing so we are denying the existence of a country called Northern Ireland, that a sizeable amount of their citizens want to be seen and accepted as Northern Irish?
SF always refer to it as 'The North of Ireland', thus denying their existence.
Where is the inclusion, the acceptance and being kind?
They are being made to choose between the tricolour or the union jack, they are not allowed use their 'Pride Flag'
Is it Nordiephobic to deny their existence?
Are we misgendering them when we call them 'Brits'
Sporting wise in the Olympics, Golf, Rugby, Hockey they can either represent Great Britain or Ireland, they cannot represent Northern Ireland (Soccer being one of the exceptions)
They are not part of Great Britain nor the Republic of Ireland so in the above competitions their existence is denied
(They form part of the UK of GB & NI, but the UK does not enter events)
Thu 17 Apr 2025 at 02:30
I didn’t intend to stay up. Switched over just as Rory McIroy turned into the back nine at Augusta on Sunday night. Simply to check in. I was curious in a casual way, expecting to snatch a moment of his procession to a Masters title that had eluded him his entire career.
My interest was not as a golf aficionado. I was simply there for the coronation, a happy ending to the movie that was a long time in the making. Golf’s finest finally getting his hand on the Oscar.
That’s eventually what happened, of course, but the drama along the way turned a sporting achievement into something that has, in a matter of days, entered the realm of the epic.
You’d find few who would argue that the Grand Slam winner is possibly the greatest sports star we have ever produced. Up there for sure. It might be an emotional and arbitrary call, made in the first flush of hyperbole, but it feels just about right.
Although born, reared and having golfed in Northern Ireland, Rory McIlloy has, through osmosis or quiet deliberation, made himself available to the entire island of Ireland.
He is a telling example of the hybrid Hiberno-conscious and comfortable with his Britishness and his Irishness at the same time.
These dual identities are often regarded as mutually exclusive, when really they are nothing of the kind. Both can sit happily together, if only we’d let them.
Raised a Catholic in a majority unionist town – he went to a Catholic primary and mixed grammar school – his dual identity sits easily with him now, though he did have to grow into it. In 1972, long before Rory was born, his granduncle Joe McIlroy was murdered at home by the UVF. But this was never allowed to taint or poison his upbringing.
Indeed, when asked in 2010 if he was British or Irish, he told the PGA Tour website: “Pass. I’m Northern Irish, I hold a British passport, so there you go.”
A year earlier, when asked by The Telegraph who he would represent at the Olympics, he said: “I’d probably play for Great Britain.”
As it happened, he represented Ireland in both 2021 and 2024. The choice had weighed on him, though. He told the Sunday Independent in 2015: “Who am I? Where am I from? Where do my loyalties lie? Who am I going to play for? Who do I not want to upset the most?”
In some ways he is representative of a new generation of Northern Catholics and Protestants who refuse to allow themselves to be defined by their bequeathed tribe.
The British Institute for Government noted in 2022 that an astonishing 40pc of Northern Irish adults see themselves as neither unionist nor nationalist, up significantly from around 30pc in 1998.
Maybe when this much-heralded border poll on unity does happen there should be a third box to tick. Something like “Not Bothered”. Or “Fine As I Am, Thanks”.
This cohort might include people like Rory – a boy when the Good Friday Agreement was signed – who refuse to see their identity defined by labels a tortured history bestowed on them.
Someone who can proudly parade the ancient flag of Ulster when playing for Europe in the Ryder Cup – and as cheerfully play under the Irish Tricolour at the Olympics.
The very term “border poll” suggests territory and legacy, something weighed down by the tiresome labels of “us” and “them”, triumphalism and resistance, forcing a binary choice on people who already know who they are.
Those of us old enough can vividly remember where all that incoherent hate and vengeance got us in that utterly pointless, slow war from 1969 to 1997. There are many in the Republic who harbour misgivings too. In a 2023 Irish Times poll, 66pc gave a thumbs-up to unity, but a solid third hedged their bets.
A report last year, written by Trinity College Dublin’s Dr John FitzGerald and suggesting that unity could cost the Republic’s taxpayer as much as €20bn a year, would not have reassured them.
While a question so fundamental should never be about money, the answer could well be defined by it.
A conundrum for some date in the middle distance. In the meantime, Rory McIlroy showed us what real unity looks like.
Frank Coughlan: Masters champ Rory McIlroy represents a unity on this island that brings into question the need for a border poll
I didn’t intend to stay up. Switched over just as Rory McIroy turned into the back nine at Augusta on Sunday night. Simply to check in. I was curious in a casual way, expecting to snatch a moment of his procession to a Masters title that had eluded him his entire career.
m.independent.ie
As the Shinners are confused and at odds with each other over the Transgender debate one could easily make the case that it is exactly the same case as Northern Ireland.
It is a hard held belief that politically this Island is a binary position. By doing so we are denying the existence of a country called Northern Ireland, that a sizeable amount of their citizens want to be seen and accepted as Northern Irish?
SF always refer to it as 'The North of Ireland', thus denying their existence.
Where is the inclusion, the acceptance and being kind?
They are being made to choose between the tricolour or the union jack, they are not allowed use their 'Pride Flag'
Is it Nordiephobic to deny their existence?
Are we misgendering them when we call them 'Brits'
Sporting wise in the Olympics, Golf, Rugby, Hockey they can either represent Great Britain or Ireland, they cannot represent Northern Ireland (Soccer being one of the exceptions)
They are not part of Great Britain nor the Republic of Ireland so in the above competitions their existence is denied
(They form part of the UK of GB & NI, but the UK does not enter events)
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