Other signs of national identity

The following are also associated by British people with one or more of the four nations.

The Union Jack

The Union Jack is the national flag of the UK. It is a combination of the cross of St George, the cross of St Andrew and the cross of St Patrick

Names

The prefix 'Mac' or 'Mc' in surnames (such as McCall, McCarthy, MacDonald) is always either Scottish or Irish. The prefix 'O' (as in O'Brien, O'Hara) is distinctly Irish. A very large number of surnames (for example, Davis, Evans, Jones, Lloyd, Morgan, Price, Rees, Williams) suggest Welsh origin (although many of these are found throughout England). The most common surname in both England and Scotland is actually 'Smith'.

First names can also be indicative. The Scottish form of 'John' is 'Ian' and its Irish form is 'Sean' (although all three names are common throughout Britain). There are also nicknames for Scottish, Irish and Welsh men. For example, an English, Welsh or Irish person might refer to and address a Scottish friend as 'Jock', whatever his first name is. Irishmen are called 'Paddy' or 'Mick' and Welshmen are known as 'Dai' or 'Taffy'. If the person is not a friend the nickname can sound rather insulting.

Clothes

The kilt, a skirt with a tartan pattern worn by men, is a very well-known symbol of Scottishness (though it is hardly ever worn in everyday life).

Musical instruments

The harp is an emblem of both Wales and Ireland. The bagpipes are regarded as distinctively Scottish (though a smaller type is also used in traditional Irish music).

Characteristics

There are certain stereotypes of national character which are well-known in Britain. For instance, the Irish are supposed to be great talkers, the Scots have a reputation for being careful with money, and the Welsh are renowned for their singing ability. These characteristics are, of course, only caricatures and are not reliable descriptions of indi­vidual people from these countries. Nevertheless, they indicate some slight differences in the value attached to certain kinds of behavi­our in the countries concerned.

John Bullis a fictional character who is supposed to personify Englishness and certain English virtues. (He can be compared toUncle Sam in the USA.) He features in hundreds of nineteenth century cartoons. His appearance is typical of an eighteenth century country gentleman, evoking an idyllic rural past

Britonis a word used in official con­texts and in formal writing to describe a citizen of the United Kingdom. 'Ancient Britons' is the name given to the race of people who lived in England before and during the Roman occupation (ad 43—410). These are the ancestors of the present-day Welsh people.

Caledonia, Cambriaand Hiberniawere the Roman names for Scotland, Wales and Ireland respectively. The words are commonly used today in scholarly classifications (for example, the type of English used in Ireland is sometimes called 'Hiberno-English') and for the names of organizations (for example, the airline 'British Caledonian').

Erinis a poetic name for Ireland. 'The Emerald Isle' is another way of refer­ring to Ireland, evoking the lush greenery of its countryside.

The dominance of England

There is, perhaps, an excuse for people who use the word 'England' when they mean 'Britain'. It cannot be denied that the dominant culture of Britain today is specifically English. The system of politics that is used in all four nations today is of English origin, and English is the main language of all four nations. Many aspects of everyday life are organized according to English custom and practice. But the polit­ical unification of Britain was not achieved by mutual agreement. On the contrary. It happened because England was able to exert her economic and military power over the other three nations.

Today English domination can be detected in the way in which various aspects of British public life are described (an article The invisible Scot). For example, the supply of money in Britain is controlled by the Bank of England (there is no such thing as a 'Bank of Britain'). The present queen of the country is universally known as 'Elizabeth the Second', even though Scotland and Northern Ireland have never had an 'Eliza­beth the First'! (Elizabeth I of England and Wales ruled from (1553 to 1603.) The term 'Anglo' is also commonly used. (The Angles were a Germanic tribe who settled in England in the fifth century. The word 'England' is derived from their name.) For example, newspapers and the television news talk about 'Anglo-American relations' to refer to relations between the governments of Britain and the USA (and not just those between England and the USA).

The invisible Scot

Here are some brief extracts from an article written by a Scotswoman, Janet Swinney, which expresses anger at how the dominance of England over Scotland is reflected in the way things are described.

First, there is 'domination by omission'. A map appeared in the Observer newspaper in May 1989 under the heading 'Britain's Dirty Rivers'. It showed only England and Wales. Janet Swinney says: 'What is the meaning of this illustration? Does Scodand have no rivers or no dirty rivers, or has someone simply used the word Britain to mean England and Wales?'

Second, she points out the common use of England/English to mean Britain/British: 'When I went to Turkey a few years ago with an assorted group of Britons, most of the English were happy to record their nationality on their embarkation cards as English, and saw nothing offensive about it. It's not unusual, either, for Scots to receive mail from elsewhere in the UK addressed Scotland, England ... Last year, works of art from the Soviet Union intended for display at the Edinburgh International Festival were sent to the City Art Gallery addressed Edinburgh, England'.

A third aspect of domination can be seen in the names given to pub­lications and organizations: 'The practice is to label anything that pertains to England and (usually) Wales as though it were the norm, and anything Scottish as though it were a deviation from it. Why else do we have The Times Educational Supplement and The Times Educational Supplement (Scotland), the "National Trust" and the "National Trust for Scotland", the "Trades Union Congress" and the "Scottish Trades Union Congress"? In a society of equals, all these names would carry their geo­graphical markers: The Times Educational Supplement (England and Wales) etc'.

J Swinney, 'The Invisible Scot', English Today, April 1989

National loyalties

When you are talking to people from Britain, it is safest to use 'Britain' when talking about where they live and 'British' as the adjective to describe their nationality. This way you will be less likely to offend anyone. It is, of course, not wrong to talk about 'people in England' if that is what you mean — people who live within the geographical boundaries of England. After all, most British people live there. (Population in 1995: England — 48.9 million, Scotland — 5.1 million, Walsh — 2.9 million and Northern Ireland — 1.6 million. But it should always be remembered that England does not make up the whole of the UK.

There has been a long history of migration from Scotland, Wales and Ireland to England. As a result there are millions of people who live in England but who would never describe themselves as English. They may have lived in England all their lives, but as far as they are concerned they are Scottish or Welsh or Irish - even if, in the last case, they are citizens of Britain and not of Eire. These people support the country of their parents or grandparents rather than England in sporting contests. They would also, given the chance, play for that country rather than England. If, for example, you had heard the members of the Republic of Ireland World Cup football team talking in 1994, you would have heard several different kinds of English accent and some Scottish accents, but only a few Irish accents. Most of the players did not live in Ireland and were not brought up in Ireland. Nevertheless, most of them would never have considered playing for any country other than Ireland!

The same holds true for the further millions of British citizens whose family origins lie outside the British Isles altogether. People of Caribbean or south Asian descent, for instance, do not mind being described as 'British' (many are proud of it), but many of them would not like to be called 'English'. And whenever the West Indian or Indian cricket team plays against England, it is certainly not England that they support!

There is, in fact, a complicated division of loyalties among many people in Britain, and especially in England. A black person whose family is from the Caribbean will passionately support the West Indies when they play cricket against England. But the same person is quite happy to support England just as passionately in a sport such as football, which the West Indies do not play. A person whose family is from Ireland but who has always lived in England would want Ireland to beat England at football but would want England to beat (for example) Italy just as much. This crossover of loyalties can work the other way as well. English people do not regard the Scottish, the Welsh or the Irish as 'foreigners' (or, at least, not as the same kind of foreigners as other foreigners!). An English commentator of a sporting event in which a Scottish, Irish or Welsh team is playing against a team from outside the British Isles tends to identify with that team as if it were English.

A wonderful example of double identity was heard on the BBC during the Euro vision Song Contest in 1992. The commentator for the BBC was Terry Wogan. Mr Wogan is an Irishman who had become Britain's most popular television talk-show host during the 1 980s. Towards the end of the programme, with the voting for the songs nearly complete, it became clear that the contest (in which European countries compete to present the best new popular song) was going to be won by either Ireland or the United Kingdom. Within a five-minute period, Mr Wogan could be heard using the pronouns 'we' and 'us' several times; sometimes he meant the UK and sometimes he meant Ireland!