One of my little quirks is to object to the way the Irish have purloined British writers like Oscar Wilde, just because they happened to live on the island of Ireland when it was British. Now I feel justified. James Joyce, that most Dublin of Dubliners was twice offered an Irish passport while he was alive, but turned them down, preferring to remain a
British citizen.
Why not try for Lord Wellington as well?
ReplyDeleteOscar Wilde always considered himself to be Irish. No big surprise there. Politically, he was a Nationalist.
ReplyDeleteKevin
Lord Wellington was actually Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Oscar Wilde considered himself Irish when Ireland was part of the UK. He lived in London and wrote about British life. He was part of the British art scene. Brighton figured in The Importance of being Earnest and he spent some time in Reading. I'll give you that WB Yeats was an Irish nationalist. Roy Keane, though, played for Nottingham Forest and Man Utd.
ReplyDelete