It's Paddy's day but this is no time for shindigs

It’s St Patrick’s day but I’m not in the mood for shindigs. Whichever side of the pond you live on, there has scarcely been a worse time to be an immigrant. A hundred years ago, the Irish fled destitution and famine in coffin ships. So desperate and hungry were they, that possible death at sea was better than certain death of starvation by remaining.

Today is not a day to congratulate ourselves on our apparent seamless assimilation into our host countries, it’s a time to remember that the persecution our ancestors once endured still exists today. The scapegoats are different but the fight is the same.

The day the EU referendum results were announced I was forlorn. Asked by another mum if I was OK, I said “not really. For the first time in the twenty years I’ve lived here, I feel like an immigrant. Rolling her eyes, she said “You’re not an immigrant, you’re Irish“. She assured me that “we didn’t mean people like you”. It became evident that she thought Brexit would stop foreigners of a darker hue, allowing more palatable, white European immigrants, like me, unfettered access.

She wasn’t the only one who was confused about Brexit. A few weeks after the referendum result, a Sikh woman was racially abused not far from where I live. A racist thug was reported to shout, “The British people have spoken, so f**k off back home”.

The fact that the woman was British and lived around the corner was a mere fact that didn’t get in the way of an unbridled act of hatred. One of the many indicators of a rising epidemic of odium unleashed on communities up and down the country as a direct result of the EU referendum.

I fear too for my family and friends on the Island of Ireland. The peace and stability that was so hard won is in jeopardy. Growing up in Dublin, people from the south rarely crossed into Northern Ireland, unless they had to. When I was 11, I went on a summer school trip to Donegal which meant having to brave the check point. Combat clad soldiers pointed guns at us from high concrete look outs, adorned with barbed wire and graffiti reading, “Brits out, Peace in”.  After hours of waiting, two British soldiers got on the bus wielding riffles, checking for semtex (according to Bridie O’Malley) under our seats. My friend was so terrified that she wet herself. Even at 11, I remember being made to feel like a terrorist. That was my first impression of British people and I harboured huge resentment for a long time (until I discovered the loveliest person on the planet is British and married him).

After the Good Friday agreement, that all changed. The removal of physical barriers heralded peace and economic prosperity on both sides of the border. With the guns and blockades gone, people felt safe to move freely on the island. We were welcome guests as opposed to deviant interlopers to be viewed with suspicion. Peace and stability paved the way for foreign investment and with it, people from all over the world came to work and share in the prosperity brought about by being an open, outward looking society. No-one in Ireland, north or south, wants to go back to the dark days of borders and all the misery, animosity and instability that will unleash.

Although the Good Friday agreement allows for a unity referendum, until last June, there was no appetite for one. For the people of Northern Ireland who lived through the turmoil of the troubles, seeing their young people trapped in a cycle of violence, with little hope of a future in the region, economic and social stability trumps national identity every time.

That’s why, if forced to choose between building barricades or keeping the hard won peace and economic benefits of EU membership, I believe the people of Northern Ireland will choose a united Ireland over a disunited little Britain. As a (protestant) friend of mine from Belfast said recently, “Theresa May bangs on about the will of the English people, ignoring entirely the will of the Scottish and Northern Irish people who voted to Remain in the EU”. Who could’ve imagined that a united Ireland would be delivered, albeit accidentally, by a hapless Tory government.

Living in Brexit Britain feels like being a passenger on a speeding train, with an intoxicated driver asleep at the wheel. We know the crash is imminent and that the human fall out will be devastating, but our cries for help go unheeded. All we can do is bang on the locked door and pray to god that the driver wakes up. If enough of us shout loudly enough, she might.