CLAIMED BY THE EARTH

Last week was hating Englishness. This week is love of Irishness (political solidarity without spiritual inheritance) with mild criticism of nostalgia and blood.

2. Irishness

The medium told me she could see my ancestors around me, asking for things. I said I know, just ignore them, that’s what I do. All I wanted was psychic career advice. and I’ve been seriously considering cutting them off completely, if i can find a way. They always knocking at my door making me do crazy shit. This mad irish pride that comes out at the worst times and sabotages everything. Keeping every receipt in case I get arrested and have to prove some alibi. Hiding nationalist symbols in images, in plain sight never to say the words out loud. the feeling if i admit anything to any authority everyone i love will be unalived. being threatened by my legal name being known by anyone. being told never to look up my family history under any circumstances.

Where I’m from is famous for its violence and prayer cards. Essentially a cult, which i don’t mean as a judgement, but in the extreme tactics used to survive having an enemy that controlled half the world. They risked there lives to keep those names, and the land, for hundreds of years.

So when I anglo-sized my middle name from the Irish (Aisling) to the English (Dream) - as well as changing my first name- it’s no wonder I was disowned. I was not Irish enough anymore. But is there anything more Irish than being disowned? The process hurt me too, but In one version of my story, i became trans because i knew they’d fuck me off. Yeh, the day they rejected me, sat in a field, I could hear the flowers singing my name, Dream Dudley Dream. People with no family are claimed by the earth. Who is equally an ancestor.

So, when i say ill never give up my dream i mean it. My gender dream, my dream of freedom. My name. An embodied dream that earths in the land. The real land and the imagined land.

My family have the codes for the free land. But something got lost on the way and it became their land. I don’t want that. In the end family is just patriarchy. But my feeling is there is no chosen people and we all rise together or not at all. Even in the most liberatorary aspect of Irishness, something inside still says no. Because I want for all people, not just my people. Or more like, all people are my people. And these blood lineage stories, Harry Potter-esque, as well as this current art and media that continues nationalism, disguised as nostalgia, makes me feel badly. And i like not using my last name because it makes me feel like a stray from patriarchy.

There is no aesthetic of fascism, just the tradition of the country it resides in. Hard fascism is you know, that dark side grift, but soft fash is just stoking the nostalgia and sensibility making static. That’s why I jokingly made the dos and don’ts of Union flags. People don’t know what they are channeling and if they can’t earth them, they will be electrocuted and I trust that. I trust the earth. The earth doesn’t back fascism or nationalism. Many people don’t know they are fascist yet but some day they will have to confront that.

I love Irishness, but I don’t believe in nationalism. I do not want to promote the Irish sensibly (or English) and I’m interested in it to free myself from the psychic ways its attacked me. To be able to criticise and exorcise is a privilege, and I think of all those who are unable to criticise their family without it being seen as a permission to colonise or kill them. And I know it’s not their fault, no country can develop its civil rights while being oppressed.

I don’t actually see myself as from a nation, nor any gender. But the land, or body, is a reminder of a true and deeper longing - for home. Which would only ever be complete when everyone has a home, embodied. Maybe another day i’ll talk about the debate around the slogan stay homeless and the refusal of refuge.

I could never make art against the English sensibility (like Acker) cause they love the critique and being against Englishness is somehow even part of it. If I was reduced to a headline by Brits, it would say- Second generation dole dosser holds transsexual piss competition with JK Rowlings face as target.

Mr Chronic-Oversharer-Freak, born into one of the most secretive families imaginable, it was never going to be harmonious. What they have on me in Irish is much worse, all my crimes against God.

Nothing would make me more happy than to write a book that made anyone subjugated by Irish or religious patriarchy feel at home, and to irritate my family just one more time. Seeing as they wont look at me. Say I exist just one more time, much as they try to say I don’t. Because my existence brings about so much shame and grief, and the more I am myself, the more upsetting it is to them. I would like to say to them, that I do exist and in the same way I always did. That I never changed. And that I know they love me. And that what i give is also love, but in total contradiction to them. I would never pay this respect to Englishness, it taught me nothing about freedom.

Maybe I could just say it in my head and move on, but instead I keep trying to write this damn thing about it. A confused mix of my life and some political point that I can’t seem to separate and circle around. With a lack of clarity that comes from the survival strategy still imposed on me, not being able to speak openly still. Who are these people who are only just discovering censorship now?

Well, Bobby Sands said our revenge is the laughter of our children. I wish my relatives could see past their grief to what I’ve been able to do with the Irish strain of freedom, which made such a strong enduring impression on me, that I could never forget. Even when submerged in England most of my life, drowning in twee. May the Lord have mercy on there souls, Jesus Christ.

image- St Theresa and Holy Spirit prayer cards

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Next week - 100 THINGS GO WELL - Part 1 of my diary from Japan - talking about the homeless movement and compulsive cake eating.

Last week - 100% LIES - about englishness

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Tangential name inspiration (a bit of Fry and Laurie sketch)