Is Éireannaigh muid!!

 A big day today as we celebrated becoming official Irish citizens  -  actually I had my ceremony yesterday and Himself had his today but imagine that it happened concurrently!  Held in Killarney, County Kerry we left our hotel bright and early to queue up in the famous Gleneagles, the queue wending its way in and out of the building and then into the INEC, one of the national concert halls (we last visited many years ago when we went to see Morrissey!)  You were allowed one guest, the candidate going to sign their declaration of fidelity and then on to the lower half of the INEC, the guest going in another direction and emerging up in the gods.  We were welcomed in with traditional (piped) music and then the band came in and fired up - for some reason a Pogues cover did it for me and it was the Riverdance theme for Himself.  The colours were marched in and a speech by the Head of the Citizenship Office got things underway - it was a really good one with the emphasis being on how lucky an delighted Ireland was to have so many new citizens and how such diversity could only enhance society. A female judge then came on to do the business of the official swearing in and again had such a warm and positive speech, so full of céad mile fáilte  and then we had to all stand up and swear our allegiance. This was followed by the National Anthem and a rousing cheer from us new Irish. It was all warm and welcoming and very genuine.  We were sent out to this  luckily the dance moves not required!
 Apparently 6000 people took part in two days worth of inaugurations - 140 different nationalities were represented, the most candidates coming from India, UK, Brazil, Romania and Poland and it certainly felt exotically multicultural. We were given little Irish flags to wear and I put mine on my green beret - Himself has his on his lapel. A young French woman, also recently Irish, took this for us and we reciprocated.


Today nearly one fifth of all people in Ireland have been born somewhere else and it makes for a rich, diverse and interesting country, growing and changing and welcoming its new citizens. Of course it’s not all wondrous but this article from the Guardian shows you how it should be done - for those born here, those newly naturalised and those still seeking recognition.  I’m thrilled to be able to say: Is Éireannach mé.


And we have to have some Riverdance (It's started Himself off again, he's just had to come in and get some tissues!)
Back blips following at some point.