Is your cat Irish?
No, it's a serious question.
Do animals have a nationality? I once had a terrier that was from Yorkshire, but I digress.
WE have, as you know, a strain of humanity in the North East of this island that has a problem with accepting the fact that they live on an island called Ireland.
Logic would dictate that anything originating on that island would be of that island.
Therefore anything on Ireland would be, well, Irish.
No so, of course, that would be to bring logic into it.
Can't have that. A county boundary suddenly became an international frontier and-sometime after that the beneficiaries of that border had to pretend that it somehow delineated an ancient ethnic group.
Tosh of course, but the y did stick with it.
Like all time-served miscreants they stuck to their story.
Now, however, something is amiss with that.
It would appear that the hotbed of Provoism that is the Ulster Farmer's Union (UFU) what to brand all farm produce on this island as being " of Ireland origin".
The Shinners in the UFU are quick to point out that stating that a heifer from Ahoghill is " of Ireland origin" does no make said heifer Irish.
Oh no, that would be bad.
Couldn't have that-I mean to say that the aforesaid "of Ireland origin" beast is also "Irish" would just confuse people in Egypt, Iraq & Spain.
You can just see big Sammy earnestly explaining to someone from the Middle East "..this cow sur-its of Ireland origin, but it isn't Irish-no way!"
This nonsense does prove one thing, however, that-at the root of most things in human life are economic.
The economics of a global market the EU and the appalling record of animal health in Britland is making even farmer Sammy question the benefits of his cherished British connection.
The first green shoots of this ability to smell the coffee among Ulstur farmers was during that other Brit germinated plague BSE.
BSE (Blame Someone Else) made British beef un-sellable to anyone anywhere.
Suddenly the Union Jack tag on Ermintrude's ear at the Ballymena mart didn't seem like such a good idea.
There was much huffing & puffing about Ulster's (sic) -regional identity within the UK etc. etc.
At the end of the day farmer Sammy was snared on the barbed wire of the British connection. His cows-like him-were British-so no deal.
During the BSE thing we were then entertained with TV footage of some solid Northern farmer who didn't milk on the Twelfth telling a camera lens that his cows were here in Ireland and therefore should be sold as-well-Irish cows.
As the BSE thing-sorta-subsided the import of what the North's farmers were bleating about was lost for a while.
Now another animal plague is sweeping across from the "mainland" and yet again farmer Sammy is seeing that the beloved connection isn't good for business.
In the global meat market Irish= good, British= bad.
Is BSE was bad for the North's farmers-and it was bad then FMD is much much worse.
The Union Jack is for farm incomes what that symbol was for millions of natives across the planet in the heyday of empire-fatal.
The British connection is an economic injection of HIV for the North's farmers.
Inexorably they are seeing that their gaze-in matters economic-is turning away from Britain and will increasingly focus on the south as the highway to Europe.
History teaches us that once the economic base of a situation alters then other things are more or less completely affected.
Things like political beliefs and national allegiances.
Perhaps historians will look back the Great British Foot & Mouth epidemic in the early 21st.
century and note that it had the most profound effect not in Britain, but in Ireland.
When the outbreak in Louth was detected Ian Paisley stated that the Border should be sealed off to keep the disease out of the North.
Within a week of that statement the UFU is sitting down with the IFA to draw up an all-island animal health policy.
Remember there was a time when the UFU and the DUP weren't that different in their worldview on matters such as the Border.
FMD stated for all to see that we are actually quite fortunate tom inhabit a small island when things like this happen.
The real border on this island should be the sea.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Brian Cowen, recently backed plans for an all-Ireland approach to animal health issues in support of proposals by farm groups from both sides of the border.
Mr Cowen, speaking at an Institute of Directors' function in Dublin, said he was encouraged by the shared views of the Ulster Farmers' Union and their Irish Farmers' Association counterparts.
The Minister said: "The sad events of recent weeks have made it abundantly clear why an island-wide approach to animal health is vital to ensure the economic well-being of our people."
As I said where economics first go then other things follow in train.
There will soon be-for cows, sheep & pigs-a United Ireland.
It's enough to make Ian Paisley turn vegan.
Phil Mac Giolla Bhain
