What does it mean to be Irish?

For me, it's a complicated answer.  For me it means that the country of my birth didn't care enough about me and instead decided to traffick me to the US for the "crime" of being born out of wedlock. It means that same nation didn't care enough about my mother for the same "crime" and locked her away in   continuing series of incarcerative institutions -- industrial school, Magdalene Laundry, mother-baby home -- for twenty-seven years of her life.  It means that same nation stripped her of the ability to know and grow up with her siblings, her own mother and extended family and that she felt the only "refuge" was, for her, the UK. But I'm sure most won't hear about or read those "stories." Instead we'll be regaled with the Plastic Paddy notions of glorious Ireland, 'The Quiet Man' and other false notions of a land that is equal parts sadness and beauty. Until we acknowledge the past treatment of our countrymen and women, we cannot become a 'great' Ireland. So welcome to my reality and the reality of Ireland. And yet I still love her.