Dear friend Allan: In my interactions with England, I find there to be a great deal of lack of understanding of the difference between intergration and assimilation. England has a deeply conformist culture ( though being quiet proud of its own excentricities, often...)

The concept that intergration is a one way road is wonderfully seen if thee rents the very good film, "The Man Who Never Was..." There is a moment when an English officer is asking for the body of a man's son, to use in a war time spy event, and he makes the mistake of saying (as it turns out to a Scott) "your son will have done something important for England". The father replies, often you English say England when you mean Britain. I hear echoes of this when thee speaks of abandoning the Irish thing, while writing on a folk music web site... after all, we are speaking of our deep families traditions, national and ethnic traditions here - they are worth not abandoning with out thought.

As to how would I like to live? Oh, my, Allan, I have lived by the side of roads, I have lived in a narrow bunk aboard traditional sailing vessels, a cold water cabin in Ireland, I've lived on Indian reservations, sleeping around an open fire in hunter/gatherer worlds, and ... and now in a very comfortable flat over the the theatre I now run. I work more hours now, and hot showers are quite nice, but... working for a living, rather than living as my work - either are good. I still dream of walking miles with my beor, my pack and my pipes in cold pouring rain, and the lovely weight of bags of coins from busking, so wet and misserable you had to laugh, and so happy for a pint and a hot meal when the busking was good... busking up a plane ticket for example... and if you can't imagine the joy in that... well you never will.
Oh, one thing I know, I'd be less heavy today, less headachy, less troubled by gout if I stayed in a few of those rough old worlds, and I miss them.