Introduction

Construction of Identity in Northern Irish Novels 233
ironic summary of a poem entitled ‘Poem to a British Soldier About to Die’ is the
following:
The poem told the young British soldier (about to die) why he was about to
die, why it was his fault, how it had been his fault for eight hundred years
and would probably be his fault for another eight hundred, why the man
who was going to shoot him was a fine Irishman who loved his children
and never beat his wife and believed firmly in democracy and freedom for
all, regardless of race or creed, and why such beliefs gave him no option but
to murder the young British soldier (about to die) (ibid. 175).
Jake’s depiction of the poem expresses a wish for his fellow Northern Irishmen,
no matter if Catholic or Protestant, to overcome history and start into a new future
that leaves the old behind. History has to stop repeating itself. The reason for
all the wrong in the world according to Jake is politics, which he basically sees as
an “antibiotic, i.e., an agent capable of killing or injuring living organisms” (ibid.
96). People think him to be a Protestant because he openly criticises the reading,
and so he gets thrown out. Another example for Jake’s new Irishness might be the
fact that he does not report an RUC officer who attacks him violently because he
knows the man’s real motives: Jake has had an affair with his fiancée Mary. Aoirghe
in contrast tries to persuade him to report the incident as in her eyes “assaults
by the RUC” are “always political” (ibid. 97ff). Only Jake’s ability to feel empathy
breaks the cycle of sectarian hatred here. His urge for a clean front shield is symbolic
for Jake’s ability to see beyond certain things Aoirghe and others do not see
at first. Although his car is a mess he undertakes a remarkable effort to keep the
windows clean: “It was a hugely shitty vehicle but it had incredibly clean windows.
Rusty bodywork covered in three-year-old filth but the windows gleamed. I
cleaned them every day so that I could see my city when I drove” (ibid. 16).
Eureka Street, which according to Elke D’hoker is “reminiscent of the allinclusive
Victorian novel” due to the many different characters and their stories
(31), uses the model of hybridity to show new possible forms of living together
that seem almost impossible at first. As the characters differ in their intentions
and perceptions of the world this pluralism is used to “reflect some of the novel’s
important moral and political concerns” (ibid. 31). Both Chuckie and Jake are
presented as hybrid characters who live in the inbetween of Protestant Britishness
and Catholic Irishness. What sets them off from other rather traditional thinking
characters such as Ronnie, Crab or Aoirghe is their ability to think outside the box
(in different ways however). As has been noted by D’hoker Jake incorporates both
sets of Protestant and Catholic stereotypes and by displaying them becomes able
to transcend them in order to form an individual identity (D’hoker 32). Chuckie
by contrast leaves his one-sided identity behind by cheating on both Protestant
and Catholic people alike. Jake even calls him a “pan-cultural exploiter” (McLiam
Wilson 307) and calls his greed “ecumenical” (ibid. 168). He does this by utilising