Rory McIlroy: It's shite being (Northern) Irish!

Interesting read on how Northern Ireland's golf star is torn between two cultures in the lead-up to next week's Open Championship at Muirfield.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/sports/golf/mcilroy-a-native-son-divides-ireland.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

 

Yeah. It's a really good article. Well-researched and well-written.

One minor problem is that it seems to dance around the question of what religion he actually he is. Towards the start it implies that he's Protestant (being from "a leafy loyalist suburb") but no. In the last third we find out he's Catholic.

It would be nice to think that he's dealing with this solely in terms of nationality (Irish vs. British) but sadly, you have to bring it to the fore in a piece like this.

 

Anyone familiar with the issue knows Rory is battling the Castle Catholic stigma. He got ripped pretty good for posing with the Ulster red hand flag after the 2010 Ryder Cup. He honestly should tell everyone giving him crap to go pound sand. The fact that there's still rioting centered around the Twelfth, hundreds of years later, says all you need to know about NI.