"Parish" and means of local identification

[Eamonnca1]

I've noticed free staters have a tendency to talk about the parish as their means of identifying where they're from.  "Parish" this and "parish" that. They talk about their GAA club representing the parish, which is very different to how it is where I'm from. Round our way the club represents a local rural community or whatever part of the town the club's based in. Country people talk about the townland they're from, townies just reference the town. And when country boys are outside the local area they say they're from whatever the nearest town is. To boys like us, the townland is what you identify with, and that's a subset of the nearest town which you also identify with. The parish is just some abstract concept that only ever gets mentioned by priests. In our "parish" there's two GAA clubs, in the town there's another parish with about half a dozen clubs in it. I'd say a lot of people nowadays would be hard pressed to name their parish.

I've never heard anyone say they're from "Seagoe" which is the name of our parish. I think there was a townland called Seagoe but I'm not sure if anyone lives there now because a lot of it  was built over with industrial estates in the 1960s as part of the Craigavon "new city" development.

Is this a northern thing, to not identify with the parish? Or is it an urban thing and the north happens to be more urbanised? What's it like in Dublin? Does anyone there refer to parishes?  Belfast people ("Belfastards"?) tend to refer to what part of the city they're from, usually named after the nearest main thoroughfare (Lower Falls, Shankill, Springfield Rd. etc.). Can't say I've ever heard any of them boys talk about a parish.

[armaghniac]

Parishes represented a conscious effort to draw up units with complete coverage that reflect local identities, which is why the GAA went with this when it was founded.

[Eamonnca1]

Parishes represented a conscious effort to draw up units with complete coverage that reflect local identities, which is why the GAA went with this when it was founded.

Which is why urbanisation presents a conundrum for the GAA because the identity of the parish seems to be getting replaced by other means of local territorial allegiance in some places. Enforcement of the parish rule varies from county to county and I'd say part of the reason for that is the varying relevance of the parish as an identifier of communities.

[T Fearon]

Seagoe is a quite famous part of Portadown.Hell it's even got its own hotel named after it,and not too Long ago Songs of Praise was broadcast from Seagoe Parish ( Church of Ireland) Church

[Shamrock Shore]

I've noticed free staters

Got this far and stopped reading.

[Eamonnca1]

I've noticed free staters

Got this far and stopped reading.

[Rossfan]

Seein as the Free State was abolished in 1937 there can't be many "Free Staters" left now.

[Pangurban]

Not too many republicans either

[Eamonnca1]

You free staters really don't like being called free staters, do you?

Would it help if I went back and edited the original post?

[macdanger2]

Always align with the parish. Townland is too small to associate with