Mo Anam Cara
This short phrase isn't perfect Irish, but it builds on the idea of an Anam Cara, a "soul friend" and roughly translates as "My Soul Mate" or "My Soul Friend". The ancient Celts believed in a soul that radiated about the body. When two individuals formed a deep bond, their souls would mingle and each person could be said to have found their Anam cara, or "soul friend".
-My Irish Jeweler
Diana Kelly's POV
My name is Diana Frances Kelly and yes, I was named after the late Diana, Princess of Wales. I was born in 1998 on the day the Good Friday Agreement was signed. My ma is a Thai woman who was adopted by a Northern Irish couple and her name is Lalisa Angela O'Connor. She works as a hotel receptionist in the "most bombed hotel in Northern Ireland" or simply known as the Europa Hotel. My da is an Irish Catholic who identifies as a Loyalist. So much that he joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary and stayed on right until its dissolution. Then he ended up working in Stormont as a civil servant.
Despite being raised by a peeler in East Belfast and eventually at The Waterside in Derry~Londonderry, I'm no sectarian woman and I owe it to growing up in a Northern Ireland where cross community interactions were becoming more acceptable. I grew up watching Give My Head Peace on BBC Northern Ireland although by the time I started watching it, Billy was already dating Dympna. They say Billy and Emer's "love beyond the barricades" was iconic when it first came out on Northern Irish television but I've got to say that Billy and Dympna were iconic even though by the time they became a couple in the show, cross community interactions were becoming more acceptable in Northern Ireland.
Growing up, I wanted a love like Billy and Dympna. They conquered it all despite Billy being a Protestant peeler and Dympna being a Catholic Sinn Fein MLA. I mean they've been married for about sixteen years as of Series 16. I've met Catholics throughout my lifetime and some of them have become my muckers but I have yet to find The One among them.
Guess you could say that when it came to shows on the telly, Give My Head Peace is my first love. Eventually, I also became a fan of Derry Girls (not gonna lie, I was very proud to see my hometown depicted in a famous TV show), Doctor Who and This Time With Alan Partridge.
I left Northern Ireland when I was eighteen after winning a place at the University of East Anglia in Norwich for a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Television Production. You see, it's my dream to become the next Doctor Who showrunner, or maybe to become one of the showrunners for Give My Head Peace.
I've lived in Norwich for two years after I had graduated, working as a production staff for BBC Look East. It was fine and all until one day, I finally decided that maybe it was time for me to revisit my dream of becoming a showrunner. I was thinking of applying into the Doctor Who production team, only that I had been turned down for "not being experienced enough". Around that time, Give My Head Peace was doing a stage tour so I thought that was the perfect time for me to try getting into the show's production team (I'm not gonna complain if my work starts with the stage shows).
My family lived in Derry but for me to be able to land a job as a production staff for Give My Head Peace, I needed to be in Belfast. So, I decided to book myself tickets to one of the Give My Head Peace live shows in the Grand Opera House and managed to score tickets for March 29th. Sweet!
While waiting for that day to come, I decided to pass the time fixing up the portfolio which I'll be showing off to Tim McGarry if I manage to meet him after the show on the 29th. The portfolio had everything from my production work while I was part of my secondary school's theatre guild all the way to my production work in BBC Look East. As I was putting together my portfolio, I hoped that Tim would be impressed with my skills and I'd be able to do work for the next season of his sitcom.
Eventually, the big day came and I decided to head down to Belfast in the morning so that I could make it to the show in the evening on time. I also took this as the opportunity to join one of those Troubles tours that they do in the city. I've been to a tour like that before but it was in Derry back in secondary school.
It was nine thirty in the morning when I arrived just outside Divis Tower where the tour group was supposed to meet. It was just me and a few other people who obviously didn't look like they were from Belfast. I'm probably the closest that the tour group might get for a person from Belfast; I initially spent my life in the East of the city, after all. I was just minding my own business when a guy came up to chat with me.
"Nice weather today, isn't it?" The guy asks me.
"Yes, the weather's nice. So it is." I tell him in response.
"You're from around here, aren't you?" He asks me again, noticing that I've used Northern Irish slang to answer.
"Yeah, I spent the first few years of my life in East Belfast." I tell him, "Then the rest of it was spent in Derry."
"Gearoid Patrick Valera," The guy tells me, introducing himself.
"Diana Frances Kelly." I reply, introducing myself as well.
"You're named after Princess Di, aren't you?" He asks me.
"Yeah," I reply, "My ma was a huge fan of hers."
"It's a shame she left this world too soon." Gearoid tells me, "I was just two years old when she died but I could remember how her death devastated people."
"Your name's in Irish," I point out to Gearoid, "That's pretty unique."
"I get that a lot." He tells me with a smile, "My ma's an Irish nationalist. She made it a point to give my siblings and I at least one Irish name."
"So do you live here in Belfast too?" I ask Gearoid.
"Nah, I'm from County Cork." He answers with a smile, "My ma did come from this city. I wanted to learn more about her side of the family. That's why I'm here."
"Any chance you're related to Eamon de Valera?" I went on to ask him, "Because your surname is..."
"No, I'm not related to the man, though I wish I was." He replied, "My Da's a Filipino, went to Dublin to work as a nurse. Fell in love with my ma in the Cork Butter Museum and here I am."
"So you're half Asian..." I tell him, "I'm half Asian too. My ma's part Thai, part Burmese. Got adopted by a couple who used to live here in Divis. Her marriage to my da caused quite an uproar because he's was a peeler at that time he married my ma."
"I hope your da doesn't mind that you've just made friends with a man whose ma got five years in the Maze for being a Republican." Gearoid told me, and when he sensed that I looked a bit petrified, he added, "No, it's not what you think. Ma wasn't in the RA. She was in the Irish Independence Party. The peelers at that time were just discriminative towards Republicans. No offense intended to your da, of course."
"Still, it's nice meeting you, Gearoid." I tell him, because honestly, I do not mind that this man's ma is a Republican. I mean Billy didn't mind that his father in law's a Republican so why should I mind that Gearoid's ma is one.
"Same to you too, Diana." Gearoid tells me with a smile, "If you think about it, we could be Dympna and Billy in real life."
And suddenly, I blushed. Not out of infatuation but out of disbelief that this man from County Cork is even aware about a television show that can only be seen in Northern Ireland.
"I'm surprised a man from County Cork is aware about Give My Head Peace." I tell Gearoid as I giggle, "It's a guarded secret of ours here in the North."
"I do not live in a cave, Diana." Gearoid tells me as he laughs, "I grew up watching the show from the telly of my grandma who lives in The Bog just near the border between the Republic and the North."
"Too bad the BBC license van cannot cross into Ireland..." I told Gearoid as I continued to laugh, "They would have gone after you for watching BBC Northern Ireland without a license."
"Hey!" Gearoid yelled, "My grandma legally paid to get BBC Northern Ireland on the telly."
"Fair enough." I told him with a smile, then I told him, "So I'll be joining the Troubles tours that's going to be meeting right here in a few minutes then after that, I'm going to go watch Give My Head Peace Live at the Grand Opera House."
"What a coincidence!" Gearoid said to me, "I am joining the tour too, then I'll be heading to watch Give My Head Peace Live afterwards."
"You and me..." I tell him, "We could make great muckers."
And before we knew it, the tour guide representing the Republicans had arrived to meet us.