Sasta Linn Fein

The question I posed last week - what nation is the most patriotic in the world - has a surprising answer. While one might expect the Americans to be the most enthusiastic flag-wavers, they only reach second place, with just over seventy percent claiming to be very proud of their nationality according to a 1990 survey reported in the last chapter of Who Are We?

So who are the world's top patriots? The haughty French? No, only half as many felt the same way about their country. The Japanese, Nihonjinro or not, were just a little bit lower. Those ever so superior English, who never seem to show anything on TV apart from documentaries about World War 2, are in the middle of the range at 55%.

Coming out on top are...the Irish. Are there dreams of world domination lurking in the national psyche? Maybe it's a good thing the country is so small and not as big as, say, China, or we'd all be causing no end of trouble.