Travelling to a country via aeroplane is a common experience in this day and age. We almost all know the drill by now. Passport control and bag checks. In the passport area one hands their passport to a person at a little desk inside a little glass box and they look at it, look at you, and return the passport.
Pembroke border control is nothing like that.
Some background: travelling from Cork to London via bus and had to get the ferry. We get off the ferry in the UK and the bus stops at the customs place. Everyone has to get off and take their bags with them. Then you are met at the door by a police officer who takes your passport. That's right, doesn't look at it, takes it from you and walks away with it. Then you are told to go stand in this corridor with all the other people who have gotten off the ship.
The corridor is old, white with paint pealing, and looks a little like a prison block corridor and there you wait.
You just wait.
Eventually they bring back some passports, the first ones I saw were UK ones, and you can go through.
This border agency lady was calling the names on the passports and pronounced O'Shea as if it was Shea butter (She-ah). The pass belonged to an elderly lady who was near the back and so probably couldn't hear, plus they were saying her name incorrectly.
The Irish muttered it was O'Shea and the border lady said it incorrectly again and the Irish got louder and she said it wrong again and the Irish told her it's O'Shea and she said 'does it matter?'
I am reminded by this experience of the Irish coming into countries from Coffin Ships during the famine and the treatment they had...
Now I'm not saying it was the same as that but for a couple hundred years of history, independence, the European Union, the end of the IRA, the Queen's successful visit to Ireland, and everything else that has happened positively between the UK and Ireland, you think the treatment of Irish people (or people returning from Ireland) would be a little more... Humane.
There were signs all over the place that read "Her Majesty's Border Control" or "H.M. Border Control". I am half tempted to write a letter to dear old Elizabeth with the content of this blog so she can amend her border agency's policies.
Anyway not a nice experience is the long and short of it!
