Well, ye see, there were these three men - Paddy the Irishman, Paddy the Englishman and Paddy the Scotsman. Then, out of the blue, one of the Paddies rolled over and disappeared. He was Paddy the Irishman, the mad, drink-sopping cartoon character beloved of all the world for his dexterity with words and knuckles and his pyrotechnic psychosis. He had lived on the edge of self-destruction for so long, it seemed he would surely live for ever. Until suddenly - puff! - he was gone. Now, the joke is, there are only two Paddies left, and neither of them comes from Ireland. Rumours of Paddy the Irishman's demise had been whispered in his native land, escaping between railings of brilliant-white teeth in down-turned mouths. "Have we lost our Character do you think?" they fretted, while queuing for endangered-animal handbags in smoke-free shopping malls or sipping cocktails in child-free cafe bars. They searched for him high and low but all they found were loads and loads of private planes, cranes, and topless automobiles. In the end, just when it looked as if the national Character had only popped over to Manhattan for a weekend's retail therapy, the bells tolling Paddy's departure rang out from - of all places - Perfidious Albion. 'Ireland not exotic enough for the Brits,' knelled the announcement. Paddy the Irishman was dead all right. What's more, he'd come back to life - reincarnated as Paddy the Englishman. Now he's every bit as sophisticated, successful, focussed, devoid of eccentric charm and as yawn-inducingly anodyne as his next-door neighbour. A survey by Tourism Ireland has found that British tourists are reluctant to come here on their holidays because we're no longer foreign enough. We speak the same language and get drenched by the same rain clouds. We've lost our curiosity value. So they're high-tailing it to Dubrovnik for their culture fix. If you are in any doubt, read Paddy's obituary in the current edition of The Dubliner magazine where writer Constantin Gurdgiev bids him a caustic goodbye, along with his "mirages of past destitution", "ritualistic drink-induced bonding", "banal stories of druids and bog fairies", "moral duplicity" and sentimentality, "to paraphrase Oscar Wilde... the bank holiday of complacency." In the coming week of St Patrick, as the gardai brace themselves for an orgy of public boozing and native shamrock-growers bewail the decline in demand for the three-lobed emblem, will there be any people less Irish than the Irish themselves? From Chicago to Shanghai, the rivers will run green alongside revellers in T-shirts saying 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' and the din of accordion bands squeezing out jigs and reels. Back in Dublin, the capital city of Paddy's Day on Planet Earth, the most radical change to the festivities is that, er, the parade will go in the opposite direction to last year's, because fair's fair. You only need to watch the Rose of Tralee to see that the Irish lassies have all swiped their career-mapped CVs from their American sisters while the Roses from London and Lancashire are wearing the born-to-please smiles and hand-me-down frocks once worn by Paddy the Irishman's granny. These shifts have not gone unnoticed. Though the British holiday-makers surveyed by Tourism Ireland did not mention the pimpling of Irish cityscapes with high street stalwarts such as M&S, Debenhams, Tesco and Waterstones as proof of Ireland's anglicisation, they have turned this country into an ancillary nation of (English) shopkeepers. It is not only Ireland that has changed. The kinship of Anglo-Irish relations has undergone a transformation too. The volatile oppressor/slave dynamic is finally losing its fizz and the over-riding post-Independence impulse to demonstrate that we are most definitely anything but English has relinquished its urgency. Garrulity, pugnaciousness and religious piety served as the antithesis of Englishness. They have been made redundant. At one stage, British goods accounted for 90% of everything Ireland imported. Now it's 22%. Instead of depending on their neighbour, Irish investors are buying up the bricks-and-mortar trophies of the Empire, in the exercise of levelling the playing field, and are being toadied to in marble-vowelled boardrooms. Paddy the Irishman, and his first cousin Mick, have given up talking the talk to walk the walk. Once upon a time, they bragged they were as good as any Englishman. Now they believe it. "Be careful not to patronise the Irish; Good grief, you'll cry, that's hardly my intent, Nevertheless, when he's inclined, Paddy's mind is so designed, He'll go and find offence where none was meant." In the crucible of Irish nationalist art, the Abbey Theatre, a moment-defining show opened last Monday night to an audience that laughed as if they had mistaken the itching powder for talc before leaving home. Improbable Frequency is a musical comedy set in Dublin during the Second World War and featuring a cast of characters led by Myles na gCopaleen and Sir John Betjeman. It is an hilarious, satirical and unmistakably fond exploration of the relationship between the English and the Irish. "No matter how one tries to get along, Unselfishly proclaiming Eire's undisputed charms, A simple mention en passant Of drinking, fighting and maudlin song - Suddenly one is in the wrong And Paddy's up in arms." Whither Irishness? is the question of the moment. If the wisha-'n'-begoorah bogtrotter has been laid to rest, how are we going to redefine ourselves? Tourism Ireland has been working on our USPs (Unique Selling Points) and, bless my soul, the Ring of Kerry has slipped off the map. Henceforth, the south-west will be promoted as the "gourmet capital", the south-east as, well, "the sunny south-east" and, God help us, the