Ireland 2007- the beginning
A few years ago a man in Kansas City asked me to show him photographs of my trip home to Ireland that I had just returned from. I obliged and he then said words like wow! a lot.
He expressed amazement to see Ireland had buildings with more than one storey, and asked me to confirm that it was so. It was so.
And he reacted the same when he saw my friends in their house - because they were sitting on a couch that appeared to be leather. It was actually highly flammable plastic, but this man was impressed by the advanced state of development Ireland had reached nonetheless (I hid my photos of Ballymun for fear he’d have a heart attack at the sight of Ireland’s progress).
While this conversation is sadly unremarkable for how often its type occurs, what I did find very odd about it was that this man wasn’t Nth generation Irish, or somebody with a vague passing interest in the country; he was the son of a man from Ireland.
Even if his father emigrated as a baby - perhaps like the baby with the Afro in that tiny boat in John Sayle’s The Secret of Roan Inish - how on earth does time and truth disappear up somebody’s backside so much the belief can fester that a nation doesn’t have even one couch for its people to share? Hey! That’s my seat, I only got up to go to the jax!
Anyway, in case he’s reading, here’s some other things about Ireland this new year, that just might surprise him:
• Cigarette smuggling goes exponential
• Attack ads are coming to Irish politics
• Households face cost-of-living increases of €230 a month
• 65 homicides for last year is the figure to beat
• Will the Infrastructure deficit stop Digital Media thriving?
• Ireland still has couches
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
It was polite of him not to comment on the fact the pics didn’t show a pig in the kitchen. Well known fact, pigs in Irish kitchens. Isn’t that what the half doors are for: to let them in and out?
Sorry. Got to go now in my bare feet to fetch turf to stoke up the computer for the day.
I wonder what he would have said if you showed him a photo of one of the 75 McDonalds in the Republic alone? Any mention of Macs always got the biggest wow for me from Kansas folk.
Seriously. Would you not agree that years of US-aimed campaigns by Tourism Ireland (and its predecessor, Bord Fáilte) are responsible for propagating the myth of a green and luscious pastoral country, and by default, an economically/technologically backward one?
(Fek, but there’s an awful lot of big words now there then. Must have been building up over the Christmas when I wasn’t able to speak).
Never mind the big words, Primal, that’s a big question.
Somewhat, is probably my short answer but short answers aren’t really my thing - I feel a post coming on. I think it’s a kind of of Murder on the Orient Express, or Occident Express I suppose, in that a few other characters are also guilty - such as the Irish who emigrated, and the people where they settled.
Willie, did Mary Harney not teach you to stoke your computer on smokeless fuels?
Eolaí
You may find this interesting in terms of evidence of change on our part: Not a leprechaun in sight … - Irish Indo
It is about a trade show sponsored by Enterprise Ireland. Let’s hope Tourism Ireland follow their lead.
Oh, and bring on the post that’s brewing. I can’t wait.
Eolai,
Mary Harney did, of course, teach us the modern method of smogless computing. But I miss the long winter evenings of lung disease and desperation all the same.