I once called into a friend who had recently become a vegan. He put two steaming cups of black tea on the table. He watched as I poured milk into my cup and said that he couldn’t fathom how anyone could drink the stuff, slightly shuddering. Ah, here, I told him, three weeks ago you were chowing down double-bacon cheeseburgers, so relax with your sneering.
I get the same defensive reaction when I hear people who have moved away from Ireland scoffing about Ireland. It’s the “Are you guys still at that nonsense?” attitude when people come back that exhausts me, like when someone watches you through a window as you scramble to take the washing from a downpour, and enlightens you with their idea that you should have just used the dryer.
When people deride the nation, I feel personally insulted, as though I am responsible for it all. Yes, The Late Late Show is still on on Friday nights. No, you can’t pay for public transport with your phone. Yes, all the good places in town are demolished. No, you can’t get through A&E in under two hours.
Maybe if emigrants experience a kind of arrogance toward Ireland in their host country, they start to think of it more as backward. Very rarely, when I lived abroad, I felt a snobbery towards Ireland. An English woman described to me a man doing a very slow and bad job as “being so Irish about it”. She followed up with, “Sorry, you know what I mean, don’t you?” I feel like some of our wild geese would have responded, “Tell me about it. Sure, they’re still putting out the Child of Prague in Ireland.”
When younger people complain about the state of the place, others tell them they have no idea how much things have improved. My local park, now bustling, was a place where you’d come out from a football match to find your car up on blocks, or get a brick thrown at your head when you were running for the bus.
It’s in all of us, I suppose, to talk about how tough we think we’ve had it. When I was living away, I laughed along as a woman from the west of Ireland and a man from eastern Pakistan competed over who had experienced the most disadvantage during their 1980s childhoods. A man from the North of Ireland tried to get involved, but he was immediately disqualified for having access to good roads and healthcare. They went tit for tat until the woman from Mayo announced that she had not tasted yoghurt until she was 12, emotionally recalling the first pot of Yoplait being unveiled in the kitchen. She was declared the winner.
“This place is a kip,” Irish people say when they come back to visit from London and Sydney. Ireland is not cosmopolitan enough, but the place is losing its character. The liberalism and globalisation that drive us to follow opportunities and fulfil dreams in other parts of the world contribute to our cities and towns becoming less unique.
“This country!” returners cry, faced with disillusion when the reality of life in Ireland does not meet a romanticised ideal borne in some way from loneliness and a regrown hope. A bubbling sense of disconnection from Ireland pulls people to other places, but if they can’t bed down properly in the new country either, they can start to feel lost in the world. Ambivalence leads to moaning that Ireland is regressive, but that it’s not the same as it used to be. They miss the anonymity that made them miss being known.
I’m not denying that some of the best things about living here can be easily tainted. I met a friend for a pint of Guinness in Mulligan’s on Poolbeg Street in Dublin, a dark, warm 170-year-old pub. We went next door for an Ethiopian meal and strolled down the cobbles of Fleet Street into a gorgeous little theatre. We saw a powerful play and were feeling enchanted by our night out together. The smiles were wiped off our faces as we emerged into a suddenly frenzied and menacing Temple Bar, and we ran the gauntlet home.
Weeks later, walking into a pharmacy, I heard someone scream about a fellah with a knife. I turned to see a teenage boy swinging a machete at a scrambling group of lads in the car park. Not here, I thought, please don’t do this here, in my home.
My seven-year-old asked me the other day where my favourite place in the world is. Ireland, I told her. She repeated the question in her sweet, high-pitched voice, emphasising the word world. I repeated my answer, emphasising the word Ireland. She asked her pal the same thing the next day when they were nattering in the back of the car. “Spain,” she said. “It’s much warmer.”
I have spent about half of my life living in other countries, incredible places. I left a part of myself in each of them, but I was always anchored to Ireland. There are things about the place that make me sad and angry, but this only increases my sense of protectiveness. I know there are places where things are easier, but it doesn’t mean they’re better. Please don’t scorn Ireland from a new height. Please don’t call it a kip. It’s my home and I love it.
