Thanks to its efforts to keep Lucy, a reader in New Zealand, up to date with developments at home, this column is in now danger of becoming of a full-time interpreter of contemporary Ireland for the diaspora. I don't know how long I can keep the service up without Government funding. But since it is Easter, just about, and since the latest queries come from what the 1916 Proclamation calls our "exiled children in America", I'll carry on for the moment.
In fact, this week's first correspondence comes from Canada: via Pat Simmonds, a New Zealander of Irish extraction now in Toronto, having spent years in Connemara. A clearly seasoned traveller - I have jetlag just from describing him - Pat writes that his experiences as a tourist in Ireland have been "less than satisfactory". Specifically that on a recent visit to west Cork, he was "actually refused a coffee in one establishment".
The proprietor may have mistaken him for "a crusty, or some such similar miscreant", he says, by way of explanation. But when he repeated the request, this time in Irish, the woman said she didn't speak "German" and he still wasn't being served.
Assuming there was no legitimate reason for her refusal to serve coffee, such as the establishment being a hardware shop, this is disturbing. There may be extenuating circumstances: I'm guessing from the information provided in the previous paragraph that Pat might have had an unconventional hairstyle at the time, not that that is an excuse. But there is also a possibility that Pat's "crime" was the unspecific nature of his request.
West Cork is notoriously trendy. Even in less fashionable Dublin, however, there are cafes now where you'd be laughed at for ordering anything so general as "coffee". It would be like studying the menu in Patrick Guilbaud's and asking for "meat".
I'm a caffeine addict myself, and yet I'm amazed at the spread of coffee culture in a country where tea was the only non-alcoholic beverage served anywhere outside Dublin until the Constitutional amendment of 1971. I think I can remember the moment coffee was introduced - it was in the form of cake, at first to our area. Then gradually the concept of drinking it became fashionable, although it was considered pretentious as recently as the last time I was home.
Even in the early 1990s, most Dublin cafes served it in only two varieties: a cup or a mug. But in these days of lattes and Americanos, and when trendier establishments prefer the term "tall" to "large" in case of offending overweight customers, the choice is bewildering.
On a not dissimilar note, Robin Latham - an "ex-Dub" living in Wisconsin - writes with a long list of profound questions about Ireland, one of which is: "Why can one not buy chewing gum in Dublin Airport?"
The answer would appear obvious to anyone who has visited the terminal recently: because people would carelessly discard their old gum everywhere and this would cause a nuisance, getting stuck on the shoes of striking airline workers and causing delays on the picket lines. But I rang Aer Rianta to check, and a spokeswoman confirmed that in fact the sale of gum was banned years ago because of the difficulties it presented cleaners. Many airports have a similar policy, as - I believe - has the entire country of Singapore.
Robin also asks what happened to the underwater clock removed from the River Liffey and "how much money was wasted on the project?" I'm afraid I haven't been able to establish what exactly happened to it, but I know its design made it unsuitable for other public use. The basic problem, incidentally, was that in strong sunlight, you couldn't read the clock's dial through the water. So in fact the project was a waste of time as well as money.
On the political front, he asks whether Bertie Ahern is related to George W. Bush, "and how come both their brothers have high-profile jobs?" I presume the brothers referred to are John "Jeb" Bush, governor of Florida, and Maurice "Maurice" Ahern, mayor of Dublin. But this and all other similarities between Bertie and George appear to be mere coincidence.
Both men have great personal charisma, its true. Both are also famed for their troubled relationship with the English language. And because of their respective political bases, Texas and North Dublin, both have faced inevitable allegations over the years that some of their friends were cowboys. But no, they're not related.
Robin has other, even more complex questions, but that's enough interpretation for one week. Suffice to say that modern Ireland is a fast-changing place, where all the old certainties are gone. Except one.
I reported here recently that the forthcoming "UK tour" by the Wolfe Tones included dates in Belfast and, even more worrying for fans of the band, Monaghan. It was therefore a great relief to check the official website this week and find the tour is now of "Ireland, Scotland, and England" instead.
Thus at one stroke, both Belfast and Monaghan are free, and we've secured independence for the Scots as well. A belated happy Easter to all the nation's children, wherever they may be.
fmcnally@irish-times.ie
