Ireland: first impressions

In the winter of 2002 I took my family on an academic exchange to the west coast of Ireland. We traded jobs, houses, and cars with a family in Galway. This letter is part of that story . . .

This is my first missive from Ireland and it cannot hope to be comprehensive. I’ll just confine myself to some facts and a bit of speculation and fill you in on my adventures as they happen. And since doing little things in Ireland, like driving a car or taking a shower, are adventures, you may get lots of letters.

Anyway. We flew in on Dec. 28th and I have to admit I was a bit tense on the plane. Post Sept.11, airline passengers are in a state of heightened awareness vis-à-vis their fellow passengers. We’re all ready to jump on anyone who pulls a box cutter or tries to set fire to his shoes. So flying has become an exercise in mass mutual suspicion: "Hey, that guy asked the flight attendant for a SECOND bag of peanuts! Get him!" But we made it without incident and arrived in Shannon airport in the east of Ireland around 9:30 pm.

Now came my second source of tension. See, I’m here on an exchange for six months, but the exchange is not exactly the most well-defined visitor status. I was worried that Immigration might give me trouble. All we needed was some red-haired custom's agent focussing his watery blues on me and sneering, "Go on and pull the other one then" before ripping up my passport and telling us to hop the next flight off his precious island.

The closer we got to the exit from the baggage area the more I began to tense up. Things were not helped by the huge coloured signs over the exit that force passengers to make one of three choices: there are different exits, it turns out, for people with EU passports; people without EU passports with something to declare; and people without EU passports with nothing to declare. We obviously fit into one of the latter categories, but which one? We do have to declare that I’m going to be working, though not being paid, for six months in this country. But perhaps the declaration aspect is solely for restricted goods being brought across the border. We did have a bottle of gin that we bought in the duty free. Is that what they want?

We stood there looking at the ominous signs for so long that a guard noticed us. Before I could say anything, Karen held up the duty free bag and asked him, "Do we have to declare this?" No, we’re told, we should just go through the "no declaration" chute. So off we went.

Now, I’m clutching passports, a letter from the university, proof of medical insurance, everything, as we proceed through this exit. We go a few feet when we realise that the three different exits chutes are each about five feet long and lead to the same room. There are no separate customs and immigrations officers in that room. There isn’t anyone. We walk a few more feet and then go out another door, just one, and we realise that we’re in the country. We’ve cleared customs. Immigration control in this airport, then, means that you choose a coloured door that leads you to the same room as all the other doors, and from that empty room you all walk out the same door into Ireland.

I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t seem too efficient to me. This doesn’t seem like rigorous enforcement of national security. I’m going to guess that the reason the Americans haven’t found Osama Bin Laden is because he hopped a plane to Shannon airport, picked a coloured door, and walked undisturbed into a new life in the land of peat and Guinness. He’s Paddy O’Laden now, quaffing pints at the local with the lads. He’s on the dole. He may even be a choir boy at the local cathedral.

Waiting on the other side of this exercise in fascistic power was Tony, our cab driver. He’s a charming older man who drives a van that is entirely decorated to be a moving billboard for Becks Beer. So figure, I’m in the country for ten minutes, and then I’m bombing through the landscape in what looks like a beer bottle on wheels. Foreshadowing?

Now, the rest of the day was a blur, as were the next few thanks to jet lag, so let me switch now to some general observations about the country and its people…

What do the Irish like to do for fun? Well, if you believe the guidebooks, they like to sit in cosy pubs, nursing a pint, while fiddlers and dulcimer players noodle away at traditional airs in the corner. That may be true. .I don’t know. I haven’t experienced it yet because we live in a godforsaken suburb and the closest we come to a pub is watching East Enders. But if it is true it is a less popular activity than littering, building stone walls, and vandalism, the top three leisure pursuits of the Irish.

Let’s start with littering. Littering has been unfashionable and profoundly illegal in Canada and the States since the late 1960s when a series of government-initiated programs and ad campaigns drew people’s attention to the detritus lying by the highways and blowing around their public streets. There does not seem to have been a similar movement in Ireland. The famous Irish countryside and its quaint towns are awash in litter, and I don’t mean just a ciggy butt or two: newspapers, beer cans, beer bottles, diapers, wrappers, car mirrors, and parts of machines all comprise the litter you’ll find in the parks, throughout the countryside, on the lawns of even upscale houses, on the city walks, and on every street corner. I have come to the conclusion that this cannot be simple laziness or disregard. It’s too systematic. The Irish obviously appreciate and encourage litter.

"Ah, that’s a lovely bit of litter, that is," says Seamus. "Not bad," replies Owen, "but we haven’t seen a real litter around the town since the passing of Tom O’Dougall. Now there was a lad with a hand to the litter, God measure him. I once saw him do an entire street corner with pack of butts and the Irish Times. A masterpiece, that was. No wonder the lassies went for him." "They did at that," says Seamus, "The Lothario of Litter we called him down at the local. They say he was the best litterer since the Independence. But come on, Owen, give us the song."

In ancient times the poets say that Ireland was clean
Her cities were immaculate, her countryside pristine
So God made Tom O’Dougall, to set the island right
A better man at littering has never seen the light.
(Chorus:)
He littered far he littered wide, he littered in between
He littered on the highway, he littered field and stream.
That’s mighty Tom O’Dougall, whose fame shall never pass,
As long as there is litter, as long as there is trash.
As a tiny baby, Tom threw his food about… etc.

Irish travel guides, not the ones we tourists buy but the ones designed for the Irish themselves, feature famous litter sites around the country. Couples will pile their children into their cars and go on litter tours on the weekend, dutifully propping their little ones in front of the Garbage of Galway, the Crap of Caniegh, or the Trash of Tralee for a photograph.

Another thing that the Irish love to do is build stone walls. They will build a stone wall around anything, at any time. There are stretches of Connemara that beggar the mind with their vistas of stone walls. And many of these walls are not surrounding anything. The land of Connemara is poor for farming. No plants will grow on much of it and it’s no place to rear an animal. The stone walls, then, surround other stones. To protect them from what? Yet other stones? Stone thieves? And some of these stone walls surround patches of stone that are the size of a mouse pad. The walls are thicker than the plot of stone that they ostensibly protect. The introduction of wooden fences would free up thousands of acres of land in this country that are now buried under stone walls.

This fetish for building stone walls may, in part, explain why the Irish were so susceptible to invasion from Normans, Vikings, and the English. Imagine in the tenth century:

Monk: Father! Father! The Vikings are coming up the river with swords and axes! What will we do?
Abbot: Quick! Let us build a stone wall around them.

You think I’m joking, but no. We took a trip to Clocmanoise, one of the ancient religious centres of the country. It was founded in the sixth century. Now this place is beautiful, really spectacular, but it’s not surprising that it’s a ruin. It was invaded and destroyed something like 50 times by various forces. After each invasion (except the last by the English) the monks rebuilt on the same sacred site. Now, when they rebuilt, did they include turrets, gun towers, moats, draw bridges, or catapults? No. They included stone walls. Their only concession to the invaders who came calling every second week was round towers. These are, essentially, really tall, round, stone walls with doors in them some eight feet off the ground. The idea was to scrabble up a ladder into that door when the Vikings showed up, then pull the ladder in after you. Not to worry, thought the monks, the stone walls will protect us. The Vikings will never make a ladder, or knock down the tower, or build a fire around us, or simply camp out and wait for us to starve to death. No sir, they’ll be so impressed by our stone walls they’ll run away.

There aren’t a lot of monks left.

As for vandalism, I was warned by one and all not to leave the car downtown over night. It would be reduced to rubble, apparently, but the morning. After digesting this news, I began to notice a three strange things. First, almost every building and fence in an Irish city centre is topped with barbed wire or some other anti-personnel barrier. Second, a lot of things seem broken. Fences are knocked over (but not stone walls), cans are tipped, little things are smashed.

The third thing needs a bit of explaining. The other morning I went for a morning walk west of this housing development, through the next housing development, and into fields and forest that have a series of pedestrian-friendly paths running through them. I rambled through the countryside, admiring the litter, until I came upon a strange object. Imagine a log, about six feet long and a foot and a half in diameter, made of concrete, covered in thick orange plastic, lying on its side on a cement platform. What the hell? Then I looked down the path and saw a series of these bizarre orange logs. Were these markers for the paths? A conceptual art piece? The remains of an ancient plastic-covered concrete log castle?

Then it hit me. These were benches. Incredibly uncomfortable but vandal-proof benches. Even in the country side, vandalism is such a problem that old folks have a choice between perching on concrete logs or not sitting at all. A real bench would be reduced to, uh, litter in a matter of hours by roving bands of Viking invasion enthusiasts.

And what about Irish food? Well, let me tell you about a popular TV ad in Ireland. A good-looking dude comes in out of a rainy night from walking his dog. He’s wet, he’s cold, and he’s cranky. When the dog shakes water all over the hallway, he gets crankier. Now, because this is a TV commercial, we know what’s going to happen next, right? This dude will find some service or product waiting for him at home that will restore his emotional equilibrium.

Now, let’s think about this. If it was you, what would work? Being greeting by a scantily clad supermodel with an oral fixation? Finding someone has installed a big-screen TV in your living room along with a minifridge full of beer that is within reach of the recliner (but you don’t have to reach for a beer cause the scantily clad supermodel with an oral fixation will do that for you)? Something like that. But not here. Instead, the guy throws off his wet coat and heads into the kitchen. He makes toast, dumps a can of beans into a pot and heats them, them dumps the beans on the toast and sits down at the table. Before he starts scarfing, he dribbles a bunch of HP Sauce on top of the beans. As he lifts the first forkful towards his mouth, his face takes on a near orgasmic glow. He’s happy. As he begins eating, the advertising copy runs across the screen: "HP loves beans on toast." End of commercial.

Now, excuse me. Am I missing something here? Is there some arcane pleasure to be found in beans on toast that the Irish have been hiding from the rest of the world? Is it, in fact, the heroin of cuisine? Or are these people just a little too easy to please?

I shall find out, and report back to you.

Your man in Galway.