Many Summers ago, I spent a season working in a chemist’s on Nantucket Island, USA. From May to September, Nantucket is populated by well-to-do American families on vacation and hoards of American and Irish students are employed in the shops, restaurants, bars and hotels, there to make money for the college year ahead and to spend it before they ever get home.
My workday wasn’t exactly taxing and one of the ways I had of passing the quieter times was to amaze my American co-workers with my ability to spot anyone Irish the split-second they set foot inside the door.
“Irish,” I’d whisper, before the unsuspecting customer had got any further than the welcome mat, before they’d even opened their mouth.
“But how could you know?” my colleagues would ask in wonder, after the customer had been and gone, and I’d been proven right once again. But I’d just tap my nose knowingly, annoyingly.
As the Summer progressed, I deigned to let them in on my secrets and soon they were as proficient as me at “Paddy-spotting”.
They learned that the male of the species was particularly easy to identify.
First, he was almost invariably dressed in those O’Neill/GAA shorts, usually in red, with white stripes down the side, which always, always, seemed almost indecently tight. I guess the rationale in those more sartorially challenged days was why splash out on a second pair of shorts; what was good enough for training on a Wednesday night back home was good enough for the holidays.
Second, he wore socks with his sandals. And not white sporty socks either. But grand thick, dark-coloured ones, ones that had already seen him through the winter.
Third, the back of his neck were generally sunburnt red-raw. In fact, his usual reason for being in the chemist was to purchase (in a closing-the-stable-door-after-the-horse-has-bolted fashion) suntan lotion. Not that he’d come up and ask for it. God forbid! In fact, if there were any vestiges of doubt as to whether or not he were Irish, then the way he skulked around the shop for an age, searching each and every aisle, not for one second even thinking to ask for assistance, told me I was right. Had he been American, he’d have confidentially strode right up to the counter and announced what it was he was looking for.
But that was a long time ago.
How times have changed. How we’ve changed. The Celtic Tiger has come and (perhaps) gone but not before leaving its mark. We’re a more confident people now, more worldly-wise, better off and a lot more traveled.
Once upon a time, most of us would have been happy with an annual week’s holidays in a caravan park at the seaside, especially if it stayed fine for even half those days, but no longer. Now it seems that every second person has a house in the South of Spain. Boarding a flight to Malaga these days is like getting the Cork-Dublin train ten, fifteen years ago. You’re bound to know someone on the plane; you’d almost be surprised if you didn’t.
Which means that picking out the Irish abroad has become far more challenging.
Last week, on our own holidays we – he, me and the small one – were having lunch in a packed restaurant in a little Sicilian town off the beaten track. Midway through our pizzas we noticed a couple arriving in. They were tanned, chic, foreign-looking and we paid them little heed, not until one of them shouted out in a strong Cork accent, “Would you look who it is!” having recognized another couple, equally tanned, chic and foreign-looking, at the far side of the restaurant. “Mags! Philip! Fancy meeting you here!” cried back the second couple, in a matching accent. “Isn’t it a small world!”
Watching on as the couples joined one another, I reflected on how my Paddy antenna were nowhere as keen as they once had been.
As the two couples waited to order, and then waited for their meal, I listened in on their conversation – as you do. Most of the time they talked loudly and indiscreetly, happy, I guess, that they were the only foreigners in the place, and certainly the only Irish. They talked about the poor service, how the wine wasn’t as good as they’d got last night, how Sicily wasn’t as cheap as might be expected, how Philip had got over his touch of the runs..
Occasionally, when they had something indiscreet to say, they took the precaution of switching to Irish, that pidgin Irish even those of us who barely managed a pass in pass Irish use when abroad.
And we continued to eavesdrop unashamedly. And comment unmercifully. We wondered where they were from; what they did at home; how long they were here. And on anything else that came into our heads. What especially amused us was that they were under the impression that they had the privacy of a room full of foreigners.
So for the entire meal we sat there, dissecting this quartet in that way you can with strangers. Since we didn’t know them and would be unlikely to ever see them again, we were as pass-remarkable as we liked.
Then, as lunchtime was coming to an end, the tables around us began to empty. Only then did we notice the couple at the table right next to ours as they began gathering up their things, readying themselves to leave. As the man squeezed his way past our table on his way out, he paused for a moment, fixed his eyes on us, gave us an odd, smirky look and said just two words, “Slan Leat!” before proceeding on his way.
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