There are people out there thinking we're boorish and crass. I know: hard to fathom, writes Claire Kilroy
WE'VE REACHED peak oil on the old Irish charm, it seems. A natural resource we once believed to be bottomless is rapidly running out. There are people out there thinking we're boorish and crass. I know: hard to fathom.
I was invited to read at a festival in Riga a while ago, as part of an international writers' event. At a dinner beforehand, the language barrier was proving, well, a barrier. The programme was in Latvian, as were the authors' biographies; even their names, even my name. On these occasions, what can you do, except smile at the faces around you?
"I was in Ireland on a Common Agricultural Policy trip," one of the Latvians offered in an attempt to get the dinner table conversation up and running.
"Oh really?" I asked expectantly. This is the bit where we traditionally take a bow. "The Irish are so friendly!" "Your countryside is so beautiful!" "Irish pubs have a terrific atmosphere!" Praise showers down for what is a happy accident of birth.
"So, did you like Ireland?" I prompted the Latvian guy, as the praise wasn't coming hard and fast. He shrugged. "Meh," was his response, or the Latvian equivalent. Then he brightened up. "Your architecture was funny, though."
"Funny?"
"Yes, so funny. They brought us on a bus and we saw all the bad buildings in Dublin. Your Central Bank? Ha ha ha. We laughed."
"Laughed?"
"Yes, yes. It was funny." He smiled fondly at the recollection.
"I don't like Berlin," the young German author beside me blurted, unable to bear it any longer. Kevin was his name, but not because he had Irish blood. His father had called him after "some footballer".
"Berlin is a terrible city," Kevin insisted. "I hate Berlin. I heard Dublin is lovely. I must go to Dublin. I would love to go to Dublin. My friends all love Dublin." He nodded his head in earnest support.
"Yes," I agreed, perhaps a little defensively. "It is indeed a fine spot."
The Latvian guy nodded encouragingly. "You should definitely go to Dublin, Kevin. You'd have a great time. The architecture! So funny."
A hush fell at the far end of the table and we looked across to find maybe 10 faces looking at us. A blond woman seated at the centre had a question. "Who is the Irish author?" she wanted to know.
I put up my hand. "I am," I answered, smiling, smiling, smiling, waiting for the fountain of praise to erupt so the Latvian guy would see how it's done.
The blond woman nodded. "I see," she said, taking me in. "I just wanted to know who the Irish author was. Thank you." I was dismissed.
I looked at Kevin. He cleared his throat apologetically and explained to me. "She wrote a book about Latvians working on an Irish mushroom farm."
"Oh?"
"And the Irish won't publish it because it portrays them in a bad light."
"Oh."
Kevin wasn't sure what to say next. He knew a bit about the whole communal blame thing, being German. There were mushrooms on my plate.
"So Berlin is no fun, then?" I asked, to get us back on an even keel. Kevin warmed to his subject, dissing his hometown and praising mine, doing his bit for international relations. I recounted all this in the Joe Duffy zone that is the back of a taxi when you step off a plane at Dublin airport. I was angling for outrage, or sympathy at the very least.
"Yeah," the driver said. "I had an Eastern European fella in the back there, gave me an address to this farm in north county Dublin. So I drove him up this dirt track to, well, I suppose you'd call it a shed, and I says, 'Where do you live?' And he says, 'Ithere.' And I says, 'What?' So he brings me in to have a look, and it's a chair and a campbed and a bucket. Mother of God. I was ashamed of us, I don't mind telling you."
Our international reputation for charm functioned along the lines of the 10 per cent bonus you got if you did the Leaving Cert in Irish. An unfair advantage, but there you go. The shower who've been coining it on the back of immigrant labour have cost us the intangible cultural asset of goodwill, the 10 per cent bonus we used to enjoy just for being born here.
Claire Kilroy's latest novel, Tenderwire, is published by Faber and Faber, £7.99