OUI indeed, here we are on sunny Grafton Street and there is a little brass band blasting out some rag time, all the way from Nice. And aye, there's a fellow in a kilt up by St Stephen's Green, squeezing something indubitably Scottish out of his bagpipes. And si, of all the assistants in all the shoe shops - in all the world, the one who steps up - to help happens to be called Charo, all the way from the Spanish Basque country. And the genteel, elderly couple on flute and accordion - busking to fund their acupuncture treatment? English, maybe? No, they're from Cork. Yes, all very European.
"Oh, yeah, this is a real little melting pot you've got here in this town," trills Roberta from Texas. Roberta is making a wild stab at dancing to a bluesy version of Don't Worry, Be Happy, delivered by JJ, a busker from Atlanta. She and her pals are on the last leg of a 17 day tour of Europe: "Yeah, absolutely, we're surprised. Rilly, rilly surprised. Dublin is ride up there with anywhere we've bin in Europe - only BEDder..."
And they're off again, inhibitions abandoned, high as kites on the clashing airs and rhythms of Europe's "coolest city".
European? Cool? Us? JJ, the cool, black busker, shrugs in what might be an affirmative. "Well, you're more open to fun ..." He hesitates. Ominously. Spit it out, JJ. "OK, I've been just three months in Ireland and I've experienced more racial incidents here, than in the five years I spent in Holland and Germany. And before you ask, I can tell the difference between the serious stuff and what you call slagging."
Yikes. So much for the melting pot. But does this make us less or more European?
"It makes you the same as the rest of the world, no better, no worse," says Claudia gravely, in flawless English. She is a German au pair looking for a gift to bring back to her father. She disappears into Regalino, which is of course Italian for "little gift", and is owned, naturally, by a Greek Cypriot who also has branches in Cyprus and Lebanon. Yes, very European. A quick look up and down Grafton Street confirms the trend. Or does it?
There is Jigsaw, Monsoon, Wallis, Next, Principles, Miss Selfridge, Laura Ashley, Marks & Spencer, all British. Up to half a dozen British multiples are queuing to get into Grafton Street at any time and Debenhams and Boots are on the way. Commercial, efficient, value for money, sure. But European? Only if, in your mind's eye, Britain flashes up among your definitions of what constitutes Europe.
What is Europe anyway? A straw poll conducted among 10 twentysomething loungers around Temple Bar piazza reveals that 1) only six of them could name even one of the recent entrants to the EU (Sweden); 2) only three could name a European star" of any kind (Depardieu, the obvious; "that French fellow who did the Minicall ad" and "isn't Johnny Logan big in Germany?") and 3) the first image of "Europe" that springs to mind is - ....... wine?". And sure enough, according to the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, a respectable 12 per cent of us have some wine every week. But 41 per cent of us still drink beer.
Well, how about olives then, and exotic breads, and olive oil and that sort of stuff? In Cooke's little outlet in Dawson Street, they sell 12 different kinds of bread - from "normal" Joccacia to tomato and fennel to challah to sourdough - delivered hot, mid morning, to the shelves. In Cooke's food hall in Castle Market off South "William Street, there are 30 different kinds of olive oil, costing up to £27 for a litre of Laudemio. The Farm Shop in Powerscourt Townhouse has nine different kinds of olive, contained in nine vast buckets, implying a rapid turnover.
Yes we've come along way since 1972 when this reporter returned from California still dazzled by crispy lettuce (now your common or garden iceberg). Or since 1978 when Laura Magahy of Temple Bar Properties nursed a red pepper on the plane all the way back from Heidelberg to show to her mother. Or since Dermot Scott, an official with the European Parliament, could find olive oil only in pharmacies, and even then only in tiny quantities for vast amounts of money because it was used only for medicinal purposes. In more recent times, the only food item he has lacked in Dublin was moutarde a l'anciennes, a mustard which he habitually lugged back from the Continent in lovely big earthenware pots. Now he can get it in Donnybrook. And red peppers, olive oil, "French" bread and balsamic vinegar have become as common as carrots in supermarkets, where exotica such as ginger root and starfruit are virtually standard.
Meanwhile, though Bewleys still reels in the tourists, its coffee, as described by one former aficionado, is "but a milky drink" compared with the choice in coffee houses like Harvey's, or Gloria Jean's, or Cafe Java or the Costa Coffee Boutique, where up to 10 different types of coffee are on offer. We have become cappuccino connoisseurs among other things, and have taken to queuing up in the new style sandwich bars for pastrami and mascarpone on rye.
In good weather (and even in the odd hurricane), Dublin now becomes one big outdoor restaurant. Tables and chairs are clattered on to the sidewalks, canopies appear all over the place, and - in what appears to be a very Continental trend which may even be illegal here - publicans are exposing their premises to daylight, seating customers who want to see and be seen in big, bright, boldly transparent window spaces. And yet ... Asked about the single biggest transition she has had to deal with in seven years, Charo, the Basque shoe shop assistant, is still boggle eyed at the Irish passion for burgers and chips.
As for high design, we have stripped our floorboards, "distressed" crateloads of MDF, invested hard earned cash in sickeningly, impractical sisal flooring and anti mosquito candles in our ongoing love affair with Habitat and the Conranisation of design. We await Ikea as the next prophet. There is a consciousness that there are fashions in furniture and design. And so, more things to worry about, like are hanging baskets a bit on the naff side now, like shell suits and leggings? Not to mention the cheek of that steam cleaning man who muttered something about your lovely, cheeky, non removeable, Provenal couch fabric being stupid looking coated in coal dust when brown dralon was such a doddle to clean ...
SO is this what we mean when we think "European"? Well, we like to think of it as "European", says MEP Mary Banotti: "When it's put up to us, we say `yes, it is'. But what we're looking at, really, is the phenomenon of globalisation, which of course includes America and Australia." And thus the icons of our age: McDonalds, Home And Away, Coca Cola, Hollywood and holidays in Florida with Mickey Mouse. In the off licence, the wine is as likely to be from America or Australia as France or Italy. On the restaurant menu, the inspiration is probably more Cal-Ital or PacificRim than traditional European. Hell, even in Cooke's food hall, some of the olive oil is Californian.
On the hangers and in the home, US fashion designers Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan are the walking branded, and will soon be selling lifestyles to us alongside their modern, classic clothing; the relaxed US way of dressing is taking over the world, say fashion watchers. As for music and film something like 80 per cent of all movies watched in the EU are US produced. And how many musicians have been damned with the phrase: "But they never managed to break into America . .
Laura Magahy of Temple Bar Properties recognises all of this but is not oppressed by it. She perceives globalisation and niche marketing as two not mutually exclusive movements. They might even be complementary. As the burger merchants, for example, cut more swathes across the planet, we are driven to seeking out again the culturally richer, more interesting, independent cottage producers to counter the global blandness. In that way, we are learning to value and hold fast to those things that make us distinctive, uniquely Irish.
Magahy was one of several to refer to the revival of interest in the Irish language in this context.
We are still learning, still in transition, still discovering who we are, still marvelling at the fact that we are no longer a British appendage, that we can square up to a British prime minister or his minions 12 months of the year, on equal terms, through the legal structures of the EU. We can drive the breadth of Europe and never show our passports (unless returning through Britain): we can fill the car boot with wine and drive off the ferry with impunity.
Given a language or two (an awesomely embarrassing hiccup in our otherwise wholehearted global outreach), our children have the run of the single market in the search for new opportunities. It's reckoned that already there are about 10,000 Irish people floating around Brussels. Anyway, says Tanya Banotti (daughter of Mary), there were enough of them there recently to sell out the Flemish National Theatre on four consecutive nights for Observe The Sons Of Ulster. Ashley Gallagher (21), an Erasmus student in Strasbourg, says that only last year Dublin was her life. "Now", she says, "I think, when you're back there, sitting in Trinity, drinking coffee, what
On Monday, as John Bruton assumes the presidency of the EU on our behalf, it will mark the end of the first phase of Temple Bar's development, and a sort of coming of age for us. Temple Bar could not have happened without EU money (£24 million of it) but nor could it have happened without the courage and vision of Irish politicians, artists, architects and entrepreneurs. Monday is our chance to show off our distinctive cultural heritage in a new, uniquely designed square surrounded by such exotica as an outdoor movie screen and mechanical outdoor stage.
Are we Irish, European or people of the world? We may still be piecing together the jigsaw, but Monday brings another opportunity to take our place in the sun - and the chance to show that with a little help from our friends, we can be all three and still be the cool toast of Europe.
