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Carrot weather subscription3/28/2023 ![]() People must get some land when they turn up and find the old country might have changed from great granny’s stories We are hostages to authenticity, especially when it comes to travel and our own culture which of course is our biggest blind spot. But we cling to it just like we think we can only have a good experience if it’s “authentic”. I’ve long suspected self-awareness is the enemy of enjoyment and I think this proves it. The one thing these people seem to know how to do is have fun. They always look like they are having a good time taking photos groping the Molly Malone statue and tipping about churches to various distilleries. I envy the American and European tourists happily bopping around Dublin with their “Craic Dealer” hoodies and “Ireland” knitted hats with Viking horns on them. We are gleeful public shamers waiting to pounce on one embarrassing thing a person has done, using it as a stick to poke them with forever, usually in the form of a lifelong nickname. A man slipped on ice in 2010 and we still haven’t let him live it down thirteen years later. We live in a constant state of hyper-vigilance of doing, saying or wearing something that will cause our loved ones and complete strangers alike to exclaim “would you be well?” and roll their eyes in our direction.Īnd we would be right. For most of us, we can go about our daily business without fearing physical violence, it’s the emotional and verbal kind we need to look out for. In Ireland we would never wear T-shirts that say “Kiss me, I’m Irish” in the country where we all live with the threat of immediate and merciless slagging for our actions. This has nothing to do with attractiveness and more to do with avoiding a long winded, entirely unnecessary conversation trying to find out if they know anyone I know. I personally have never understood that T-shirt because I have never wanted to kiss someone solely based on their being Irish, in fact sometimes it acts as a deterrent. St Patrick’s Day, the one day of the year Ireland’s population swells to triple its size if we are to trust the honesty of everyone wearing a “Kiss me, I’m Irish” T-shirt.
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