Jane writes with great insight and nostalgia of Ireland, the place where her
heart will always reside.
WHERE THE DUDE IS MY COUNTRY
The plane has swept over the Irish Sea; cattle on the green grass at the side
of the runway gaze into space. T’is a miracle the sun is shining. I’m back.
‘Cead Mile Failte’ [A Hundred Thousand Welcomes] to the Emerald Isle.
Danny Boy plays softly on the PA system.
‘Luvely ta see you, and when’re ya going back?’ The standard greeting to the
returning emigrant hasn’t changed.
Ireland became born again when the Celtic Tiger hit the Auld country with a
bang in the mid-1980’s. The EU poured in money, upgrading roads,
businesses and farms. The IT industry came to the party and the young well-
educated population grabbed the opportunities it presented. The ripple effect
was felt by the construction industry where plumbers, electricians and
carpenters are now the new elite.
In a few short years, we no longer educate for export; people travel, but have
jobs to come back to. No longer is it the mail boat to England and the building
sites. Ireland is booming.
Some things change, others do not. The airport is the same overcrowded,
frantically busy, disorganised place it always was. But who are all these
people of every shade and hue, and where are the luvely ‘Dub’ accents?
Waiters are drop-dead gorgeous brown-eyed Spaniards and green-eyed
Nordics, but where-oh-where, have my old ‘Dubbies’ gone?
Henry Street where the head-scarved ‘Dub’ ladies called, “Tuppence each the
ripe bananas,” and cackled and laughed, has been replaced with East
Europeans who don’t smile much; but then maybe they don’t have a lot to
smile about.
Outside Clarendon Street church the seat reserved for one of “them’s from the
flats” has been replaced by an almost-about-to-deliver East European
immigrant.
The musicians in nearby Grafton Street are cosmopolitan, everything from
duets, violins, mouth organs and fiddles to pan-flutes played by gorgeous
Latin Americans.
Dublin is a vibrant city, with inhabitants from all over the globe. Amazing how
many in distant lands had a granny or granpa who cum from Ireland! People
of all nationalities co-habit, and the Nigerian drug lords have their own niche
where no man dares to thread.
Africa is very well represented. Every counter in every little shop used to have
a collection tin for the black babies; people were very generous with their
pennies, but as the saying goes, “We didn’t expect them to come back in
person to thank us!”
Trinity College is still a landmark; but much has changed, Catholics graduate
these days …
Striped suited women drive 4x4s and kids are left in cręches. Mercs and
BMWs abound. I miss the old jalopies.
“Didn’t you want us to get on?” a friend asked when I lamented the loss of the
old familiar.
Then I remembered the golden rules of returning to Ireland.
Talk the same, no matter if it’s thirty years since you left.
Never, never criticise; leave that up to the locals, they’re mighty good at it.
“Who am I to complain or bemoan the changes” I ask myself? But deep
inside, I truly believed that with our history we could have taken all the good
things that came to us without the greed that goes with it … I must have had
my head in the clouds.
When I asked how Jo Blow is, and am told that now he drives a Merc, and
how well he is doing, how much money he’s making, then my heart feels sad.
The near hurricane in 1991 wiped out the Arklow North Beach that was so
much a part of my life. Only the dunes remain; the strand was reclaimed by an
angry sea. A part of me has died.
When the sun shines, Ireland must surely be one of the most beautiful places
on planet earth with its rolling hills, and green, green grass. The haunting
music and humour of the inhabitants is so special. For me, I love being Irish: I
just can’t live there. The grey clouds drove me away, but the Celtic blood is
still in my veins.
So Dude, although South Africa with its blue sky is now my home, Ireland –
that special land of my birth – will be my final resting place when my ashes
are scattered over the Irish Sea.