How does the rest of the world see us? It’s a question that – if you’re Irish, at least – is endlessly fascinating. If you are among the roughly one million of us living abroad, getting to know the stereotypes the rest of the world privately harbours about you isn’t just fun, it’s about survival.
The stereotypes of us as drinkers, pugilists and poets linger on, of course. But have the years of austerity and our recent exit from the bailout changed anything? Does the rest of the world detect a new maturity in us? Or are we still, as that now infamous recent article in the New York Times seemed to imply, a nation of morose pigeon-eaters? Here are seven unexpected stereotypes of Ireland and the Irish, collected during the five months I've spent in Australia.
1 The Irish are genetically incapable of anger: I've been asked at least three times whether Irish people ever get angry. This wasn't a jibe about our "roll over and play dead" response to austerity; apparently it's all about the accent. "You Irish people, you make everything sound hilarious. I can't imagine an Irish person ever getting angry," someone said recently. I suggested she listen to Liveline.
2 Unless you won't accept a drink from us: That "go on, go on, you will,
you will, you will, what's the matter, are you on antibiotics?" routine we think is so endearing and a reflection of our generous spirit? Other people find it faintly threatening. Some – especially those who are pregnant, health-conscious, working early in the morning, or just, you know, not Irish – occasionally don't feel like an alcoholic drink, but they're afraid to say so in case we get offended. Which we do.
3 We don't speak English: I had only heard rumours of this one until the death of Peter O'Toole last week, when the anchor on one of the main channels here said: "I'm surprised to hear he's Irish. He has such a great command of the English language." A related take on the stereotype is that we don't actually have our own language – Irish is just "English spoken in an amused tone".
4 We have unpronounceable names: Aoife, Maedhbh, Tadhg, Domhnall, Aoibheann and Caoimhe are all beautiful, lyrical names, but to the uninitiated they are baffling sequences of vowels and consonants, conjured up purely for the hilarity to be gleaned from watching other nationalities try to pronounce them. I wasn't living here long when a woman I had just been introduced to leaned across and asked me how I spelled my name.
“J-E-N-N-Y,” I said.
“How do you pronounce it?” she asked.
“Jenny,” I replied.
“So, a bit like ‘Jenny’?”
“Yes, Jenny. Or Jennifer. Or Jen.”
“And you’re Irish?”
“I am.”
“Wow,” she said and wandered off.
5 Ireland is a tax haven: There was a time when you asked people of other nationalities for their impressions of Ireland, they could be relied upon to murmur something about rolling green fields, the castles shrouded in mist, the Book of Kells, Roy Keane, U2 or even the rain. Now, as I found when I tried this out last week, they're far more likely to say "tax haven". The economic crisis doesn't seem to have registered on the radar of most Australians, nor the fact that we're exiting the bailout.
6 We lose the run of ourselves in the sun: No one in my house sets foot outside unless they're lathered in factor 30. After five months of sunshine, we are all still a shade best described as "Avonmore". And yet, hardly a week goes by without someone helpfully approaching me and suggesting that I put some sunscreen on.
7 We are obsessed about our Irishness: When we're abroad, we do tend to talk about home a lot. To each other, we rhapsodise about Tayto and Fry's Chocolate Cream and Grafton Street in the run-up to Christmas. To those from other countries, we are instant authorities on everything from the Troubles and the collected works of several dead poets to the myriad ways in which Ireland is socially and culturally superior to the place in which we're now living. We are, I'm told, at risk of coming across as a tiny bit smug and self-obsessed. Self-obsessed? Us? I've no idea what they mean.