Today is when I weigh up the good and bad of being Irish – and the good always wins

THE last time I actively celebrated St Patrick’s Day was four years ago – in Rome. I had spent the week working, waiting in St Peter’s Square for two days to see the white smoke that elected Pope Francis, and then decided to stay on, as Ireland were playing Italy in the Six Nations at the Stadio Olimpico on the Saturday, St Patrick’s eve. I managed to get my hands on a ticket, only to see us lose to the host side for the first time. A few weeks ago, I went to Murrayfield for only my second away game, and they lost that too, to Scotland. I’m not going again.

On the day itself back in 2013, I hooked up with friends who were also in town for the match, and while it was a bit chilly, we sat outdoors in bright sunshine at a restaurant on the Piazza Navona and had a lovely long pasta lunch and a couple of carafes of wine.

Carnival

Half the people in the square that day were Irish too, and there was a carnival atmosphere. We are, it has to be said, good fun when we’re abroad, and we can identify each other from 100 metres away. It’s nothing to do with green shirts – we have a gait, a way of carrying ourselves that, to me, anyway, is instantly recognisable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been abroad and seen people I thought to be Irish, and manoeuvred my way close enough to confirm the suspicion.

Whatever about ourselves, though, we like others to know where we come from, too. Like people from all countries dwarfed by a stronger neighbour, we are as determined not to be taken for English as Kiwis are not to be confused with Aussies, or Canadians with Americans.

Given the opportunity, we like to semaphore where we come from. We have been led to believe, by many independent surveys it has to be said, that we are the friendliest people on the planet, and that everyone enjoys our company. It’s a conceited boast, and only partly accurate (certainly, Australians are less than enamoured of the most recent Irish immigrés), but there is a grain of truth in there, and that seems enough for us.

We would, literally, talk to the dogs on the street if they listened. I’ve never quite been sure if this is gregariousness or nosiness, or a combination of the two, or if it’s just the fact that it is usually after a couple of pints or glasses of wine, but we do genuinely like to meet people, to hear their stories, and to tell a few of our own.

Many years ago, the foreign girlfriend of a pal performed her impression of him, which basically ran: ‘Hi, I’m Seán, and it’s my ambition to meet every person on Earth.’ She genuinely couldn’t understand why, when he was on holiday with her, he felt the need to talk to anyone but her, but that is fundamentally to not understand who we are.

We talk, we laugh, we sing. We even have old sayings – ‘a stranger is only a friend you haven’t met’ – to explain it.

Because we’re a small country, we also nearly always have a friend or acquaintance in common. It can be maddening, because there are times when you think you can’t do anything without someone you know hearing about it (and, certainly, I have no idea how people conduct affairs, because I’ve caught out one or two myself over the years, in places where they thought no-one they knew was within 100 kilometres), but it can also be a great icebreaker.

Gossip

What it boils down to is that even though we are a country, we also are a community. It can be stifling at times, and gossip comes as naturally to us as buying a round, but it can also be reassuring.

A small example. On the flight over to Rome that week, I was sitting beside a couple visiting the city for the first time. We got chatting and I was telling them a few places they should see, off the beaten track. Two nights later, I bumped into them outside the Pantheon and we laughed. ‘What are the chances?’ we wondered. Well, here’s what they are. When I arrived in the Stadio Olimpico and took my seat, they were right beside me. We agreed at the end of the game not to say goodbye, which was just as well, because a few hours later, we bumped into each other again. I began to get paranoid – the CIA couldn’t have mounted more effective surveillance, but equally I found it rather endearing.

Over the past few weeks, we have also been reminded of a few examples of the worst of Irishness – the haughty piety that led to Tuam, and the flawed morality of a bishop who did not hold himself to the standards he expected of his flock. Each underlined the problem of living in a small country with so many valleys where the windows twitched from dawn to dusk.

Equality

We are too fond of accepting as fact what is merely floridly embellished gossip and, conversely, ignoring facts that don’t fit our preconceived idea of how things really are.

At heart, though, we have become a more decent people, I believe. For the most part, we now live and let live; certainly great strides in social equality have been made in this century, though we still have a way to go. Maybe it’s because we still are a relatively young country and finding our feet, or maybe it’s down to greater exposure to other countries and cultures, but I believe we are changing for the better.

When I said Rome was the last time I actively celebrated St Patrick’s Day, that’s not because I have anything against it. I don’t go to the parade because I’m 53, not five, and I don’t go to the pub because, well, it’s full of kids, and nothing kills a decent pint faster than the squeal of a toddler having her hair pulled by her sister.

It is a day, though, on which I annually set out a balance sheet of the good and bad of being Irish, and the good always wins out. It’s an academic game, for sure, but if you could suddenly change your nationality, would you really want to be English, American, French, Japanese or Finnish?

Well, how could you know? Nationality is part of our DNA and, whether good or bad, there is no escaping it. That doesn’t mean you always have to embrace it either, but I will do so today.

As it happens, I’m away again, in Malta for a wedding today, so this evening I will stroll down to the Dubliner in St Julian’s and drown the shamrock. I’ll let anyone within earshot know I’m Irish – and no doubt I will learn, for the umpteenth time, that most of the strangers there are just friends I haven’t met.

A very happy St Patrick’s Day to you all.