Forgive us, Matt, these times are taking an awful toll...
SORRY. We’re not normally like this. Normally, when we bang on about how celebrities like coming to Ireland because we tend to leave them alone, we actually mean it. Just ask Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. They spend most summers here and nobody pays them any heed. Radio stations don’t phone them up. Retiring broadcasters don’t leave notes in the local butcher’s requesting interviews. I cycled past their house last summer and I didn’t even look up. Daniel O’Donnell is more famous in Donegal than Carrie Bradshaw. He’s the nice chap who stands outside nursing homes and sings.
Or ask Bono. He will cheerfully confirm that most people in Dalkey and beyond think he’s a bit of an eejit. He might be the most famous rock star on the planet, but he can walk around his hometown unmolested and largely ignored. When he orders food in a restaurant, it doesn’t come with a side order of selfies.
Spandau Ballet lived here for a year and were sometimes asked to pay into nightclubs. John Boorman and David Puttnam still live here. As does Jeremy Irons. And none of them was ever subjected to the extraordinary level of interest you’re currently receiving. No celebrity that has walked amongst us in the past has ever had to endure what you’re putting up with.
And with all due respect, it’s not you, it’s us. You’ve been the subject of two questions in our weekly family Zoom quiz now, and nobody knew the answers to either (The Last Duel and Good Will Hunting, if you’re interested). I doubt if my mother could pick you out of a line-up.
But we’ve gone a bit mad, you see. Some of us are children on the longest school holiday in history and more of us are behaving as though we are. Our sense of proportion has been dented out of shape. Faced with a gigantic catastrophe that is not of our making, we are sweating the small stuff like never before.
I don’t know if you’ve been listening to Liveline in your beautiful bolthole, but normally that’s a forum to give out about the Government. You may have noticed that at the moment, it’s mainly being used to break up fights between veteran Eurovision performers, to give out about tampons and to discuss sex scenes in a television programme.
ABOUT that television programme – that’s another indicator of how we’ve gone mad. In normal times, TV shows will come and go, and people will watch them or not. We don’t normally treat TV programmes as though they are the most important art since the Mona Lisa. But like I say, these are not normal times.
We’re not normally this sad. I mean, we all have our moments, but this over-arching sadness that clouds most days is quite alien and strange to us. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. We can laugh and sing and appear quite joyful and even optimistic, and then we hear the numbers and it makes us sad all over again. I don’t know if anyone has explained to you how wretched and awful it is to be relieved to hear that four people have died, when three months ago, we’d have been utterly horrified by that news.
And when you’re sad and scared for as much of the time as we are, then you need to blow off a little steam and find the silver linings. I’m sure you never imagined that would be you. That Matt Damon, all-American actor and apparently nice guy, would become Ireland’s national silver lining during the worst time of all our lives. To be fair, you didn’t apply for the position. You just came here to make a movie.
When all this is over and you eventually go back home, please don’t judge us too harshly or advise your celebrity friends to give us a wide berth. When things get back to normal, we will pretend not to notice famous people again.
And we didn’t mean to torment you. We didn’t intend to elevate you to some near mythical status. You were just the right man in the right place at the wrong time. And we thank you for it. Love, the people of Ireland. PS Please don’t leave us.