I have always had a certain dismissive attitude – I was going to write “disdain”, but it felt too harsh (but is it more truthful?) – towards those who endlessly romanticise their country of origin, years after they have left. If you miss it so much, I’d think, why don’t you just go back?
Then, of course, I found myself here, in Indiana, instead of there, in Ireland. I started to use the word “home” to describe a state I barely know, a country I am barely, and very slowly, coming to understand.
There are a lot of things to miss about Ireland. I’m not sure I will ever stop missing it, especially if the political climate in the US continues in this direction: embracing fear and conservatism, rather than hope and optimism. As Ireland has made great strides in loosening the church’s hold on its constitution, it feels as though the US is shuffling in the opposite direction.
I am homesick and I don’t know if I will ever not be homesick. No return trip will ever be long enough, and even though I wouldn’t up and leave my family and my friends and my life here, sometimes I wish I could transplant them all there.
When I say that there are things I don’t miss about Ireland, what I mean is: I need to try to make myself less homesick, and I need to remind myself, by whatever means necessary, that Ireland isn’t all that great. I need this.
So without further ado, here is a short list of things that are Not That Great about Ireland. I’ll let you know if it makes me feel better
Gears
Forget Krispy Kreme and Starbucks and confidence in public speaking – if there’s one thing we should have adopted from America by now, it is automatic cars.
Why we are persisting in shifting through the gears at every stop sign and traffic light like literal chumps, I do not understand.
Traffic
The gear-shifting is, of course, made all the more tiresome by the absolutely shit traffic that seems to be everywhere, at all times.
In Fort Wayne – granted, not remotely close to being the country’s capital but I never said my comparisons were going to be fair and equal – you can drive anywhere in 20 minutes. To the supermarket, the hospital, the other hospital, the concert venue (even on concert night), the busiest shopping mall in town…
It is, I have to say, very freeing. (Although I suppose you never have traffic as an excuse for being late, so that’s a downside.)
The booze prisons
When did Ireland start keeping supermarket alcohol behind a little locked gate?! I entirely missed that memo and found it very off-putting, honestly.
The anti-social behaviour
I spent one day in town when I was home. I went to Marks & Spencer and bought the world’s best trousers (here’s an affiliate link; I recommend you buy them in every colour) and then I sat in Brother Hubbard in Arnotts and I met friend after friend and drank coffee after coffee and ate a lemony cauliflower wrap and a cinnamon and walnut scroll and I people watched.
I saw two shoplifting incidents; in the first, two security guards roughly dragged a man through the double doors and up the stairs as he struggled against their vice grips. In the second, I was on my way back to the Luas stop when a (different) besuited security guard sprinted past me and grabbed a different man by the collar. He shrugged himself out of the two jackets he’d put on over his clothes, their price tags dangling from their necks, and disappeared into the crowd of waiting passengers.
In Zara, I took a photograph of a loafer stuffed full of security tags.
As I waited for the Luas, I kept my phone in my pocket, my bag across my front, put my AirPods away. There were technical difficulties, according to the display, and trams were running at 15-minute intervals. When they did arrive, they were packed. I didn’t make it on to the first, instead sardined myself on to the second. My phone stayed hidden.
This is not to say that there is no crime in Fort Wayne. There is – and, what’s worse, almost anyone over 18 in the state of Indiana can carry a firearm without a license or permit – but I have never felt unsafe in a public place here, the way I did that day in Dublin.
I don’t even know if it’s new, if things have got worse, or if I’ve simply got used to living somewhere the type of petty crime I witnessed happens out of sight.
The endless chatter
Maybe it’s just the people I know and love, but it feels like there’s never a silence in Ireland — there’s always someone talking about the weather, or the Budget, or whose funeral they’re off to next.
Having grown used to spending a lot of time on my own, or on my own but with the baby, I missed having some (any!) time alone to just… breathe. Quietly.
The hot water (or lack thereof)
The hot water doesn’t run out in America. Don’t ask me how (and please, no one mention the environment). It just doesn’t. You can have a bath at any hour of the day, no questions asked and no immersion needed.
You can imagine my shock when I announced to my parents that I was going to take a bath and they told me I’d need to flick a switch and wait an hour (and you can imagine their shock when, two days later, said switch was still flipped…). The sheer inconvenience!
It goes without saying that none of this is enough to turn me against Ireland. But when I feel extra homesick, it sometimes helps a little bit to imagine myself sitting in traffic for hours, shifting through the gears over and over, knowing that, when I get home, I’d have to wait at least an hour if I wanted to have a relaxing bath.
I wrote a piece for The Sunday Business Post about emigrating. You can read it here, and see a stunning photograph of me looking elegant and relaxed on a dry stone wall. Totally normal. It’ll be in the print edition of the paper tomorrow.
Nowhere is Perfect