Tourists in Ireland

Tourists? Bloody foreign...


...wait...

InTheTrees wrote: »

I've been in the USA for almost twenty years and i've talked to a lot of them who have been and advised others on going.

I am an American that has been visiting Ireland and living in Ireland off and on for the last 20 years. I'll see if I can lend some perspective for you folks.

They certainly dont visit for the weather.

True, but most visit in the summer, so the weather is really a non-issue. Most Americans understand it takes rain to make things green. Many places in the States get far more rain than we do here. Locals are usually surprised to learn that my home town of Austin, Texas usually gets more rain than Ireland does. It's just that, in typical American fashion, we tend to try and get it all in at once(hurricanes, storms, etc). Seattle can get twice again the rain we get here.

Be patient with them on the Irish thing. Most American visitors to Ireland probably consider themselves "Irish", which to them means their great great...great grand parents came from Ireland. However in the USA where everyone is identified by their ethnic background they would be Irish. SO thats why you'll have them looking you in the eye and saying they're Irish when they're plainly from California born and bred.

This is a point I see some Irish on boards struggle with. America is vast, and it has been settled with vast quantities of Europeans(not the least of which are Irish), Asians, South Americans, etc etc. Americans are first and foremost American. They are well aware of this unless they are Texans - then they are first and foremost Texan. The point being, everyone from America aside from folks like my Cherokee Grandmother, are from somewhere else. So the issue of 'heritage' or 'descendence' is assumed when someone claims to be Irish. We no longer use terms like "I am originally of X descent" or "My family is from Ireland" etc. It's simply assumed when an American tells another American that they are Irish, that they are of Irish descent... somewhere along the line. It doesn't translate well over here, so I can understand the confusion. When folks ask me if I am "Indian" or "Native American", I tell them either that I am 'part Cherokee' or that my Grandmother was Cherokee. For all the issues the Irish seem to have over Irish descended Americans, I am amazed at the attention I get for being 1/4 Cherokee. In the states, while I was growing up, I would rarely tell folks I was part Cherokee because it was certainly not cool to be so back then. And I sure as hell wouldn't plop down on the Tahlequah Reservation and tell the locals "I'm Cherokee". Nah, folks - Americans are well aware they are not "Irish" the same way Russian descendant Americans are aware they are not Russians.

And they've come from a country where anything over twenty years old is bulldozed and rebuilt. So just the sight of an irish house will have them swooning. Let alone a Castle. You have no idea how completely electrifying a Real Castle is to an American.

I tell folks here when they catch me being electrocuted by ruins that everything this old in the States is either made from mud, is pottery, or is carved out of a mountain.

Driving scares the living sh*t out of them, as it should. I always tell them to get a small car. And to use their indicators.

My first job in Ireland was driving a lorrie in Dublin. How I never killed anyone is still a miracle to me. I murdered wing mirrors by the score, though.

It has to be said, in my time in Ireland, I find the Irish are as completely confused about America and American culture as the Americans are of Irish. I try my best to be a good ambassador when I can. I am sure you good people do the same whilst Stateside...