I once called into a friend who had recently become a vegan. He put two steaming cups of black tea on the table. He watched as I poured milk into my cup and said that he couldn\u2019t fathom how anyone could drink the stuff, slightly shuddering. Ah, here, I told him, three weeks ago you were chowing down double-bacon cheeseburgers, so relax with your sneering. <\/p>\n
I get the same defensive reaction when I hear people who have moved away<\/a> from Ireland<\/a> scoffing about Ireland. It\u2019s the \u201cAre you guys still at that nonsense?\u201d attitude when people come back that exhausts me, like when someone watches you through a window as you scramble to take the washing from a downpour, and enlightens you with their idea that you should have just used the dryer. <\/p>\n When people deride the nation, I feel personally insulted, as though I am responsible for it all. Yes, The Late Late Show<\/a> is still on on Friday nights. No, you can\u2019t pay for public transport with your phone. Yes, all the good places in town are demolished. No, you can\u2019t get through A&E in under two hours. <\/p>\n [\u00a0I am an emigrant who has recently returned to Ireland. This is why I\u2019m glad to be backOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Maybe if emigrants<\/a> experience a kind of arrogance toward Ireland in their host country, they start to think of it more as backward. Very rarely, when I lived abroad, I felt a snobbery towards Ireland. An English woman described to me a man doing a very slow and bad job as \u201cbeing so Irish about it\u201d. She followed up with, \u201cSorry, you know what I mean, don\u2019t you?\u201d I feel like some of our wild geese would have responded, \u201cTell me about it. Sure, they\u2019re still putting out the Child of Prague in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n When younger people complain about the state of the place, others tell them they have no idea how much things have improved. My local park, now bustling, was a place where you\u2019d come out from a football match to find your car up on blocks, or get a brick thrown at your head when you were running for the bus. <\/p>\n It\u2019s in all of us, I suppose, to talk about how tough we think we\u2019ve had it. When I was living away, I laughed along as a woman from the west of Ireland and a man from eastern Pakistan competed over who had experienced the most disadvantage during their 1980s childhoods. A man from the North of Ireland tried to get involved, but he was immediately disqualified for having access to good roads and healthcare. They went tit for tat until the woman from Mayo announced that she had not tasted yoghurt until she was 12, emotionally recalling the first pot of Yoplait being unveiled in the kitchen. She was declared the winner.<\/p>\n \u201cThis place is a kip,\u201d Irish people say when they come back to visit from London<\/a> and Sydney. Ireland is not cosmopolitan enough, but the place is losing its character. The liberalism and globalisation that drive us to follow opportunities and fulfil dreams in other parts of the world contribute to our cities and towns becoming less unique. <\/p>\n