Musings on Assumptions
Hello again! Instead of apologizing for another drought of updates, I am going to actually answer a few of the questions expected of me from the study abroad office. And no, I’m not brown-nosing when I say this, but the questions asked really do apply and they even entertain the very same thoughts that I’ve been pondering in my time here in Ireland. So let’s get down to business, shall we?
The first entry that I will make is one concerning assumptions. Basically the question was: what did I assume before ever touching Irish soil, (or rather rock, there are a lot more rocks here than dirt after all) and what was I wrong about assuming?
Before I came to Ireland and even still to this day, I have been in love with Irish films (or fil-ims, as the Irish pronounce them). I think my first assumptions came from those movies like “War of the Buttons”, “The Secret of Roan Inish”, or “Waking Ned Devine”. Even the Welsh movie of “The Englishman Who Went up a Hill, But Came Down a Mountain” provided me with stereotypes of Irish culture. It was a culture I loved. I can’t really explain what it was about those movies. Perhaps it was how light-hearted and fun they were or maybe it was the stereotypical characters such as the Irish rascal, the woman that still loves him after all those years, the out of place foreigner, and the batty elder all inhabiting one tiny, rural town. Eventually, some big event would take place and everybody would have to come together. Perhaps what was so attractive to me about the culture was that even if the ‘big event’ wasn’t in an American’s reality a life-changing incident, it was important to the people of the village and they did their comical best to endure through it together.
With this in mind, coming to present-day Ireland couldn’t have been more different. The movies really prepared me for the rural and old Ireland. Needless to say, Ireland has changed into a modern country. A lot can happen in ten years, and Ireland is no exception, especially after joining the EU. I guess what I was expecting was to be situated in a small town, like in the movies I loved, EVEN though I knew that I was going to study in Galway. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Galway! I guess I was just expecting to be situated in a much smaller place, surrounded by farms and open fields, not shopping centres. As a quick aside, I was fortunate enough to stay in a small Irish town in the Gaeltacht (the heart of Irish culture) called Carraroe for a few days. If I had had my way, I would have spent the whole semester there, just learning about their culture and their language. If I move to Ireland, that's where I'm heading.
The pace of life has changed dramatically. Ireland has become a fast and efficient Western-European country. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the people have completely changed their ways, but here’s the biggest difference: Ireland is a young country now. What I mean by that is Ireland’s population is very young age-wise, with the vast majority being under 35. The older people that I was expecting to meet have either passed on or emigrated. (Wherever they have gone, they do not seem to be in Galway.) I suppose why I haven’t run into the characters from the movies that I grew up with is because the main characters from all of those films were all over forty. The movies may have been an accurate representation of Ireland ten years ago, but because all of the characters were old, no wonder I can’t find them in a young city.
I suppose that I am probably making this to be a bigger deal than it really is. The Irish are still very Irish. But you know the funny thing? I see it mostly in Irish men. The women of course are lovely too, but the real characters to watch are the men. They’re the ones that tease you and are there to have a good time. Maybe women are just not expected to behave like that. Who knows?
My biggest shock was with the Irish youth. This youth really just encompasses the majority of the female population under thirty. I have never seen so many girls try to look so American before. It’s awful! Irish television shows are all under the influence of American drama! (Well, not all, but a massive chunk are.) Shows like ‘The Hills’ or ‘90210’ seem to have a big impact. I’ve really seen this in the nightlife. To be fair, not every female is involved with going out to clubs. But practically every single girl that goes to the nightclubs has to wear that terrible fake tan with bleached-blonde hair and wear way too much make-up so that she looks like she just walked off the set from ‘The Hills’! Kayleena once remarked that when in the nightclubs, the only thing that changes from girl to girl is the little black dress that they’re wearing. Astute observation, I thought. I don’t mean to say that every girl is the same, far from it. But from the outside, they all look like American wannabes. Melissa even found her flatmate to have an imitation of an American accent. And she’s 100 per cent Irish! Weird. The four of us have taken to calling the clubbing girls Oompa Loompas. I think it fits them perfectly.
As far as imitating other cultures, the Irish have an interesting history. It’s not their fault, really. After so many years of colonization and horrible things done to them by the British, their pride has really taken a beating. One of my Irish professors made an interesting observation. I can’t remember when she said it was, but the Irish had lost their flag. And she didn’t mean that this was a physical piece of cloth. It was in some major sporting event (I am so sorry I can’t remember which it is!), but the Irish won a tournament against England. And it was then that they reclaimed their flag. Suddenly people were proud to be Irish again. I don’t mean to take you through all of Irish history, but let’s just say that everything about being Irish was repressed. And even up to the present day, through the Troubles, Ireland has had a rough history. Think about the loss of their language. (It turns out that Irish don’t speak Gaelic, they speak Irish. Gaelic is a general term, or base for Ireland and Scotland.) People were actually beaten for speaking Irish in school. Can you believe that? So naturally, they were forced to abandon their culture and turn to England. Through a lot more history that if you are truly interested, I can explain more another time as I was required to write four essays on the matter (>__<), the Irish eventually reclaimed their heritage. They stopped looking to England as a role model and began to look at their past. The only thing is that now, in 2009, the Irish may have turned their gaze away from England, but concerning popular culture, they’ve refocused it on Southern California.
Well, until next time,
~Elyse