When I was little, I had this concept of Ireland based on who knows what, and it was fantastic. It was a place of little white houses with thatched roofs and green grass and "fences" of stones on a countryside, where families lived in the same house for thousands of years. In my head, all Irish people were warm and welcoming and had delightful accents, and a vast majority of Ireland was rolling countryside such as the one seen in the pictures here. At some point I must have realized there weren't rainbows and pots of gold everywhere, but the magic of Ireland was something I was sure I'd find there and that I could not find elsewhere. I adored (and still adore) Irish folk music, and it was my dream to play the harp. I never ended up playing it--that was a pretty expensive hobby to undertake--but in fifth grade I started Irish dancing. What a thrill that was. I was going to be one of them! I'd curl my hair and put on one of those gorgeous competition dresses with the sequined celtic knots, and then I'd win every dancing competition I entered. The judges would love it, because they'd see how much I loved the dance, the culture. I danced for a few years and when I was 13 I actually went to Ireland.
That was a big deal. This was my entire life dream being realized. I went with a group of 30 girls ages 13 to 17 and a few chaperones, and it was a nice trip. Yes, there were a couple cities such as Galway that had cobblestone pathways and stores full of claddagh rings. Yes, there were castles, I stayed in two or three of them. There were a couple of the houses like the one in the picture above, a picture I took from inside the tour bus. We even visited the Dingle peninsula, where Gaelic is the main language and English is secondary. There was beer, there was folk music, there were a lot of potatoes and a wee bit of plaid, but for the most part it was pretty similar to the USA. They had museums that we visited as tourists, but they weren't significantly different from American museums. They have wool and crystal, we have our own major commodities. A couple people had strong accents, most were barely noticeable. We rode in double decker busses and I kissed the Blarney Stone, but I came home and that was that. Yeah, I was a little disappointed.
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But Ireland isn't actually a disappointing place. Irish culture is delightful, their people are plenty friendly, and they have a very rich history. This was my first major trip out of the country, though, and I learned some important lessons. You can't expect a culture to be a certain way. There is a ton of exaggeration and commercialization that goes on with certain cultures, Irish being among them. People would like to think of Ireland as a land of leprechauns and monks drawing the book of kells and cute dwellings in the countryside and crystal clear lakes. It is funny to think that all men wear kilts and play the bagpipe, and all women wear skirts and dresses with celtic knots embroidered on them, and play the harp. It would be cute if it was actually a culture entirely made up of people as talented as performers in Riverdance or Celtic Woman, or if they were all in touch with the Irish magic that they hold deep inside, but it's just not that way. Ireland is a first world country. It is a republic with a prime minister and a cabinet, and Northern Ireland has some of the most long-lasting violence in the world because of religious conflicts. It is an industrialized nation and people live in houses much like in the US. Of course there are some cultural differences, but it's much more like the United States than like any dream country I'd imagined. And no, I'm not still an Irish dancer.
The other major lesson from that trip is that going to a country should always be deeper than a tour because every country has museums and monuments if you're really interested, but probably you're there to see the culture and that you will not find on a tour bus, even a double decker one.
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