Oh the Irish.... what could I possibly say about them which hasn't been said a million times before and by better writers than myself? They are amazing people, so content in their pessimistic views on everything it is unreal and more than a little wonderful. They will complain about everything including the fact they are happy (if they happen to be so at the time) because they know it will end and this momentary lightness in their life will infact turn into a shit storm of epic proportion..... or it won't and they will complain that it hasn't. What strikes me as fantastic, is in all of this complaining, looking for the downside to any situations, total self-deprecation there is an absolute joy going on behind it and the way they use words.
My favoirte part of this gloom and doom attitude is how readily it is admitted and joked about by the Irish. As a classmate mate of mine told me as we were discussing the Tiger years and the current situation, "We didn't really know what do with the success. We were uncomfortable with it. Being broke is easier for us to handle. Success is bad for our ego." I know she was joking, but I think there is a certain truth to it. While I was out on Saturday it was amazing to listen to the way people talked, not just about others, but also about themselves. It made my own brand of self-deprecation seem amature. The Irish have taken self efffacing to a level I could only dream of acheiving. It is like they view themselves as a country of failures, never mind the fact they created the modern novel, won more Nobel Prizes per capita than anyother country, started a national literary movement and made it a success in less than twenty years and a whole other slew of things.
Of course, if you ask them, they don't look at it as an achievement, but rather as an omen of utter disaster waiting right around the corner. I love it.
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