Melissa Kite has narrated this article for you to listen to.
The £80 million super-yacht with a helicopter on the upper deck sat in the harbour, and we sat outside the ice-cream parlour in an old banger that had broken down.
Our dear next-door neighbour in Ireland had taken us to chi-chi Glengarriff in the Beara peninsula and had insisted on driving us, because she has her car crammed full of essential clobber, like her walking sticks and a shopping basket nicked from the local supermarket in which she stashes her supply of duty-free cigarettes.
The sheep-shearing, diddly-dee Ireland they have, very cleverly, preserved for the Americans
We made a motley crew, the builder boyfriend and me and this doughty Irish lady who drove her old banger along while shouting out the open window at anyone who annoyed her, such as a driver in front indicating to turn right then slowing down to make the turn. ‘What the feck are ye doing? Ye eejit!’ she yelled.
Hurtling along, as the BB and I clung to our seats for dear life, she swerved and shouted her way to a little restaurant in the bay of Ballylickey, where lunch was delicious.
But then the good lady decided she would like to show us Glengarriff, another few miles along the coast.
As we approached, we caught sight of a yacht so big that the BB, a keen yachtsman, recognised it from an article he had read. He was telling us all about the billionaire who owned it as we swung into the main street, veering from side to side as our septuagenarian friend let rip at all the tourists daring to try to cross the street in front of her. ‘Get out of the way, ye feckin’…’
Glengarriff reminded me of nothing so much as a themed village at Disney World. Swing-door shops selling what the world would like to think Ireland is about, along with cute cafés and brightly painted bars outside of which sat young people with fiddles playing what the BB calls diddly-dee music.
It was heaving with tourists, mostly Americans, who must have thought they had died and gone to heaven. This is what Ireland is like in the mind of someone with Irish ancestry who lives in New York or Florida or the Midwest. This is not what Ireland is like, obviously.
If the Americans came to where we live, they would be a bit stuck unless they fancied a mooch round the charity shop where stained curtains can be purchased, a microwaved burger from the Pizza Palace or deep-fried chicken balls from a Chinese restaurant which once served the BB spare ribs with a piece of metal wire, and he said that was the least offensive thing about it.
As for traditional Irishness, if you ask our verbally dexterous friend what she thinks of the beautiful Irish language, or listening to fiddle music, she’d look at you like you’d gone mad. She’s looking forward to a trip to Benidorm and some more duty-free cigs.
The sheep-shearing, diddly-dee Ireland they have, very cleverly, preserved for the Americans, however.
And our neighbour wanted to show it us for a laugh. So after screeching into Glengarriff she swerved over the wrong side of the road to park where she fancied, blocking the oncoming traffic and, when the driver of a German camper van that couldn’t get past wound his window down and screamed at us, she screamed back: ‘Feck off! Eejit!’
Then she demanded an ice cream.
I went into a pretend ye olde organic Irish ice-cream parlour to get them and we sat in the car slurping them, and all the while she had the key turned in the ignition, which we found out once she tried to start it up again.
Then we sat in this broken-down old banger with our dripping cornets and floaty dressed tourists, including the super-rich from their yachts, walking by staring at us, and backed-up camper vans pipping their horns, and our friend announced she was going to get out and flag someone down to jump-start us.
Whereupon the BB said enough was enough, slurped the last of his ice cream and jumped out. Standing behind the car, he shouted at her to turn the key, put it in gear and take the handbrake off.
As the builder b pushed the old banger forwards down the wrong side of the road, the oncoming traffic had nowhere to go.
‘Stop! Stop! Stop pushing for feck’s sake!’ screamed our friend. I couldn’t do anything. I was doubled up in the back seat laughing.
The BB kept pushing as she shouted. The oncoming cars loomed closer. She screamed and swore. I shut my eyes. And then with only inches before we hit the car in front of us, the engine started.
The BB jumped back in the car and told her to drive. Drive! As the gawping American tourists stood staring, she let out a volley of expletives that would strip paint, screaming at everyone to get out of her way and, as the car screeched across the road, the BB waved at them all and shouted: ‘Welcome to Ireland!’
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