Leer and Loathing in Killarney
By some curious combination of misadventure and recklessness, I ended up in Killarney yesterday afternoon.
There is no finer place in Ireland for people-watching, because most of them are foreign, and the rest of them are drunk. It’s a town overrun by bum-bag enthusiasts, brown-suited mart hags, and English hen parties, a town stinking of damp horse shite and chips. Killarney churns a ludicrous mix of Paddies dragged, roaring, into the twenty-first century, and coach tours from Bradford. Fuck it, I’m fond of the place. I really can’t help myself.
So I sat, eating a wild mushroom risotto, in a pub with framed prints of Muhammad Ali and a view of a car park, and plastered nationality on passers-by like a ‘Cinta plastering foundation over the pockmarks on her chin. Liberally, and nonchalantly; there’s as much chance of my mislabeling a tourist as ‘Cinta miscalculating her coverage – we’re both well practised, instincts honed like an Irish Mammy’s goosepimples to a quietly pregnant daughter-in-law. Let’s face it, tourists are easy to weigh up, and just as easy to mentally cast aside. Why can’t we stop ourselves indulging in such knee-jerk judgement, though? Why must the most haphazard gang of layabouts in Europe catalogue and classify so?
Americans are the easiest, of course, both in benevolent catagorisation and less benevolent niteclub seduction. They wander, looking pleased with themselves, with a Canon slapping their belly and their hands behind their backs. They tend to be in their sixties, with an occasional thirty-something son in tow. The women have long grey hair, tousled on top of the head like a stubborn haystack on a fault line. Their trousers are linen and migraine-coloured, like a homage to the town of Kinsale. Younger Americans have big brown eyes and Tippex teeth, and are permanently langers. And the Irish are suitably dismissive, jealous because when we have a Canon slapping our belly he’s unwittingly inspiring a two-page expose of the ills of the Catholic Church in the Sunday fucking World. Besides, if poked on the shoulder by a suspicious Irish farmer type who’s never had a stroke that’s been anything but a medical disaster, tourists must be sure that the answer given to his barked,
“State?”
… is NOTHING BUT,
“a’ him, la!”
Tis how we pick those we fleece for Pog Mo Thoin t-shirts and extortionate B&B rates, you know.
Those coach tours from Bradford aren’t too far off our American visitors, at least in terms of hair colour, likelihood of glaucoma, and number of grandchildren. But a Paddy can differentiate between a Texan and an English interloper without breaking much of a treaty sweat. The trousers are pastel, and match the anoraks. Hair is cropped and glasses dainty; all of our English coach-party visitors look like they’re auditioning for a Shredded Wheat ad. And we’re quite tolerant of them, because they say soothing things like, “Our Arthur were over here in t’nineties, weren’t you, Arthur? Wedding, I think. Were it ‘wedding, Arthur?” Young English visitors are a fucking nightmare though, with their kilts and bad shirts and furry pink cowboy hats, oh yes, leaving a trail of traffic cones and unplanned pregnancies behind them. We’re wide to you, Jack and Jill! Doggy wide!
The French live on yogurt, fag smoke and disdain. The Spanish (including, do you think, our Manuel Estimulo, who is hardly a whispering wonder?) are to be found in internet cafés, screeching as if they believe broadband to be barely a step up from a tin can on a string. Germans are on bicycles. Poles stopped being visitors when they started ending every sentence with “d’you know what I mean like?”. And that’s pretty much it; no one else in their right mind would come anywhere near Ireland and its rosacea-riddled politicians and majestic herds of chick-lit authors.
I sat classifying tourists in the pub today. I sat eating faux-posh/faux-pas risotto from an almost-horizontal position, legs splayed and braying through forkfuls, and I thought, “What the suffering Jaysus are you doing here, tourists? We’re xenophobic cattle-fanciers on elderly tractors, and that “disarming friendliness” is mere nosiness pickled and packaged in fear!” Our mountains are foothills, our foothills are potholes … yet you daft fuckers just can’t keep away, can you? You’re as bemused to be enjoying Killarney as I am!
So not only do we classify the bright-eyed and tall-taled out of habit, but out of suspicion and boredom. And so’s we can get our own back for Far And Away. You heard me, Kidman! You’ll get yours!
[...] This post was Twitted by ManuelTheWaiter [...]
I’ve been working on a tourist post for the last week……..shouldn’t have bothered you have summed them up just perfectly……I’m off to trawl YouTube instead for people falling over and cats that think they’re people…….awesome…..
I hate to think that I’m going to stand out in such a way by the time I finally make it over there.
Manuel, I was only thinking that the “great minds” hypothesis could be a problem. Then again, what harm to have your spin on the situation? I’m sure it’s not as ridiculously histrionic as mine. Plus I want to know how you classify through watching table manners.
Minnow, seriously. It’s not you. It’s us. Don’t forget the “State ‘a him, la”, though. It’ll get you out of heaps of trouble, and certainly am/bem-use your hosts.
Minnow: its not us… Its very much you…
First went to Killarney on a school tour but later spent some time there living with a wan. And I can tell ya the living there was no picnic. It has the problem of being a one trick town.
Lies and slander!
It has its own Dunnes Stores, you know.
That’s a common misconception Sweary. If you look closely, it’s actually ‘Dunnnes Stores’, with three ‘n’s. They offer much the same range of fare as their multi-store namesake(ish), but with a guarantee that everything — even the fruit — contains Potassium Benzoate.
I’ll pog your thoin alroigh.
“jealous because when we have a Canon slapping our belly he’s unwittingly inspiring a two-page expose of the ills of the Catholic Church in the Sunday fucking World”
Well thanks, that’s my monitor ruined due to splorting water.
It’ll be Norn Iron for me, but I’m sure I’ll stick out like a sore thumb.
What about the 5-pack of black socks, Flann(n)?
Watsface, you couldn’t pog ma thoin, not if it involved bending down in those tight white jeans you wear … unless perhaps I stood on some sort of step ladder? I know a good height-for-hire company.
Sparra, so long as you’re not of Romanian descent, or so long as you don’t have dark eyebrows or anything else suspicious like that, you’ll get along just fine, so you will.
Surely all of these prospective tourists must have a certain set of ” pre-qualifications ” that satisfy their desire to visit this fair isle , and in particular, Killarney. To my mind, this belligerent set of sight seers would have to have an unabiding desire for all things green, a curiosity for tacky curios,and a yearning for watery beer and it’s inflated prices, in short a psychotic desire to be willingly fleeced in all their glory, and to actually enjoy it!!!!
Still I suppose ’tis what keeps our decimated economy grinding on.
More of these people I say !! Ryan air should be paying them to come here…
Hola Sweary!
I am not want to be a pedantrist, but you need TWO tin cans on a piece of string, one at either end. One tin can on a string is only any good for praying.
besos
Manuel
Killarney is the last bastion on earth where those folks fae Amerikay travel all that way across the water to sample the porter, only to leave it sitting on the bar minus the one sip.
Many a good neet has been had in oul Killarney following the Americans fae bar to bar.
““Our Arthur were over here in t’nineties, weren’t you, Arthur? Wedding, I think. Were it ‘wedding, Arthur?””
Pure bloody class.
Young English visitors are a fucking nightmare though, with their kilts and bad shirts
Wrong nationality, it really ticks me off that Irish consistently use English when they mean British and you go a step further by, and about nine steps too far, by mixing English & Scottish up.
Nice site by the way really good having you and that waiter in the same place saves time
What are you on about, man? I know the difference between English and British … what d’you think I am, something out of The Simpsons? I have NEVER met an Irish person who said “English” for “British”. We’d be pretty sensitive about that ourselves! We don’t even recognise the term “British”!
There’s a reason you’ve never seen an Englishman in a comedy kilt, clearly. It’s because you’ve been on a stag weekend in Killarney.
But yes, very handy to have the one-stop-shop for the comedy, isn’t it? Saves me time as well.
Neil’s right – I officially declare war on English people in kilts (unless they are paying me a fortune to perfrom outrageously bad ceildh music at their daughter’s weddings in our quaint castle-like function rooms).
How dare you confuse us righteous scottish bastards with those whingeing southern pups. Almost made me think you were from Kerry.
Read.
The.
Reply.
Above.
But yes, agreed that English people in kilts are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.
I would also like to point out that wearing a kilt does not automatically mean that you are Scottish. You could be a poncy male Irish dancer or a bagpipe fancier or indeed some sort of Roman Centurian. Now who’s mixed up (and not a little exclusive).