belgianwaffle

Ireland

Campaigning


Posted in: Ireland

Background: The Government is spectacularly unpopular even by the standards of incumbent governments. A general election looms.

A young man came to the door the other night campaigning for one of the parties in Government. He looked damp but smiled gamely. My withers were wrung. “How has it been?” I asked. “Not as bad as I expected,” he said enthusiastically, “nobody has kicked me yet.” He handed me a leaflet extolling the virtues of his candidate. The Princess surveying this new form of doorstep interaction somewhat dubiously asked me, “Should I get your purse, do you want to give him a tip?” “All donations welcome,” replied our undaunted campaigner.

On the 12th day of Christmas


Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Family, Ireland

A very happy new year to you. We have been celebrating Christmas offline. Santa came. Everyone got lots of presents. We visited Mr. Waffle’s parents. We visited my parents. We went to our friends’ house in East Cork which has neither computers nor television. We snuck up to Dublin for a new year’s eve dinner leaving my parents and siblings to the mercy of our children. We have no news. I hope that your Christmas was equally delightful and uneventful. Tomorrow the Christmas tree comes down and normal life resumes on Monday.

Everyone’s out of Step but my Johnny


Posted in: Ireland

My brother places great faith in what he calls “conventional wisdom”. I sometimes think that this is because he knows I lack any very clear idea of what it might be. Regularly, when people are complaining on the radio, I just don’t get it. In the case of a media attack, I see everything from the point of view of the person who is attacked and though I want to work myself up to righteous indignation, I just can’t.

On the other side, I have a slightly puritanical streak (my mother’s side, I think) which makes me probably over-punctilious about a lot of things others are more relaxed about. When I was in college, we were talking in one class about the concept of “scope of employment”. If something is “within the scope” of an employee’s work, then the employer is liable. So, said the lecturer, if Mr. X is a lorry driver and leaves his lorry dangerously parked while going into a bar for drinks and causes an accident, is that within the scope of his employment? “No,” we chorused obediently. “How about, if he parks his lorry and hops out to make a quick call to his wife [yes, I went to college when there were no mobile phones, what of it?] and while he is out, his lorry slips and causes an accident, is that within the scope of his employment?” “No,” I said immediately. But I was the only one and I still remember how odd that felt. It turns out that making the odd phone call is actually within the scope of your employment.

I feel I am always out of step with the public mood, surprised both by what irritates and, more particularly, by what doesn’t. Does everyone feel this way or is it just me?

The Weekend that Keeps on Giving


Posted in: Ireland

You will recall that a couple of weeks ago we were supposed to go to Edinburgh but ended up in Belfast instead. And our hotel room was free. And now we are not being charged for our flights to Edinburgh (not in fact cancelled due to snow as we told Aer Lingus in our letter looking for a tax refund). I feel very warm and fuzzy towards Aer Lingus who not only refunded but sent a very nice letter also. Season of goodwill, clearly.

The Middle Classes at Play


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland

We went to a performance of “The Snowman” in the Concert Hall with a live orchestra. I saw it advertised in September and thought it might be nice for us to go. A family Christmas outing. I forked out €70 (non-refundable) for this piece of Christmas cheer. When I announced the proposed treat at the start of December, the children all groaned. “We hate the Snowman, we’ve seen it loads of times before.”

The children’s best friends decided to hold their birthday party on the same afternoon as the Snowman. After much agonising we decided to stick with the Snowman even though a) our children would have loved the party and b) all three of them would have been gone from 2.30 -5.00 and we could have read the papers. They still don’t know that they missed the party. I really hope that they never find out.

On the day of the treat, we dragged them to the Concert Hall. The foyer was abuzz with excited children and their parents. Sample conversation: “Have you put little unpronounceable (aged 3) down for secondary school yet?” “No, actually we haven’t, but imagine the local primary school is no longer taking names for its waiting list”.

Despite their best intentions, the children did actually quite enjoy the show. In addition to the Snowman it had a range of other attractions. It featured Santa and, in a complicated plot development, the Grinch. The latter was stealing clothes from a washing line. When Santa asked where the Grinch was all the children in the audience roared out “behind the line” except for Daniel who shouted in his best demotic Dublinese “behind the li-on”. He is great at picking up accents. We have a CD of Irish songs and when Daniel sings along, he sounds just like a little boy from the Connemara Gaeltacht. I am hoping that this will be useful to him in later life. Have I told you this before? I digress. There were some songs from Glee all of which the Princess seemed to know (mental note – how?). There was much talk of the X-factor. There were carols. When asked afterwards whether they enjoyed it, the Princess and Daniel said that they did but Michael (despite ample evidence to the contrary during the show) said that he did not.

Emboldened by the relative success of the show after a poor start, we decided to go to Milano’s. The children were ravenous – having refused to eat lunch – and the sight in the foyer of a Christmas treat box sent the Princess wild. She really wanted that box. But we were going for pizza and her mean, horrible parents would not let her have it. Cue unfortunate meltdown in the foyer as a number of people we knew tripped out of the stalls. Sigh. The trip for pizza passed off peacefully though. We should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose.

Tomorrow: the pantomime.

Another Country


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Travel

Are you curious about our weekend in Edinburgh? Last weekend? Go on, you are dying to know. Well, what with the snow we decided not to go. Desperate to get away and completely snowed in, we decided to get the train to Belfast. Despite my mother’s concerns about our safety (she is not really a believer in the peace dividend) the most exciting thing that happened was when someone threw a snowball at the restaurant window on Saturday night and everyone in the restaurant jumped and stopped talking. More so than they would have in Dublin, I think.

Growing up in Cork, I never met anyone from Northern Ireland except my mother’s friend from round the corner who was so integrated that I thought she was from Cork (a real achievement that). I thought that people from Northern Ireland were nasty, difficult people who either berated you for not caring about the North or berated you for having an opinion because “the Southern State was founded on violence”.

I remember when the Good Friday agreement was signed, I was working in Brussels. A Spanish colleague left a rose on another Irish colleague’s desk with the message “For peace in your beautiful country.” We both thought that this was mildly hilarious. Me particularly because I didn’t even think of it as my country.

And then over the years, I started to meet and make friends with people from Northern Ireland and my views tilted alarmingly. They were the only properly friendly Irish people left – the Celtic Tiger had ruined any Irish friendliness south of the border and it was only now available in the North. I still believe that a bit though [lengthy aside coming] a recent trip to Athlone in the midlands made me feel slightly differently as people were very friendly. Alarmingly so. In a deserted but very glossy shopping centre (almost certainly owned by NAMA), I think everybody I passed made a point of talking to me. It also allowed me to have the following conversation on the phone with my sister:

Me: I’m in Tommy Hilfiger in Athlone looking for a present for our esteemed brother, any thoughts?
Her: Hysterical laughter. Tommy Hilfiger IN ATHLONE? That’s where the boom went out of control, right there.

Anyway, never mind that. Belfast. The train journey up was uneventful. Belfast had that weirdness that all of Northern Ireland has for me. Irish: the weather; the people; the landscape; the accent. Foreign: the post boxes; the post office; the car number plates; the money.

So, anyhow, because of the snow and the anxiety to get away, we had booked ourselves into the last room in the rather pricey Merchant hotel in Belfast city centre. I felt slightly guilty and have promised myself that the children will get new wind proof windows in their rooms before we go away again. On Friday, I had lunch with a friend from Belfast who was giving me sightseeing tips and, as it turned out, the men at the table behind us were also from Belfast – a rather exciting part of the city – and weighed in, utterly unintelligibly to me, with further advice. When they asked where I was staying, I told them and their jaws dropped and they said words to the effect that I must have more money than sense (alas, no longer true).

So, the hotel was to be the jewel in the crown of our stay. And it was very nice. But the heating in our room did not work. We complained. We were told that there was a problem in all of the Victorian part of the hotel. We went for afternoon tea in our hotel. We went to the Christmas Market. We went for a cocktail (I am not a drinker, I had one cocktail and a nasty headache for the next 24 hours, alas, I am never touching alcohol again). We went for dinner. The nice concierge got us a booking in a nice restaurant for the following night and all was well with the world. But when we went to bed, the heat was still not working. Under the blankets, it was toasty but outside it was freezing. The corridor was warmer. At 12.30 and 1 am the alarm went off and at 6 am a steady dripping sound as of water entering a radiator woke us up. We were unhappy. We made further complaints. A bottle of champagne came (useless to me as I will never touch alcohol again) but the room was still cold. Even the information, imparted by the Irish Times over breakfast, that the Merchant hotel was the place to go in Belfast, although making us feel pleasantly zeitgeisty, failed to win us over completely.

After a trip to the delightful Linen Hall Library, Mr. Waffle returned to the hotel to tackle a man from maintenance and I went shopping. The man from maintenance arrived. He noticed the radiator filling noise. There were no radiators he pointed out sagely. He then pointed to the ceiling where an ominous bulge hung over our bed. Then, the hotel went into overdrive. We were moved to another, larger, room (apparently the hotel was no longer full) and told that we wouldn’t be charged for our stay. Can I tell you how delighted I was? The children can still have new windows.

On Sunday, before returning home, we went to mass in Saint Malachy’s church and I was completely charmed by the interior which was recently restored and beautifully bright. Not normally a feature of Irish churches.

To summarise: Visit Belfast. Stay at the Merchant. For a budget option, try to get a room where the heat isn’t working.

Inevitably, our flights to Edinburgh did in fact go out and come home on time. Oh well.