Looking at home with fresh eyes
Gemma's back in Cavan for Christmas and looking at it, its people and customs with fresh eyes in this week's The Good Life column...
Reverse culture shock is a real thing. I haven’t experienced it at its height but it certainly comes in bits here and there. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Since coming home to Ireland, I feel like a bit of an outsider, looking in and judging our culture, traditions and just how we go about our day-to-day lives.
On the day I returned to Ireland, I received news that a dear customer from the pub I work in had died. Our conversations never really passed the weather and how busy it was the previous night, but this particular customer was always there, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the creaminess of the black stuff.
As was pointed out at the funeral mass, he was an independent man, living alone, and I knew he would only come to the pub for companionship – the place of the Irish man’s divorce. This particular line from the priest that day stuck with me. Initially because I half expected some people to leave the chapel or at least see some outraged faces for a comment that singled out men.
Then I remembered how rural Ireland differs from Brussels. The pub in Ireland is a focal point, a place to meet after work, to have the craic before heading home, a place to relax and chat to your neighbours.
For me, pubs have always been a special place. I can say that more heartily now after doing a few shifts in my local again. I was shocked to see genuine happiness in people’s eyes when they saw me behind the bar again.
Rather than hugging (because in Ireland we don’t hug) some people held my hand as they asked me how I was getting on, if I’m happy and what my life is like now, and I in return enquired about what has been happening at home.
The pub is a place of connections and craic, you can come in anything work clothes covered in sawdust, hands drenched in oil, cow dung hanging off the boots, football gear – anything. You will always be welcome. Pubs are a special place. Yes people fall off the stools, run their mouths and maybe don’t return home from time to time but that has less to do with the pub and more to do with people’s own responsibility.
In Brussels, the atmosphere is different. The pub is a place of networking, whoever speaks the loudest will be heard. Let’s just say I would rather sweep cow dung off the floor than listen to it.
During one of my shifts last week, I had the pleasure of serving a group of women on their Christmas get together. As I pulled pints, I tuned into one of their conversations about young people going out over Christmas. Although coming and going, the jist of it was that young people, who in their preparations for going out over Christmas, were coming into work with orange arms and necks with white hands and faces.
This conversation often comes up in Brussels. A lot of people who I met and later added me on Instagram said they didn’t realise I was Irish until they looked at photos of my time going out in Ireland – heavy make-up, fake eyelashes, glitter everywhere and indeed tan everywhere except for my hands and face before the make-up. The reason for this is because tan always looks strange on my face, it never balances right and it always turns out blotchy.
As for the hands, it seeps into the creases on your knuckles and fingers and makes a pure and utter mess. It just doesn’t look natural. I’m laughing as I write this.
The mentality behind it all is crazy. So much effort goes into looking natural, when the most natural thing of all is doing nothing. I loved wearing fake tan. I always thought it enhanced an outfit to no end, made me look skinnier, older, more mature – everything. As for the make-up, the reasons for wearing it were much the same. Moving abroad, where nobody else bothers with it, I found I could enjoy a night out just as well without it. Now as I head out with my friends over Christmas and New Year’s, I do feel somewhat underdressed compared to them, but I feel more like myself. I think comparing ourselves to others is the root of the problem in Ireland, something Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and all the rest thrive off.
These are just some of many things I have noticed since returning home, but really I could write a book.
Us Irish are very peculiar beings, but in all our slagging one another and saluting magpies, we really are among the kindest bunch you will ever meet.
I say this after spending my New Year staying with friends in the wonderful West Clare, in a place known as Kilbaha. We walked the stunning coastlines and headed out in the small tourist village of Kilkee on Sunday night.
Unfortunately, bank holidays aren’t celebrated in Belgium so it was back to work with a bang for me on Monday morning.
I hope everybody enjoyed their new year’s celebrations and wishing you all the best for 2023.
* Gemma Good is from Killeshandra and a third year journalism student in University of Limerick
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