Irish courtesy meets stiff response

UPON our return from Germany and the Czech Republic we were immediately grateful that we lived in Ireland where the temperature, as we drove west from Cork Airport, was 17.5°C.

The evening before, sitting under the trees in Munich’s central square and enjoying a traditional dinner of sausages, sauerkraut and beer, I found myself shivering despite having a fleece-lined jacket zipped up to the chin and an incongruous sunhat to protect my naked head from hypothermia.

We are, I say once again, blessed to live on this temperate isle, never frozen (except, mildly, this winter) and never burnt dry by the sun. It is no wonder we are so amiable.

Our amiability is world famous. Nevertheless, it clearly comes as a shock to walkers we meet on remote paths in Czech national parks when we smile a greeting or utter a brief “Hello,” as we pass. Are we escaped lunatics, perhaps? Silent and expressionless, they hurry past. Maybe they have already warned one another – “Just keep looking ahead, Tereza!” “For God’s sake, don’t make eye-contact, Jan!”

We have found the same unwillingness-to-communicate with rucksack-toting German walkers on remote paths in the Canary Islands. We see one another from 100m away, but as they pass us we might well be invisible. !It is not as if we want to stop and settle down for a chat. But unflinchingly, unblinkingly, they keep their eyes fixed on the horizon and pass without a gesture or a word.

It may be a cultural thing, or perhaps a city thing. Perhaps these stony-faced beings are city folk, used to pavements milling with fellow humans, too numerous to acknowledge as individuals. The country people one encounters on walks generally acknowledge one. Perhaps city folk fear engagement – not that we, for our part, are seeking conversation. It is just that, being Irish, and meeting another human in a remote place, our natural instinct is to courteously acknowledge them as they pass.

How such reserved people can survive the shock of our nonstop native amiability when they visit Ireland I don’t know. As they drive the country roads, passing motorists whom they’ve never before seen, raise a hand from the steering wheel to wave to them as if they might be long-lost cousins. Even walkers on the verge wave.

When the strangers go walking themselves, those they meet pass with a cheerful “Fine day” or “Beautiful weather”. It must be traumatic for them to encounter such amiability. Happily, as they observe us in our native habitat, they shortly realise that the-friendly-greeting-of-strangers does not imply derangement, congenital madness or sinister intent. It is simply an instinct to which the Irish, perhaps foremost amongst European nationals, are naturally prone.

Upon our arrival home, we see that the spuds have gained inches during our week’s absence, but also note that the ground is parched. However, midweek, rain falls, not a downpour but a few hours steady drenching. Afterwards, when I stand outdoors in the silence of the night, moisture hangs heavy in the air and the post-rain mist makes a water-vapour screen across the world I can see in the beam of the yard light. Mist falls on every leaf of every plant. Bushes and trees glistens, their leaves silvered by the light. All is still, but sometimes a breeze gently lifts the leaves of the big sycamore and the leaves of the small shrubs stir. When the breeze passes, they stop moving and stand still again in the wet air, once again as unmoving as the earth beneath them, drinking in the minute droplets of the mist. We are promised a heatwave at the end of the week.

can you help?

Now, to change themes and elicit readers’ help in solving a piscine mystery. A reader from Schull writes to say that in January he noticed a strange fish amongst the non-breeding goldfish in his garden pond. When he netted it, he saw that it resembled a rainbow trout. Now, his pond is fed with mains water coming from a reservoir on Mount Gabriel which is stocked with rainbow trout. He wonders if a single fertilised egg could somehow have survived the pumps, pipes and water-purifying chemicals and arrived and hatched in his pond, a mile away. He would welcome the opinion of readers, whose comments I will publish or pass on.