Colm O'Regan: Why Old Town areas in Europe make me mad at Ireland

Street in the old town of Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain

As Phil Lynott might say, “I’ve been spending my money in the old Old Town”, and dammit Continental city, you’ve done it to me again. You’ve made me cross at Ireland.

It’s been seven years since I was last in a continental city’s Old Town. You know the vibe. Pretty much any southern European city has an Old Town. Narrow streets, cobbley-pavey surfaces that are there a good while and not trying to evoke anything, architecturally speaking. 

People actually living in the centre. Cafés everywhere. Men frozen in 10-minute handshakes, chatting and smoking, toting large purse-wallet-handbag thingys, no doubt discussing their daughters’ upcoming weddings. 

Teenagers on Vespas on their way to give their onion-cutting grandmother some timely Kleenex, children shouting: “Papa!” for no reason, a Sophia Loren lookalike greeting an Isabella Rossellini lookalike. Groups of young people drinking the exact appropriate amount to drink, laughing loudly at a multi-layered joke. 

Any minute now they will spring up and run off in three directions, hop into different colours of the New Renault All- Electric ‘Aha!’ to see who arrives at the fountain first. And guess what? It’s the woman! She’s so trixy.

A thoughtful old woman carrying a book on philosophy to deliver a lecture to more satin-skinned young people, half of whom will end up working in Silicon Docks, loving the money, hating their new country’s obsession with chicken-fillet rolls. Little shops still owned by the people whose name is over the door, and not ultimately by the Saudi wealth fund.

Tobacconists. Newspaper sellers. A twinkly-eyed grandfather mending clocks. We don’t talk much about what his father did during the War. A kindergarten full of Kinder Bueno children. Everyone’s trousers fit them properly. No sign of a Spar.

Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Pic: Denis Minihane.

Into this tableau clatters me, head-to-toe in Penneys, muttering: “And the absolute state of Ireland compared to this.”

Each time I swear I won’t do it. But there’ll be some specific bit of Irish nonsense on the way to the airport that will prime me for self-loathing. I’ll be watching a toddler steal a bike, a dog owner disposing of their dogshite by ignoring it, a fight videoed for TikTok.

Then, after two minutes in the Old Town, someone will say: “Scusi” and I’ll be off. “HOW COME THEY DON’T SAY SCUSI IN IRELAND? THAT’S JUST TYPICAL.” 

Everywhere I look I see The Episode of A White Lotus Series Where They Go Down The Town.

Continental cities are like catnip to the Irish because they’re close to home and offer a tantalising glimpse of what city life could be like.

It’s not the same in an American city. Yes, some things will blow you away, like a general can-do attitude or a skyscraper. But then there’ll be something to remind you how things ain’t half so bad at home. 

The waiter bringing you a five-gallon drum of ‘soda’ is armed with a Kalashnikov, someone is dropping their child off at Salute The Confederate Flag Class, driving a 16-litre Sports Utility Bulldozer or some sort of New World weirdness.

There are none of those things in the Old Town, and I’m struggling with my patriotism. But then, millions of people come to Irish cities. Including people from Old Towns. Maybe they get sick of the tiny streets and long for a good old mart-wide main street. 

Wandering through Buttevant, marvelling at the light. Maybe they like getting publicly hammered on cans in Temple Bar without twinkly-eyed grandparents tut-tutting at them.

And anyway, I’ve just nearly stepped in my first Old Town dogshite. It’s almost a relief. As Phil Lynott says: “But in the end you’ll soon recover, the romance is over.”