Under the Influence with Bernard O'Shea: I love my family — and my dinner

Bernard O'Shea: aware of the wariness Irish people have had for the word 'love'. Pic: Moya Nolan

My father once said: “Don’t be going around telling people you love them, they’ll think you're a weirdo.” He most definitely loved his family but came from a generation that most certainly never said the word “love”. 

I could never put my mother through the agony of telling her that I love her, because deep down, I know she would think I was dying. But my most bizarre encounter with the word “love” was nearly 20 years ago when I was working as a night porter in a Dublin city centre hotel.

At the time, Dublin was awash with British stag and hen parties. Temple Bar was in its prime indulgent ascendancy. Three English, female guests came into the residents' bar after a heavy night out on its cobbled street. It was witching hour. The time just between night finishing and day dawning. 

There was only myself and a particularly grouchy sales rep from Monaghan in the bar. One of the women asked, “Could we have three Pineapple Bacardi Breezers?” (Really showing my age.) I looked in the fridge, and only had orange flavour. When I told her that I’d have to go down to the cellar to get them she bellowed out: “Oh, would you? I LOVE PINEAPPLE FLAVOUR.”

I begrudgingly headed down the three flights of stairs and dragged up a few crates. When they headed off to bed, the Monaghan Moaner who was supping like a lazy one-eyed calf on his withered pint of flat Harp revealed, “How would ya love pineapples? I have eight kids and I don’t love all of them.” And therein lies a bizarre truth about our relationship with love.

He was annoyed that she even said the word. Showed his disdain for even hearing the word. I’m sure he loved all his kids but he wanted to demonstrate, almost like a sheriff in an old western, that “we don’t use that word in this town”.

I was always confused as a child when I’d go to Mass, to consistently hear the word “love”, yet the only time you would see someone say it was on an imported US shows on RTÉ. 

Even Pope John Paul declaring: “People of Ireland … I love you”, was instantly used as a punchline for jokes “especially you in the front” and not taken as a tome to actually go on to love each other. We just don’t say it enough to each other because it's terrifying. 

A Swiss friend of mine once asked me after returning from an Irish wedding in Kerry: “He said (the groom) that his partner was his best friend but he never told her he loved her … why is that?” 

My initial reaction was to tell her “probably because the lads were in the room” an embarrassing, immature observation but possibly true. I have to confess my arrested development here. I’ve probably, with the exception of my kids, only told about five people I love them.

Bernard O'Shea: "I have utter sympathy for all the restauranteurs that will forlornly look at their empty tables this Valentine's Day." Pic: Moya Nolan

My kids say “I love you” all the time and it is reciprocated. They have also picked up on the Americanism of saying they “LOVE” everything. 

“Dad,” Olivia who is seven, once quizzed me, “Do you know what I love the most in the whole wide world?” Genuinely thinking she would say myself and her mother, she told me “granny’s dinners”. I was slightly disappointed but she nailed a possible tentative Irish law on the head.

I think Irish people have a deep intimacy that transcends any concept of love with their dinner. I use the term “dinner” staunchly as opposed to “lunch”. I still don’t feel sophisticated enough to confidently say that “I’m going out for lunch". One of the greatest Irish political quotes ever came from Jackie Healy Rae: “The people I represent generally eat their dinner in the middle of the day.” I have no political leaning one way or the other, am I one of those people? 

Whether made by granny, grandad, mum, dad, brother, sister, friend, auntie, uncle or whoever, right now think about coming home hungry from school and sitting down and eating your dinner. Think about it being there ready for you. Think about the steam rising off of the plate. Think about its smell, its overwhelming sentiment of the warmth of home, of safety. Now think about the person who made it for you? Now try not to get teary-eyed because that was love right there on the plate.

Food has long been associated with love. I have utter sympathy for all the restauranteurs that will forlornly look at their empty tables this Valentine's Day. Although the fear I get when trying to secure a last-minute booking on the day itself I won’t miss but restaurants are central to us being romantic beings. The French and Italians marry food, romance and love naturally together as a holy trinity. Oysters and champagne are the culinary centre-pieces of opulence and overt rapaciousness. 

However, I nominate the modest Irish dinner as one of the most consistent displays of love. No amount of good carveries or Michelin-star cuisine can substitute for the love that somebody put into feeding you. However, a good carvery is a joyous thing.

So let me declare openly right now. I love my family. I love my friends but more importantly “I LOVE MY DINNER”. There, I said it!