Shooting the messenger over this feather-brained stereotyping

We're all mighty, so we are, according to the Taoiseach last night on the television.

He thanked us all for collectively taking the pain. Which we really did.

And which most of us continue to do, concentrating on paying our mortgages and other bills and eschewing luxuries. Never have so many luxuries been eschewed.

We don’t have much choice, when it comes to eschewing, but we can eschew with the best in the world.

As a result, the majority of Irish mortgage holders are up to date with their payments, which made it infuriating when the New York Times said most of us were in default.

The Central Bank rang it to say that ain’t so and it — being one of the best newspapers in the world — immediately corrected it on its website.

It left up the story in which it figured. The story of how Ireland coped with its economic meltdown, narrated through statistics and people. Always a good mix.

The people, in this instance, include that admirable bloke who shoots pigeons and grills them in the back garden to save on gas and grocery bills. He has to resort to backyard pigeon barbecuing, he told the paper, just to live. Just to make sure he gets the proper variety of foodstuffs.

This story is more than an amusing oddity about an amusing oddity, and it merits a little analysis.

First of all, the approach taken is one that’s pretty damn standard on the part of global media at the moment.

Most have cut back on international bureaux filled with competent reporters au fait with the realities in the country or countries in which they are based.

As a consequence, when a major event happens, like Ireland proving itself to be the best boy in Europe by exiting the bailout without riots in the streets, international media tends to fly reporters in.

Those reporters set out to find individuals who can personify the national experience. In this case, the New York Times reporter found a couple who had been put to the pin of their collar to pay their bills and are fearful that the Government might seek to push them further. Decent couple. Good picture. But not as exciting as the other character who featured: The huntin’, shootin’, fishin’, grillin’ bloke from what he himself describes as “semi-rural” Shankill.

It’s a puzzling description. Not all of the readers of this paper will be familiar with Shankill, on Dublin’s southside, but for most of us Dubs, “semi-rural” is the last way we’d expect to hear it described. “Upper middle class suburb” would be more likely. You might meet the odd fox out there, but that would be the height of it, and foxes are notorious crossover artists.

The New York Times didn’t carry that particular quote, but it did say that the “economic hubbub” of Ireland’s recovery is not evident in Shankill. Which may be true, but was “semi-rural” Shankill ever a place where a visitor might encounter economic hubbub?

Put it this way. If you suddenly felt a need for economic hubbub, would Shankill be where you’d start the search?

The one thing you’re pretty sure to encounter there on a daily basis, according to the huntin’ fishin’ shootin’ grillin’ man, is pigeons. More pigeons than you could shake a stick at, he says. Not that a stick is his weapon of choice. He gets those pigeons in the cross hairs of his trusty rifle and he drops them. Bam.

Now if you’re a journalist on a quick visit to Ireland and someone points you at the Pigeon Man, you’re not going to ignore this bit of human colour. Of course not. But a little scrutiny of the details of his bird-killing might not go amiss, before you position him as representing semi-rural Shankill. Or the wider nation.

For starters, this man is not permitted to open fire on pigeons in his own back yard. That tends to be frowned upon by the powers that be. I discovered this a year ago when, for a few months, we had a pheasant at the bottom of our garden. A singularly thick but astoundingly pretty pheasant lived in the hedge near the gate and at any time of the day or night was possessed of the desire to play chicken with any departing or arriving car. It would leap into the vehicle’s path and walk in a wandering, drunken way, looking back over its shoulder with a provocative air, which kept me late for work and drove me nuts, so that I threatened to shoot and eat it.

At which point the man in my life pointed out that A) I’d never owned or used a gun and my track record with darts isn’t encouraging, B) the law doesn’t allow you to shoot wildlife in your own backyard unless your backyard encompasses hundreds of acres and a mountain or two, which ours doesn’t, and C) neither of us has ever eaten a pheasant.

He also muttered that in the unlikely event that I managed to shoot this one, I was not to expect help with the consequent disembowelling (of the bird).

Shooting things, in other words, is complicated, and any day the Pigeon Man wants a bird for his dinner, he would have to drive or take a bus to the moors outside semi-rural Shankill to bring one down, which would generate a cost. He would have to buy bullets for the gun. Another cost. He would have to buy fuel for the barbecue. A third cost (he might scavenge wood for the barbie, but those who know outdoor grilling tell me the culinary results would not be good).

When all these factors are taken into account, in profit and loss terms, pigeon for dinner is not that much of a win/win. Going to his local SuperValu and getting a couple of chicken breasts on a “buy one, get one free” deal would be considerably cheaper. Not as much fun, maybe, but cheaper.

Of course it makes sense, from an American perspective, to present Pigeon Man as personifying Ireland’s get-up-and-shoot something resilience. America has a strong tradition of real men hunting their way out of hard times. They head out with a few pals, sit around a campfire and come back bearing a brace of ducks or dragging a deer or buffalo ready for butchering and freezing. The movie version would be Brokeback Mountain 2 starring Anthony Bourdain.

Someone might have told the journalist involved that it’s not a familiar Irish pattern, though. Maybe in the past, rabbit- snaring had its place in the maintenance of a properly balanced diet, but that’s about it.

We may fantasise about shooting wildlife and scoffing the results, but we rarely if ever act out those fantasies, so the Shankill man is unlikely to represent a strongly emerging trend. He might not represent anybody other than his interesting self.

He might even be unique, in which case he belongs in a quite different story, rather than typifying Distressed Shankill, that semi-rural part of Dublin, Ireland, where pigeons abound and economic hubbub is nowhere to be seen or heard.