By Liddy Freeman, August 2008

When my plane touched down in Dublin on Jan. 20, my mind was spinning with expectations. I would be spending the semester studying in the land of my ancestors and childhood dreams. I would soon run barefoot over rolling green hills just like they did in the movies. I would dance to old Irish jigs, and smiling natives would buy me Guinness in pubs and invite me into their homes. If I were lucky, I might even glimpse a fairy.

I should have known better.

Had I done any preliminary research I would have learned that Ireland is much different from my naïve fantasies. In the past 20 years Ireland has gone from Europe’s worst-performing economy to its best one. American television shows now flood Irish homes. Fashion has become a central part of Dublin’s young culture. This economic boom—dubbed the Celtic Tiger—has turned Ireland into a land of immigrants rather than emigrants, giving it flavor from all over the world.

Before I decided to study abroad in Dublin, a friend of my father told me, “Ireland is changing. Fast. You’d better go see it before it’s not Ireland anymore.” If I were to base my new opinion of Ireland on my experience in Dublin, I would tell that wise person, “I think it’s already too late.”

Nothing in Dublin was as I had expected. Aside from the biting wind and the bitter cold that I hadn’t factored into my Irish daydreams, one of the first things I noticed was how posh Dublin was. The majority of people are young—more than 50 percent being under the age of 30—and armed with cell phones. They are often decorated with fake tans, black eyeliner and bleached or gelled hair. No longer are they poor and isolated.

In one of my media arts classes a group of girls chattered about getting to know people by what TV shows they watched. One of them (the same one who said she was going to have the most stylish, Converse-shoe-wearing babies ever) said, “You can tell a lot about someone by what TV shows they watch. I mean, if you both like The OC or The Hills you know you’ll probably get along and have things to talk about.”

Another girl in the class said that she always felt pressure to look good when she came to school. Standing next to all the young women like her, in their short dresses and expensive Ugg boots, I felt underdressed (or over dressed but in the wrong way), holding out for warmth over style by wearing three pairs of tights, jeans and (no joke) eight layers of long-sleeved shirts and jackets.

Some of the changes in Ireland worked to my benefit. As a vegetarian, I would have withered from malnutrition had I only the classic meat and potatoes option of an older Ireland. With the influx of Polish, Italian, French, Indian, Chinese and Middle Easterners, I had multiple ethnic alternatives. If I didn’t feel like spending 10 to 15 Euros on a sit-down meal, there were plenty of sandwich shops that allowed me to buy a vegetarian option for only four Euro. And if I wanted to be even thriftier, I could cook for myself after walking up to the Middle Eastern store near my dorms to buy lentils, zucchini and pita bread.

While I welcomed some alterations to my preconceptions of Ireland, other differences were disheartening. Instead of the expected warmth and openness of the people, I often found an icy Irish shell. Most people didn’t make eye contact on the streets or in school. If you tried to pet a Dubliner’s dog he would usually frown and tug at the dog’s leash to keep it walking. Rarely were they animated or loud when talking.

At first, I thought maybe I perceived these differences because I was away from the safety blankets of my wonderfully supportive family and friends back in Gainesville. But after asking around, I found I wasn’t alone in my observations. Even an Irish classmate of mine said that Dubliners weren’t inclined to approach strangers.

“Well, most Dubliners have a group of friends that they hang out with,” he explained, “I have my friends and don’t usually feel the need to meet other people.”

When I told a Chinese exchange student in March how cut off I felt from the majority of the Irish, she exclaimed, “I know! They are so hard to get to know. I’ve been here since September and I’ve barely met anyone.”

When I asked another Irish student about these observations, he said, “Whatever. Americans are fake. Acting like they’re friends with everyone when they’re really not.” And when I asked two girls from Chicago if they noticed the lack of eye contact on the streets, they looked at each other and said, “No, we’re from Chicago. We’re used to it.”

By the end of the semester, I could still relate to my roommate and fellow UF exchange student when she said, “People say that it takes a while to feel at home in a new place. But [when I studied in Brazil last summer] I felt more at home at the end of six weeks there than I do at the end of four months here.” 

The reserved attitudes seemed to belong more to the younger generation. Every Irish person I encountered over the age of 50 was exceedingly patient and helpful. If I was on the bus and asked an elderly lady where I should disembark for one place or another, she would offer more information than was necessary. Old pub owners would tease me like uncles if I came into their shop asking for food when all they served was alcohol. 

Riding a bus one night I struck up a conversation with the young driver. “The young people today are spoiled,” he said of his peers. “Ever since the Celtic Tiger, starting 10, 15 years ago, people have money. They think a lot of themselves. They’ve become snobs. Heck, if an old person gets on the bus when it’s full, they won’t even give up their seats. But I make ‘em. I was raised the old fashioned way.”

Not everyone is sympathetic to people like the bus driver or to the elderly Irish who, weathered and sculpted by hard economic times, lament the “new Dublin.” Tothe people who say Ireland is not what it used to be, a 27-year-old Internet café employee retorted, “Get over it. People moan about things when they have everything. When I was little I remember not having much food. Beans was mainly it. But changes they’ve made were made because we entered the European Union. The roads they’ve built were built by Europe and the old people who complain are the ones who voted the EU in.” 

With Ireland’s entry into the EU and its increasing wealth came the influx of foreigners. There was a time when famine and poverty had pushed many of the Irish to leave Ireland for America, Australia and other parts of Europe. Now the Irish are learning how to be hosts rather than guests. According to a 22 year-old Irish friend, Dublin has only recently seen such great diversity. “The first time I saw a black person was 10 years ago,” he said, “If you saw one, everyone would just stare because they had never seen a black person before.”

Dublin is still full of typical Irish pubs. The majority of children wear uniforms and go to Catholic schools. Colleges offer chaplaincy services, laminated prayer cards and rosaries and quiet rooms for reflection. But now, amidst the bars are mosques. And in addition to kids in uniforms, there are women in burkas. There are Lithuanian festivals, acupuncture clinics and Thai massage centers. Walking by a café you are nearly as likely to hear people speaking French as you are to hear them speaking English. Or Polish. Or Hindi. Think of a culture and it’s probably got a niche in Dublin.

While Ireland was not what I had envisioned, my stay there made me realize just how homogeneous the world is becoming. As I passed various convenience store chains on my walk home from school one day, I sadly thought that there was no going back in time. All I could do was take a deep breath and become aware that what I was witnessing was the emergence of a new culture, a global culture that is forming in cities like Dublin all over the world. Soon, I knew, our planet would be more like one country than a quilt of many. 

Maybe my problem was that I stayed too often in Dublin. Perhaps, like numerous Dubliners claimed, the Ireland I craved was in the countryside. So maybe I’ll go back, but next time I’ll visit rustic Kerry or Cork. Maybe next time I’ll take off my shoes and run over green hills. Maybe I’ll even stumble upon a pub that is brimming with the music of Irish fiddles and drums where people will buy me a Guinness and invite me into their homes.

And hopefully, next time, I will be able to ignore what I now know—that my mind, influenced by mass media, fictive literature, and a deep yearning for magic, created an Ireland that didn’t exist. With this awareness pushed aside, perhaps—if I’m lucky—I will finally glimpse that fairy.