IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:I'm told a move to the Amazon would be easier . . . at least there you can trade on being Irish, writes Adam Brophy
I TOLD FRIENDS and family that we were moving to west Cork. Eighty per cent of them voiced their replies in hideous attempts at Cork accents.
The ones who resisted invariably called me either "boy" or "langer". This has resulted in a new-found sympathy for Cork people who must face this response over and over when they meet people for the first time.
When I said we were to settle in Clonakilty, most people suggested we would spend our time eating black pudding on a variety of beaches and having a high old time. But soon a conspiratorial shadow would cross their face and they would lean in and ask, "How will you cope?"
Cope? I don't know. With what? Without the city, they say. Oh yes, the city, I'll miss that. But it's not like we're moving to the Amazon basin. Surely the culture shock won't be too bad.
The Amazon would be easier they say, at least there you can trade on being Irish. In Clonakilty, you're a Dub. You may as well be Oliver Cromwell.
Mmm, my preconceptions are alive and well. Having travelled some of the globe, for the first time I face the fear of the unknown heading 200 miles down the road. The Dub inland is an oft vilified creature, portrayed as arrogant and insensitive, trampling on his countrymen's opinions and traditions, mocking and scoffing as he wanders the byroads, ignoring the taunts of Sam's absence since '95. Is it merited? Only time will tell.
Aware of my own settled prejudices, I put it to the kids: What were they looking forward to about moving to Cork? "Going into the deep, dark woods," says the elder. Very philosophical, I thought.
"To see a Gruffalo," added the younger. Ah symbolism, says I, astounded at her astute reading of the situation. They may not yet be clouded by the nation's tribalism, but they are applying everything they have had read to them to their new surroundings.
The small wood behind our new house has woven a spell that informs their awareness that change is afoot.
What else? Buckets and spades and dolphins, they shout! It sounds like paradise, I say. It is, they agree, with new schools and creches and trampolines and places to have hot chocolate with marshmallows. Oh yes, we're all looking forward to marshmallows.
But what will you miss about Dublin? Now they struggle. The big spider in the garden, suggests the elder. And the one in my bedroom, reminds her sister. Spiders? Big, hairy, fat-bottomed spiders that have overtaken the conurbation this last month? That's what you'll miss? The younger looks perturbed, as if she should know more things to feel a sense of loss for. My shelves . . . and the fridge, she mumbles. But the fridge is coming with us. Oh, she says.
What about granny and your aunts and all your buddies, Gracie and Sophie and Linn?
Even as I say this my inner, sensible voice is calling me fool for a statement bound to cause concern. They look at me earnestly, as if seeing for the first time my inner idiot, and shrug.
"But they'll all be coming to stay," says the younger. Her sister, bored with the conversation, has gone on to design a picture with milk sodden Cheerios on her homework copy.
"Yeah, they can stay for as long as they like cos we'll have a spare room," she says. You dope, dad.
As the house is packed up, the movers shift through our worldly goods with no more attachment that they would for tinned beans, or black pudding. I watch the kids for any reaction to the first signs of upheaval.
The younger is hovering. One of the lads, a hulk of a fella, tries to make conversation and she ignores him. But this is normal - she simply doesn't bother.
Still she stays around where he's working, finally shooting forward and grasping something from her box of toys. She doesn't keep it. She hands it to him, thrilled to be part of the process. Now she's delving in and out, chucking him her most favourite things, eager for them to be boxed and moved.
The elder strolls by. "When we get there will I have to talk like this, boy?" she screeches at an impossible pitch. "Do that and you'll find yourself run out of the county, my dear," I reply.
"Dad, you're only a langer," she says.
The Dubs trod on with hobnail boots.