Dublin Calling: An Essay by Erin Stalcup

When I arrived in Ireland I had a hard time understanding the accents. I didn’t know what “T’lads and m’self ergoin’ twa disco t’ave some craic—ye must get paralytic wit’ us!” meant. I did a lot of what lads in pubs called “the American girl smile-and-nod,” slagging me off for pretending to understand, but not. I wondered why they all could understand my accent, and they said they watch American telly. I wondered how they knew I was American before I opened my mouth—they said it was the way I sit, stand, walk, the way I dress; they didn’t need an accent to know where I was from.

I knew before arriving that English accents are different than Irish accents. I understood that I was going to a place that was not British. I understood that the two islands are called the British Isles, which is puzzling, mostly because it makes that place sound so Caribbean, when in fact it’s a much more pleasant, grey, drizzly place. I chose to do my study abroad somewhere that spoke English—but not England; England, oddly, never interested me much—because I wanted to go somewhere I could easily communicate. I knew Ireland and England (and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland) were very different places, but I didn’t yet think to ask, then, why people in Ireland don’t speak Irish.

I wanted to understand where I was better than I did, so I took Irish Music, Irish Folklore, James Joyce, The History of Ireland Since the Revolution. All the classes transferred to my transcript at home as British literature and history courses. I went to pubs, listened to sessions, heard Martin Hayes play the fiddle, learned to play the bodhrán, badly; I traveled along the West Coast to Galway, Cork, Kerry, the Dingle peninsula, the Gaeltacht Aran islands; I learned about Merry Wakes and keening women, I learned about banshees and that most faeries are the size of children, and how to say “God and Mary be with you” in Gaelic; I went to Dublin, saw the General Post Office where the Easter Uprising began, went to the Abbey Theatre for a show, followed in Joyce’s footsteps a few paces; I went to the North—my flatmates told me I’d be fine with my American accent, but they’d never been, wouldn’t go, with their Irish voices and Republic plates—I visited the Peace Wall between the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast, took a Black Cab tour of the murals and the Hunger Strikers’ graves, I took a bus tour led by an IRA member of County Armagh, the border between the Republic and the North, where the guntower next to the pub aimed at us, and we were followed by a helicopter. I tried my best to understand.

But what does it mean that I’m writing about Irish and British identity here? I, an American who lived in Ireland for only six months, who has only returned once, whose name means “Ireland,” but who isn’t Irish, not even a drop—no one in Ireland is named Erin (Éireann)—what does it mean that I think I can investigate Irish identity? I’m not sure. But I know that Irish people are not British, and that distinction matters to me. It’s mattered to me more and more since I left. Since I studied postcolonial theory. Since I realized that the English did to Ireland (and to Scotland, and to Wales) what they did, to differing degrees, to many, many other countries: Europe once controlled 85% of the globe, England much of that. The fact that people in The Republic are Irish, and the people in the North are technically Irish and British, that troubles me. I understand a united Ireland is easier said than done; I understand many people don’t want the island un-divided. I can’t possibly know all the things I don’t understand about that place—I was only a student there, and only for a time—so what right to an opinion do I have?

James Joyce thought the Gaelic Revival was just another way of Ireland being centripetal, looking inward, not looking outwards to the continent. He wanted to look beyond the influence of England, but it never occurred to him to look beyond Europe. Not everyone agreed. Gaelic survived. People put curry on their chips. Now, after most of the colonies have gained independence, after England and Ireland are negotiating immigration and the complications of people bringing their cultures to them, British identity is being redefined. Again. Amidst that, it’s important for me to assert that Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom.

So why does the U.K. issue of PANK include writings from and about Ireland? Because they write in English? Because they were once British? Because it’s easy to think of them as still being British, even though they had a revolution to ensure that they wouldn’t be, anymore? Because if the successful rebel country is included, maybe we’ll be forced to ask these questions? I look forward to seeing what questions this issue makes me think of that I haven’t yet thought to ask.

Erin Stalcup’s short fiction currently appears in the inaugural issue of The Examined Life: A Literary Journal of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review (Winter 2011).

—

Submit to London Calling, a special issue of British and Irish writing, here.