For the man on the street, it’s a tall order to overcome the twin issues of hatred-of-the-government and piteous-disdain-for-Americans, which is why The Gathering will get a mixed reception here as well. We have a general economic interest in its success, perhaps explaining why the Indo ran an article on the €16,000 expenses Byrne racked up as cultural ambassador (not that much if you consider he’s unpaid and was still expected to travel and stay in various places).
It’s hard to swallow pride and stand cap in hand, after so long, looking for stray dollars from rich American cousins once more. It’s all a bit Angela’s Ashes.
Not that the ol’ greasy-till fumblers will really have a problem with singing Carrickfergus and smoking a pipe if there’s a chance of some profit, but maybe it’s possible to leave the cynicism aside and treat The Gathering as we are condescendingly asked to treat it: as a once-off family reunion for the whole country.
We’ve had another wave of both necessary and professional emigration in the past few years, but we’re gradually losing older generations of Americans. My American family, given recent deaths, now consists of two cousins of my mother, in their 60s, neither of whom have an Irish surname and none of whose children seem much concerned with being Irish.
It’s those people we should be happy to see, people who might be the last link to this country in their own (wholly American, Irish only in name) families. Let them come and don’t expect them to have done homework or apologise for voting Republican. Don’t drown them in cynicism or tell them their good-faith, entirely real emotional connection with Ireland is false. Visit your great-grandmother’s dilapidated, empty cottage with them and realise that your life is almost as different to that as theirs.
And then, if they’re as rich as Varadkar and Kenny are hoping, let them take you for steak. What can it hurt.
