I moved to the UK from Ireland in August of 2011, and ever since I have been what is called a “proud Irish woman”.  Despite having never given a shit about my hometown before, I decided that to maximise my immigrant status in London, I had to talk about it relentlessly. I wrapped a patterned shawl around my head and mournfully pretended to be homesick, talking in a phlegm-heavy gibberish that I insisted was a real language.

I insisted that everything was better in Ireland: the meat thicker, the crisps saltier, the Fanta orangier (actually true). When I met Chris, I talked wistfully of the wonders of Ireland, the place where everybody knows your name, where the gutters are lined with poets and the poets are lined with bits of earth, and the bits of earth are lined with songs and harps and knitting. “Someday,” I whispered, kissing his stupid bereft English person face, “Someday, I will take you, and you shall see for yourself.”

Well, now hes coming to see for himself. Naturally, I’m bricking it. All the hideous lies I’ve been telling are going to blow up in my face, until I can quickly find something magical about my hometown to share with him. This is when I discover TripAdvisor.co.uk.

Trip Advisor is a site English people use to review the places they used to own, so it’s probably a pretty good insight on what Chris is going to think if I take him there.

Huh. Butter. Quirky? Maybe? I mean, check out that churn. Imagine the charmingly eccentric memories we can make with that churn. We could pose for pictures with it and everything.

God, English people are whiney. Luckily, some of them are nice to Cork’s unfeasibly shit attractions. Apparently, our rich seaside heritage is enough to keep them happy, nevermind that the sealife they pay money to see routinely, err, don’t turn up.

 

WHO NEEDS DOLPHINS, EH?