Free Jaywalking with the Irish by Lonely Planet Page A

said, “I’ve been here for thirty years and do not begin to understand these people. Sit down to have a pint with them and they’ll ask the most personal and embarrassing things without blinking. But ask themanything about themselves and they reveal nothing. Ask them if they think the black clouds overhead will bring rain, and Kerry people won’t answer. They’ll just say, ‘Sure, there could be a change in the air.’”
    In Ireland, the Kerryman is considered the “cutest” – meaning most shrewdly cunning rather than handsome – of individuals. He’s often called “a cute Kerry hoor ” (a phrase applied exclusively to men) on account of his infinite capacity for duplicity, but the Kerryman is actually a cultural archetype. Pithy anecdotes about Kerry cuteness provide insights into the mysteriousness of the entire race, and, we soon found out, apply with considerable aptness to the clannish and clever ways of Corkonians.
    Things in this part of the world are simply not as they seem, until at least one comes to understand the meaning of cuteness, and the omnipresence of gates. People in Ireland’s southwest work invisible ones constantly. Look at almost every house, be it ever so humble, and the first thing you will notice is a closed gate.
    Our house in Cork came with a solid iron gate with a latch that clanked like a prison cell’s. At first, we seldom bothered with the thing. We still imagined Ireland as being a safe and freely mixing place, and had no interest in perpetuating some archaic class divide, just because our side yard, called a “garden,” was more generously proportioned and hedge-sheltered than the small squares of lawn that serve as most children’s play areas in Ireland’s cities. So the kids piled in, sometimes a dozen of them creating a three-ring circus out there, with two or three in the apple tree, another dangling from a rope swing, a bunch playing soccer on the lawn, and a couple more playing hide-and-seek in the hedges.
    After years of chauffeuring twenty-mile round trips for two-hour play dates, Jamie especially relished the easy comings and goings of neighborhood pals for the children, even though the growing hordes seemed to be proliferating unnaturally and were laying waste to our kitchen stores. “Do you think someone’s put up signs urging every kid in Cork to play here during the school holidays? They eat crisps as if the second Famine is returning, and I think they’re going to crawl into our beds if we don’t look out,” she fretted one late summer afternoon.
    “At least none of them mean any harm,” I rejoined, not realizing you should never ever tempt fate in Ireland in this way.
    Sharing too readily on this island, it soon became apparent, can be taken as a provocative act, exciting suspicions of boasting and preening. Unbeknownst to us, certain neighbors began to talk about our gate behavior. To them, it was as fate-tempting as disturbing a fairy circle.
    Meanwhile, a couple of less-than-friendly teenage boys from a bit further afield began examining the fantastical sight of our always-open gate. The boss had a squat body and dark eyes that seemed fraught with the confusion of adolescence. Often they’d hulk near the beginning of our walkway while a seemingly more innocent younger girl with them would venture forward a few steps to the edge of our lawn and wistfully eye the to-and-fro. Our landlords, who had lived in this house until we arrived, had manipulated the garden gate like prison wardens, and never allowed more than two kids in at a time. Suspicious and mean, that seemed to us. We still imagined that every kid within earshot would welcome our democratic new ways, which was as naive as thinking that all Irish people are delighted when an acquaintance gets a new job or car. Hah! To understand Ireland, one must learn to hear whispers.
    One day, Laura came home in a hysterical state after the younger sister of the Chief Scowler spat upon her for no