‘Don't Forget to Remember’

The Irish, historically an oppressed race. Britain’s first colony, subject to a brutal, merciless and cruel colonisation and tyrannical rule lasting nearly 800 years. As a nation we have fought against the eradication of our culture and our language from obnoxious, ignorant imperial forces that set out to homogenise us into ‘The Empire’. At our core we have a history of destitution and exploitation. However, in the past decade, amongst my own generation ‘the millennials’ we have seen the Irish becoming the colonisers and embodying a culture of supremacy and dominance…..

‘The Destination Wedding’

Michael O’Leary salivates as he fuels up another Boeing 737 Warship for departure. A battalion of translucent O’Reilly’s from the far side of Athlone have formed a military alliance with the unkept Murphy’s of Cahersiveen. What once would have been a two-hour drive and a slap of the arse overlooking the ring of Kerry, is now a Credit Union loan, half your annual paid leave and a three-day pillage and crusade through the hills of Tuscany. Throngs of deranged Irish conquistadors maraud these quaint rural villages in the endless pursuit of social media’s constructed perception of ‘the perfect day’. Locals retreat behind their ‘Maginoux Line’ and only viable defense - the sweltering summer heat of the Mediterranean sun, but it is powerless to the shameless acceptance of torrential perspiration from these lofty headed wayward Irish millennial militias – don’t forget, we are the generation that grew up in the golden years of the tiger with FDI, EU Funded Motorways, Paddy Casey and Eastern European speculative property prices, shame is confined only, to the bedroom and the mirror.

Lawn chairs creak and flex unnervingly as the soggy bottom brigade take up their positions on the front line. Every hand stitched seam (by a Vietnamese child) of Shein garments are put under enough pressure to overthrow an African dictatorship. It’s all fur no knickers as the disparity and contrast between set and setting can be visualised as throwing a duvet over dirty sheets. However, to question anything would be abhorrent - the endless supply of aperol, limoncello and cheap European lager ensures that no mind has the capacity (not that it would anyway) to critically analyse why exactly a dairy farmer from Roscommon and a primary school teacher from Kerry are hosting a 250 person wedding in Tuscany. Then come the white napkins, (not the white napkins) once a sign of peace and non-violence, now a signal of rage and brutality as they are swung aloft to the almighty battle cry of Abba’s ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’. This force-fed barrage of Irish imperialism continues and intensifies as the local staff are berated with interactions of:

- ‘Jaaaysus senorita you are awful slow over here’

Bridget you’ve just ordered twenty Jäger-bombs, your husband already is topless and kissing his brother.

-‘Another pint of Guinness, (audible muttering - The Guinness is shocking bad here, shocking bad here.)’

Noel, we are in the foothills of the Alps, not the streets of Killarney.

-‘Fucking hell what do ye foreigners be putting in the sausages’

Declan, it’s chorizo.

-‘I can’t understand you, no speakie Espanyol. One more Aperol Spritz’

Philomena, we are in Italy. That’s your fifth Aperol this hour. Go to bed.

As the adults maintain the ground offensive through the predictable yet excruciating rendition of Mr Brightside. The feral and undomesticated children launch an artillery offensive with the remaining abandoned petit fours. The staff scramble to contain the overflow of unleashed Diarmuids, Lorcans and Caoimhes who are blind in sugar rush splendor, (but of course Mairead, ‘it’s great to see the cousins playing together again isn’t it’). As each hour passes, the occupying forces only strengthen; rock the boat, the conga line, and general rhythmic retardation. The local populace completely bemused and shell shocked as this grotesquely uncoordinated war dance extinguishes and smothers every remaining morsel of regional culture.

The O’Reilly’s and the Murphy-O’Reilly’s (of course she chose the double barrel name) will make the 12 hour door to door journey home but the aftermath and psychological destruction is left to the Tuscans. They have survived the battle but the war wages on. Another 200+ socially pressured friends, work colleagues, brothers, sisters, mother, aunties and uncles are being loaded up to ransack the very same destination - only this time Antonio, Alessandro and Roberto will surrender on the 8th attempt for one more play of Maniac 2000, turn a blind eye after the 10th poor Italian imitation and pay no heed at all to ‘Do ye Italians like pineapple on pizza?’.

So whether you storm the beaches of Mallorca, lay siege to Albufeira’s Val de Lobo or even occupy the vineyards on the outskirts of Bordeaux - one thing is for sure it’s tough to put down the 7th canapé and even harder to refuse the 15th bottle of Peroni. Can I see where the English were coming from? Not quite, but it is certainly evident how effortlessly the power of a situation and a sense of perceived importance can transform a Roscommon dairy farmer into Vasco de Gama,

Don’t forget, with great power comes great responsibility.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.