Sometimes fate and Google Flights conspire to throw one off course to a new adventure. For example, when planning a trip to London and tickets from JFK to Dublin airport are noticeably cheaper than flights to Heathrow or anywhere else in the UK. (“It’s often like that,” the pretty flight attendant assures me, thousands of feet above the Atlantic.) On top of that, competitors Aer Lingus and Ryan Air, seemingly locked in deathly combat, have beaten each other down to shockingly cheap flights to London—as low as £14!
Though the city is not officially part of BH’s mission, a brief stay in Ireland’s capital feels somewhat British Heritage-adjacent. And if a cheap return flight to Dublin from London or Edinburgh or Glasgow doesn’t materialize, well, riding the ferry back from Holyhead, just two hours from Liverpool by rail, sounds appealingly bracing and windswept.
Still, Irish history—a castle, a battlefield—feels firmly outside the magazine’s purview. “If it’s just a night or two, write about some fun tourist stuff in Dublin they can do that day,” an Irish expat friend suggests. “It’s a friendlier place than London or New York. You’ll have fun.”
“But that’s not, y’know, History with a capital H!” I counter.
“It’s just a layover day!” he insists. “Your readers are allowed to do other things. Go drink some Guinness and talk up some strangers! That’s what we do.”
And he’s right. An hour after checking in, I’m at the pub below my hotel, drinking with three new friends who introduced themselves before I even sat down. “We’re like that!” said Liam. Drinks flow, mostly Guinness but some whisky, and, yes, someone does sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” and we join in—even me who only knows the one line. But then it happens, like in South America and France and even Canada: I’m called upon to answer for a dozen years of American foreign and economic policy. These three are not fans.
Through a haze, I hear “American exceptionalism,” “Guantanamo Bay,” “globalization,” “cultural imperialism”—even a few golden oldies like “W,” “Cheney,” “known knowns” and “Halliburton,” which is really surprising but maybe they’ve been saving these arguments for a decade. Just to be clear, they don’t like any of these things. And their tone! It starts high and strained in the throat but ends with a harsh fricative: breath shooting between their teeth to express disgust. Like an onomatopoeia for spitting. This all makes for a sound that’s pained, world-weary and accusatory all at once, and even drunk and under attack, I really admire the complexity.
Eventually they drift to the housing market bubble and American culpability in the global economic meltdown. “How can you defend it?” Owen demands, seemingly stone-cold sober, angry that his life is tangled up with choices made thousands of miles away by officials he didn’t elect. Unsure and incoherent after the last four or five rounds, I can defend nothing, or even stand up straight.
Most American tourists must eventually play this game, but I’ve never done it drunk before, and I foolishly counter some vague argument of America’s global economic oppression with Ireland’s corporate tax rate. At only 12.5 percent it’s lured a lot of corporations, including US multinationals like Google and Apple, to base their European headquarters there. Beneficial to Ireland, less so for us, other European countries or the global economy. But this is a petty argument and too unrelated to the original debate and, therefore, a low blow. Their society depends on that cash, or so they believe. Like an angry (drunk) child, I’ve knocked over the board over things I don't even fully understand. We settle up; no emails or phone numbers are exchanged. Caitlin, who earlier put her thin, freckled arm around me as we sang, treats me to an Irish goodbye and walks off without a word.
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Stephen's green
Jet lag and hangover rob me of most of the following day, stealing the museums and landmarks I’ll never visit. Scrambling, I pop into St. Stephen's Green, where all different segments of Irish society, even tourists, mingle in harmony. But loud children and teens make my head pound even harder. The statue of Sir Arthur Edward Guinness, responsible for both this public space and the brand of beer that’s gifted me with this hangover, smirks at me from behind the gate.
Then, a few blocks into my retreat, I see it. Sequined outfits as green as shamrocks. How could I have forgotten? It was a total sensation in the 90s—there was even a Folgers coffee commercial with Michael Flatley! Barring leprechauns, it's possibly this nation’s most successful international signifier: Riverdance. Fun touristy stuff to do for a day, my expat friend told me. And the poster says it’s the 20th anniversary, so this is historical in a way, right? It was, after all, a “world-wide phenomenon,” the phrase of choice for any piece of art that goes global and generates tons of cash along the way. I decide I’ve reached the end of the rainbow and quickly buy the last available ticket for €30.
Inside, the audience is a multicultural mélange—slightly jarring after passing waves of Irish faces all day. Brazilian teens giggle behind me, an Israeli couple sits to my right, a mother-daughter duo of undetermined Eastern-European origin bicker furiously on my left. There are even a few non-white faces, the first I’ve spotted since arriving. But the row ahead of me is 100 percent American Midwest. Beige chinos, conservative haircuts and perfect manners mark them unmistakably. Their body language, their bearing: pure apple pie, but I still ask.
“We’re from Illinois!” says the chipper, permed matriarch. Her ancestors probably fled this land in the 1840s but she’s thrilled to be back. Later, during the performance, I’ll notice with great satisfaction that while every other nationality chats and fidgets, this clean-cut, well-tucked brood of Hoosiers stays as silent and respectfully still as if they were in church on Sunday. It restores my national pride.
The lights dim, fog machines kick in, and the dancers slowly emerge as shapely silhouettes. “Out of the dark we came. Out of the night…” It might be a creation myth of some kind. I’m uncertain. Optics supersede narrative here. On a related note, I can’t understand the meaning of most of the voice-over—or the lyrics of the lead singer, a pixie-ish girl with a heart-shaped face whose sing-song voice has such a high, angelic purity I thought at first she was Auto-Tuned. But the words I do catch have a mystical quality some will love and others will hate. (“How can the tree stand if the rain won’t fall to wash its branches down?” How indeed, Riverdance?)
Though I don’t feel qualified to review this medium, the sheer speed and power of their feet makes my arches hurt. There don’t seem to be that many moves, but all are done with lightning-quick precision. The first act ends with my favorite scene, the all-male dance, performed without music, only the percussion of their shoes. It’s infectious, the urge to tap along; I even see the family from Illinois bobbing their heads to the elemental beat and I wonder if the symmetry and geometric patterns Irish dance favors are especially appealing to the Midwestern mind—one shaped by the clean lines of a million cornfields. (For a moment, I feel proud of this semi-interesting thought until I realize I’m plagiarizing something David Foster Wallace wrote about math, and not very well.)
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Credit: A scene from Riverdance: Thunderstorm Photographer: Jack Hartin.
But “Fire Dance,” with a dark-haired Flamenco dancer who bares her teeth and undulates, ironically leaves me cold. She’s almost too dramatic a foil to the stiffer torsos of the Irish dancers. Also, “Trading Taps,” the American vs. Irish dance-off competition—a kind of West Side Story, Jets-vs.-Sharks fight—feels like a clever joke extended a tad too long.
But the end, the last fifteen minutes or so with the big closing and all the bows, brings the audience together. The disaffected, blank-faced manner of some of the earlier dances is gone. The fourth wall is now shattered; it’s all hands-on-hips and exuberant smiles. Their arms extend; they reach to the audience like we’re their collective dance partner as if to say, “We see you! You’re dancing with us! Cheer!” And everyone does. The Israelis whoop and the Brazilian girls squeal and the sheer energy of the pipes and beats have healed whatever rift there was between that mother/daughter team I’ve now decided to think of as Hungarian. They’re cheering like mad, happy to be there together.
And as I clap along, I wish my new Irish friends were here. Maybe we could skip over all the military-industrial complexes and corporate nation states and this new world's discontents and crises they blame on my government and just stop right here. Agree to this one thing, this bit of happiness, like the Hungarians and Israelis and Brazilians are able to do wordlessly in this moment.
The performers have turned us into a temporary-but-joyous community, unified by, of all things, this spectacle of Irish tap. This bit of globalism, a 1994 Eurovision interval act that went worldwide, still remains a symbol of its own culture. It belongs primarily to the Irish but there’s still room for everyone else besides. Sure, it’s not global communications or lower infant mortality, but it is still pretty good. Something lovely that was borne of and flourished within our greater connectivity. And all these different people from all these different places can mutually applaud. Hey, in this conflict-filled, tribal world, that’s not nothing. These thoughts race through me and, in a ridiculous way, somehow fill my still-alcohol-damaged brain cells with hope. And I wonder if maybe Liam, Owen and Caitlin would still drink with me if we could all see this together.
Until then, cheers, Riverdance! May you continue to unite audiences for another twenty years!
Riverdance will be at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin until August 30 but will almost certainly be back. You can order tickets at http://www.gaietytheatre.ie. The touring company of Riverdance will appear across the United States from Oct, 2015 – Jul, 2016. Check tour dates here.
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