The Pittsburgh Press (September 3, 1942)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
DUBLIN – The other day an Irish newspaper friend said to me, “I don’t know what it is, but anyplace in the world people would know you are an American, just by your looks.”
He said it wasn’t my clothes, nor my face, nor my walk – it was just something general that was American and couldn’t be anything else. And I know he’s right, for as I walk along the street I can sense that people know I am American.
And that seems very odd to me here, because actually I believe you could take 90 per cent of the people in Dublin and walk them along the sidewalks in New York or San Francisco, and nobody would know they weren’t born and raised in America.
Irishmen have been a big disappointment to me – in their looks. Just as most foreigners think all Americans are either cowboys or millionaires, so I thought all Irishmen had pug noses, chin whiskers, smoked clay pipes and kept saying “begorra.”
I have yet to see a chin whisker or a clay pipe in Ireland, and I’ve seen only a few pug noses. An Irish friend says he’s never in his life heard anybody say “begorra” or “bejabbers.” If I don’t at least see somebody carrying a hod before I leave here, I’m going to quit.
When you meet a new person here he usually asks right off, “What was your biggest surprise about us?” And I always say it was in finding the Irish so much like the English. Oddly enough, that doesn’t seem to make them mad.
I had never thought of it before, but the Irish couldn’t help but be somewhat like the English, having been ruled by them and mixed with their blood for a thousand years.
I can think of very few things that surround a city Irishman in his daily life that are distinctly Irish. Their houses, furniture, meals, clothes, taxis, busses, manners, all seem to me to be more European than either Irish or American.
The Irishman’s real distinctiveness lies in his inner character, certainly not in his appearance or way of life. The Irish admit they act and talk like the British, but they say the similarities end there. They say that in philosophy they are more like the French.
It is possible to notice a difference between the people of Dublin and those in the country. In the west, most people seem “jakey”-looking. In Dublin they are much trimmer. But you see the famous Irish ruddy cheeks everywhere. And I will admit the “colleens” have me groveling in the street. Oh to be in Ireland, if I were 21 again.
I had thought, before coming to Ireland, that I would have great difficulty understanding what anybody said. We’ve heard the thick Irish brogues at home, and I supposed they would be all the worse over here in the land of their nativity.
But strangely enough a real juicy brogue is rare. In Dublin people talk almost like the British. The only people I can’t understand are the newsboys on the street.
Even in the rural districts where I’ve traveled, you can understand people all right. They do say, however, that in the remote parts of Kerry and Galway I would have trouble understanding. Some day I’ll go there, and maybe I can hear somebody say “begorra.”
Everybody in Ireland can speak English. Some also speak Gaelic. The English government forbade the teaching of Gaelic more than 100 years ago, and only in the last two generations has Gaelic been taught again.
Now it is a matter of pride among the people to learn Gaelic. I have one friend here, a middle-aged man in a high government position who goes twice a week to a private tutor to learn Gaelic, his long-forgotten native tongue. Practically all public signs, and many advertisements, are in both English and Gaelic.
Since I’ve gone this far in a column of disillusionments, we might as well make it the subject for today. I’ve been badly letdown by finding the Irish outwardly so solemn.
After a lifetime of listening to Irish stories, I expected to find the streets packed with hilariously laughing people, and sidewalks knotted with little groups telling jokes.
But actually, I believe the crowds on the sidewalks of Ireland are more somber than in America. People seem to talk to each other less as they walk along. You hardly ever see anybody laughing. And it isn’t caused by war-worry, it’s simply that Irish people don’t go around howling over their jokes all the time.
As a result of intensive study of Irish humor, I have come to the conclusion that I myself am probably the funniest person in Ireland today. ‘Tis a sad ending to a column, bejabbers.