A fact of Irish life

While the travelling Irishman might be unsettled by the moderate drinking of the French, offended by the directness of the Russians, or unnerved by the politeness of the Koreans, nothing is apt to disturb him quite like the discovery that in some cultures it is not custom to say hello to every single person you meet on the street.

He who never leaves his home imagines the walls of the world to be papered just like his own. For the reverse reason, sometimes it takes a trip away to notice the quirks of your own culture.

Today, I would like to chat about one crucial cornerstone of Irish civilisation: The giving and receiving of an acknowledgement when you pass a person on the street – especially, but certainly not exclusively, if you know the person that you are passing.

It is a fact of Irish life, not a social grace but a cultural imperative, that, when two people meet each other on the footpath, isle or corridor, a gesture of mutual recognition is exchanged between both parties.

We have developed a whole vocabulary of greetings to facilitate this interaction, including the likes of your wells, awrights, hows-the-forms, whats-the-craics and how-ye-getting-ons. Each of these, it seems to me, is an indirect way of saying, ‘Hello, I see you, and I acknowledge your existence’.

As far as cultural rules, regulations and expectations go, this is a good one to have.

You never know how much the person you are passing might need a word, smile, or simple nod of acknowledgement.

However, as mentioned, not every society possesses this same cultural courtesy.

This became clear to me during a formative family holiday to Spain many years ago.

We were about two days into the holiday, and 48 hours of blanks, snubs and ghostings had insulted my aul’ fella to the brink of insanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he cursed under his breath, as yet another unreciprocated hello became the straw that broke this very sun-burnt camel’s back.

“Every ignorant gulpin in the world must have moved to Spain this week.”

Of course, it was not the case that a deluge of ill-mannered muppets had recently poured into the sunny seaside town. The truth was that these ubiquitous blankers were locals, and it simply was not part of their culture to toss spontaneous greetings in the direction of random strangers on the street.

However, to us, and most of all my aul’ boy, the cultural chasm made their actions appear to be the nadir of bad manners. We had never witnessed rudeness practiced on such a scale.

“I am telling ye, these ones would want to have a good word with themselves,” said the aul’ boy, shaking his head, ruefully. Like medical students agreeing with the surgeon’s prognosis, we nodded in deferential agreement.

To me, the anger we feel as Irish people upon being exposed to this kind of culture shock reveals just how deeply encoded in our cultural DNA this expectation of a mutual acknowledgement is.

Be they friend or stranger, if somebody walks by, most of us are primed and ready to give and receive some kind of signal that two human beings have just crossed paths.

I assume that it is the spillover from this old custom that informs some of our even more seemingly absurd social gestures, such as waving at cars that stop for us at zebra crossings, as though choosing not to run us over is something worth thanking them for.

Telling a colleague about this column, he gave me a yarn that illustrates perfectly just how deep the roots of this idea penetrate the shared psyche of our people.

Whilst out wandering around a shopping centre with his granda, he said, the two of them passed by another man.

Daydreaming, the granda never noticed when the passerby threw him a, “Well John,” until he was already gone.

Horrified to think that your man might have got the impression that a deliberate snub had been committed, the granda took my friend on a mission to find the affronted fellow so that he could set the record straight.

Four laps of the shopping centre and 20 minutes later, they finally caught up with your man again.

“Well John,” said your man, in what the granda viewed as the merciful offering of a second chance.

“Well Barry,” replied the granda, before letting out a deep sigh, taking my then ten-year-old colleague by the hand, and calling it a day.