When I was working in New York, I came into the office to find the other interns abuzz with excitement. There’s a new Irish intern, they told me, and I rolled my eyes. “We won’t know each other,” I said as they gathered around to watch as the two of us introduced ourselves, “Ireland is actually a very—" oh shit, she actually does look a bit familiar. We had both gone to Trinity, we had two friends in common on Facebook. Practically family, really. As we spoke for a little bit, my best friend at the magazine sized us up and said, “She’s the city mouse, isn’t she? And you’re the country one?” Given this friend wouldn’t have been able to understand or decipher the usual markers of Irish culture – what your accent says about you, what school you went to, etc – I was both impressed and slightly offended by the accuracy of her analysis. “How did you know?” I asked and my friend shrugged. “Just a vibe,” she replied.
The first time I went to New York, I was twelve or thirteen. My father had spent a lot of time in the States when we were kids (he was recruited to play Gaelic football for a GAA club there) and he wanted to introduce me and my sister to the city. I still remember our delight when we got out of the airport and realised that he had booked a stretch limousine