Look at us, world, we're on the telly

The most famous man in the world was a metre away, but her thrill came from being on screen

AMONG THE MANY highlights of the Obamas' visit to Ireland was this moment: as the couple went on their giddy walk through Moneygall on Monday, there was a minute during which TV viewers could hear a woman, obviously on a phone, repeating: "Can you see me on the telly? Can you see me now? You'll see on the news this evening." The most famous man in the world was a metre from her, but her thrill came from knowing that she was partially, fleetingly, alongside thousands of others, unnoticed by most of the planet, onthe telly.

Later that night Charlie Bird reported live from Moneygall. He was surrounded by people – mostly youngsters – as if it were a post-match GAA report or a Fianna Fáil ardfheis. More people than you thought it was possible to squeeze into a television set. Craning, peeking, grinning, straining, staring. Bird was so embedded in townsfolk that he actually rested his hand on a girl’s head. He lifted it for a few moments, but after the redundant hand panicked in search of a resting place he let it settle again atop the girl.

Do other nations act like this, unable to see a camera without being temporarily lobotomised by its gaze? Or are these incidents a microcosm of something we know, and which has been clear over a week of royal and presidential visits: that the Irish are obsessed with being seen, and how they are viewed, and that these passing moments reveal a yearning for validation and a hopeless need to be popular.

In Wednesday’s New York Times Maureen Dowd wrote: “As JFK and Bill Clinton discovered before , Irish love is all-encompassing, a mother’s milk for needy politicians.” But the neediness goes both ways. Can you imagine if Obama had come here and told us a few home truths? “Well, you really screwed things up, didn’t you . . . Ní feidir linn, unless you default . . . Your Taoiseach’s speech was a bit cringey, by the way, in how it took an entirely different cultural and political context and appropriated it for a clumsy populist tub-thumper in an effort to impress me, you and Brian O’Driscoll.” That sort of thing.

Instead he passed out hope about the best days lying ahead, an easy line given the implicit follow-on, “cos they sure as hell ain’t now”.

In the space of a week we were visited by our neighbours on either side of us, our two closest cultural influences and lifelines as well as the sources of our greatest neuroses. There was a genuine, proud warmth about the welcomes for both Queen Elizabeth and the Obamas, but also a clumsy eagerness to put on a decent show. When the queen came there was a concert that resembled an expensive secondary-school recital. (“Thank you for that lovely song, Mary. Now the girls are going to give us a nice fashion show . . .”)

It was always acknowledged that the visits were as much about Ireland presenting a face to the world as they were about welcoming the visitors. The domestic coverage was, not surprisingly, fascinated by how Ireland was being viewed by others. The answer was that Obama’s visit, anyhow, was seen in terms of pints downed, debts run up and presidential cars stalled. The pub visits of both Queen Elizabeth and the Obamas showed the country in exemplary alcoholic mode, always talking about how it needs to quit the drink but frightened that if it does so it won’t be fun and popular any more.

We put on a good spread, but in return we must be told we are great. Remember the former German ambassador Christian Pauls in 2007? “Mistranslated” or not (he claimed they were), his critical comments about Ireland resulted in a dressing-down from the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Irish can be self-critical yet thin-skinned, sensitive to minor slights, yearning for affirmation.

So we were overly impressed when the queen uttered a few words in Irish, while headlines that declared us “friends and equals” betrayed our inferiority complex. (We’ve got this far without using the term postcolonialism – add it wherever you see fit.) On Monday Obama’s speech was witty and articulate, but it will leave little of a mark beyond the redness on our bellies, sore from being rubbed. And the past fortnight has been fun and given us much to be proud of. But it suited everyone that Obama fell in with the idea that Ireland is the Greatest Little Country in the World. The little country that could. And did. Then wished it hadn’t. But will once again be the Greatest Little Country in the World.

To which our response was to wave at the telly and ask the world: can you see us? Are we on the telly? How do we look? Will we see it on the news later?

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