Letters from England/Letters about Ireland
LETTERS ABOUT IRELAND
I
ACTUALLY it had been my wish to write letters from Ireland; after all, it would take me only a few paltry hours to get there; why I do not go is not quite clear even to myself. I think that it is the fault of the Irish question.
I have submitted the Irish question to nearly all Englishmen, Scots, Cymri and Gaels whom I have met; I have asked them what I really ought to see in Ireland and what I should aim at there; it seemed to me that this question was somehow un pleasant to them. They told me that I would do better to go to Oxford or Stratford or to the seaside. And this inflamed my curiosity all the more.
“Go to the north,” one man advised me.
“Go to the west,” another one advised me in a somewhat unenthusiastic manner.
“Go to the south,” said a third. “I haven’t been there myself, but as you want to go there . . .”
II
Question: I should like to have a look at Ireland. What is your opinion?
Answer: Ah—eh—eh—eh—oh—oh. Eh?
Question: What?
Answer: It isn’t altogether quiet there.
Question: Are things as bad as that?
Answer: Well, they’re blowing up bridges there, and when a train comes along
Question: Then all the trains are blown up too
Answer (rather hesitant): No, not all of them. I’ll tell you what. Go to Belfast. You’ll find things there almost the same as here.
III
Mr. Shaw then recommended only a single spot in Ireland;
this is a small islet in the south, the name of which I have forgotten. The people there, it appears, have preserved much of their primitive character; unfortunately, added Mr. Shaw, it is impossible to land on the island in question.
IV
Good, you’ll have a look round there on your own. You’ll buy a guide-book to Ireland, you’ll select a few nice places and you’ll write letters from Ireland.
Beginning with Glasgow, I wander from one bookshop to another to buy a guide-book to Ireland. But the bookseller shakes his head pensively; no, he hasn’t a guide-book to Ireland. He had guide-books to Cornwall and the Dukeries, to Snowdon and the Wembley Exhibition, but as it happens, nothing for Ireland, sorry, nothing whatever. “Our people don’t go there.”
V
It would take me only a few paltry hours to get from here to Ireland; but tell me, what earthly reason is there why I should cast aside the secret with which this country, as far as I am concerned, is enfolded? So I shall always gaze with affection and joy at the map of Ireland: Behold, the country, which I did not strip of its veils.