Know thy neighbour
By Primal Sneeze ~ July 10th, 2007. Filed under: Fun, Immigration, Local, Neighbours.
Macra na Feirme‘s second annual Know You Neighbour weekend is on the 14th and 15th of this month. What is that all about?
Well to start with, Macra na Feirme, is Ireland’s young farmers’ association. If you are a member, or in the know otherwise, you get to call it da macra. That shows you are really cool. Way back when I was in da macra (see how cool I was then!) the membership was 20% young and 80% confused 30 and 40 year olds who, for farmers, knew little about growth and never moved on to the adult equivalent – the Irish Farmers’ Association.
But anyway, they did, and still do some good work such as organising the Know Your Neighbour weekend. You can find out all about it on the website. It’s not a great site mind you. It looks like it was designed by a very junior member, even a child – all milk and cookies. Well there are definitely plenty of cookies and I’m sure there’s a link to milk somewhere.
What a fantastic idea, I thought. I’ve love to know that hot babe who moved in recently. Biblically if possible.
When both myself and God were in short trousers I knew everything about the neighbours. Names, ages, occupations, phone numbers of those had them – I would have scored top marks in the Know Your Neighbour quiz. There are far more houses now and I couldn’t tell you half the newcomers’ surnames.
So I popped around to a few of the older families – the Coughs, the Snots, the Sneezes (no relation), the Spits. Isn’t about time we got to know some of the new folks – the Ejaculations, the Farts, the Wees, I asked. The response was muted. The attitude was that they aren’t from this neck and we’d have nothing in common. But we could have a barbecue, a few beers, a coffee morning. It’d be fun. Paddy Cough suggested we invite the Belches back for the weekend. They were great neighbours and sadly missed since they moved. But that wasn’t the point of the exercise.
There was nothing for it but to go ahead on my own so I called in on the newbies. The Ejaculations and the Wees had a problem with a few beers and the former aren’t really morning people which ruled out coffee. The Farts weren’t mad about barbecue for some reason.
I’ll have to think of a mutually acceptable activity. And involve the old-stock too. I never realised integration could be so difficult.
There was a time when your neighbour would be your best friend but then you stopped wearing shorts and went to school and your best frieds were (your neighbours) the people sitting next too you in Class, then you went to college and your new friends would usually be sitting next too you in Lectures. When you eventually get old enough to own a house you have too many firends to bother making friends with the neighbours and anyway after hearing them having sex, flushing the toilet and arguing through the paper this walls do you really want to get to know them any better ?
Well, Mac, the thing is that where I/we live is rural. You’d need some very high tech surveillance equipment to listen in on the neighbours. Our walls are solid and even the closest pairing of houses are 20m apart.
But I see what you mean. The claustrophobia of having to live within a thin-walled legoland would make me avoid the neighbours like the plague.
Build a msmokey bonfire at the end of the garden and soon they will come out (to complain) just hand round a glass of plonk and some nibbles and Bob’s your uncle.
Fair play Sneeze! Golly, I grew up in a rural village and we knew everyone and everone knew us, what a sense of community that was. A dog couldn’t walk up the raod without being identified immediately. Shit, we even knew some of our neighbours by the sound of their cars.
That’s the ticket, Grannymar. With my luck, I’ll probably get fined by the council but I’ll give it a go anyway.
Did the dogs in your village have surnames, FMC? Here they all did. Even when there weren’t two with the same first name. Ha! Yeah cars were recognisable sometimes too. You’d have to tippy-tyre past a house if you were avoiding them (if you’d defaulted on a loan of a pint of milk or something).
When we move back home its going to be Longford and everyone there knows my wife , knows our business and even knows what happens to us over here in Lebanon. It does have its advantages as every time I go back into her local I get a pint on the house. I drank in bars in dublin for 10 years sometime 4 time a week and never got a free pint.
I’ve had free pints in Dublin, and I’m expecting more when I return in the not too distant future.
Actually I’ve tried to explain over here in the US, where what they call a city looks just like suburbs to you and me, that I knew every single neighbour for many roads around. Granted over here I’m a foreigner so I understand the notion of not knowing my next door neighbour, but the people actually from this city typically don’t know their next door neighbours. That’s just weird.
In my Dublin suburb I lived on a short road with just 21 houses. I would have been in every one, and most of them hundreds of times, some thousands. And I was in most of the houses for several roads around. There was 83 kids on our road and I wouldn’t have a problem naming them now, nor most of the kids house by house of the surrounding streets. Different times.
As far as I can tell, and it’s largely invisible to outsiders, many suburbs of Dublin functioned socially very similar to rural villages. Our house was by a lane – we would have recognised just the sound of every car driving up there and many of the walks even.
That was very typical of much of Dublin that I knew, but not all of it. When I grew up and out I made friends with Dublin people from other areas who lived in houses just like mine, and had lived there all their lives, but they couldn’t tell me who lived in that house directly across the road, or two doors down. These were more monied areas than my area but long before any new folks. They weren’t integrated with themselves even, so new folks – what are the chances?
For you, I suggest building an igloo. Trust me. If you build it they will come.
You’ll have no problems with awkward silences and lack of common ground with your new neighbours if you ask the Sputums from over the way. Life and soul, they are. Good at putting out fires too if you plump for the bbq.
Our dogs had surnames too!! They needed to as the only two dog names in the Western Isles were Dileas or Sandy for the longest time. Now, with the changing times we have such exotic names as Cloudburst (a cat) and Ranger. Every herd of sheep still has at least one Flossie though. Too much change is too much and all.
Oh my God, they did have names. We were VELLY rural.
Sorry about my comment – I got carried away. It’s been a bad decade.
I’ve lived in six U.S. states (city, suburb, and rural) and now here in Canada. The only places where I’ve ever known my neighbors by name and for a chat was in Philly and here in Toronto. My experience of the suburban U.S. is that people don’t talk to you. All I heard outdoors were constant lawnmowers there.
Mac – I was wondering why you picked Longford. It’s clear now – the free pints. I might move to a free pint county too.
Eolaí x 2 – No worries. I can see the Dublin suburbs of your childhood were no different than real areas. The monied ones – well, I think you’ve hit the shiny metal thing on the end that’s not pointy – with money, folks don’t, or believe they don’t, need neighbours. The one neighbour of ours with a phone never minded being woken at 3am to call a doctor. A coat would be passed to a neighbour’s offspring once grown out of, and then passed on again, and again. Stuff like that wasn’t needed where there was money.
Oh, an igloo would be difficult, but with the weather the way it is an ark is a definite runner.
Sam – Cloudburst is just wrong for a cat. That said, one of lads down the road gives all his bullocks and heifers names. Patch Eye, Blackie, White Leg won’t do for him. They are called Liam, Patrick, Richard, Mary, Niamh, Julie etc.
FMC – Velly rural indeed.
Medbh – Ah, but can you tell which lawnmower is which by the sound?