Emerald Farewell

Frequent readers of Dorf on Law have been treated to (or, depending on one's tastes, afflicted by) something of an international travelogue over the last few years, as I have reported from various outposts in what has become a rather nomadic existence.  I moved to Toronto and then Dublin after taking early retirement from the University of Florida.  And even before then, there was a too-brief stay in Amsterdam that I originally thought would lead to permanent residence in The Netherlands.

All of this was motivated by my sense that the US was going off the rails, which was especially easy for me to notice because, as I put it in a column last summer, Florida had become the "'proof of concept' for what Republicans are now trying to do nationwide."  I was specifically referring there to higher education, but the US state with the maniacally anti-"woke" governor who even went so far as to send out crews to re-paint rainbow crosswalks black and white truly is where the country's worst ideas seem to be incubating.  (I concede that Texas might somehow be even worse.)

My most recent "notes from an expat"-style column was last June's "The Shift Toward non-US Universities is Upon Us. (Oh, and I'm now in Ireland)."  Some readers might, however, have noticed this seeming throwaway line in one of my columns last week: "Because I was living outside the US at that time ... ."  At that time?  Yes, that does indeed mean that I am no longer living abroad.

In an upcoming column on Verdict (from which I have been on leave), I will explain in some detail the pluses and minuses of expatriation in all of their gory, practical detail.  That column will also include my attempt to respond to those who might be saying, "Wait, you were actually out, and you chose to return now?"  But it is at least worth noting here that the January 5 US edition of The Guardian included this headline: "US aircraft monitor tanker off Ireland in clampdown on Venezuelan oil," which seemed almost to be written for my benefit, as a reminder that nowhere is truly safe when the world is seeing unprecedented threats to democracy and international stability.

Here, however, I will leave the global politics aside.  Instead, my more modest aim is to say a few possibly interesting things about the place where I lived for the second half of 2025.

One of Dublin's greatest assets is what I like to call the "presumption of non-aggressiveness" (or, depending on my mood, "... of non-assholeishness").  I concede that this sounds like a backhanded compliment, but having lived in a lot of places where every social interaction carries with it the possibility of people being nasty to each other for no good reason, this is a big thing indeed.  I cannot count the number of times I braced for the worst at a pub or in a store aisle and was pleasantly surprised.  Once, I walked up to a bus stop that had a small overhang and a bench, with one young guy already there waiting.  I stood a dozen feet away and tried to avoid making eye contact, and the guy suddenly looked up from his phone and said, "Oh, hi, do you want to be under the shelter?  I'd be happy to move."  If anything, calling it a "presumption of non-aggressiveness" radically undersells the pleasantness of the place.

And that is a lot.  But because everything in the world is a mixed bag, there were some noteworthy things about living there that have led me to answer questions about what I thought of Ireland with this bit of sarcasm: "It's a great place to visit.  Full stop."

Ireland's history as an oppressed colony of the British Empire is palpable everywhere, and even many Irish people told me that they become annoyed by the default attitude that their country's problems today are the fault of the Brits.  One of the common phrases referring to that history grew out of the eight hundredth anniversary (yes, those are old countries over there) of the 1169 invasion of Ireland by Norman England: "Eight centuries of oppression!"

At one point, I came across an amusing riposte to that oft-heard complaint, inspired by the great scene from Monty Python's "The Life of Brian": "What have the Normans ever done for us?!"  I am most certainly not defending Britain's rule or saying that there were no atrocities -- that would be insane even to suggest -- but the locals who talked to me about the attitude pointed out that it was often used as an excuse to explain continued problems in the country.  Even though there is truth to the fundamental complaint, there is a fine line between being descriptive and being self-exculpatory.

When I moved to Dublin, many of the people I met complained bitterly about how the City Centre had become dangerous and unpleasant.  My immediate thought was that this was a combination of two things, one benign and the other deeply concerning.  It is one thing for people to say at any point during their lives that "things were so much better until recently," and quite another to imply strongly that it is the recent relative surge of immigration into Ireland that had made it all go to hell.  I was mostly amused by the idea that a country where there were no mass shootings would be called dangerous, so I smiled politely and assumed that there was not much to the complaints.

Once again, however, even the local people I met who were quite proud of their country and seemed in no way to be blaming outsiders told me repeatedly that the city was more dirty and dangerous than it had ever been.  And I even noticed that, during my last three months there, I simply avoided going into the City Centre.  That would be fine, except that the city is actually rather small (with fewer residents than, say, the Pittsburgh metro area), which means that avoiding the core of the city was definitely limiting.

Finally, I will reproduce here part of an email that I received from a colleague who is a second-generation emigrant from Ireland: 

[A]lthough you would be far too polite to point this out, Ireland as a place is a mixture of wonderful and insufferable.  I'm glad to have the link and I'm glad to have lived there myself, but there's a reason why more people of recent Irish extraction live in the UK than in the ROI.  I always feel a slight tinge of stress when I see some YouTuber falling over themselves at the beauty of those small one-street towns in the centre of Ireland.  My gut reaction is "but those are the places that my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents fought so hard to get out of."

Even setting aside the commentary -- though I do love the phrase "a mixture of wonderful and insufferable" -- it is truly remarkable to learn that more people of Irish extraction live in the UK than in Ireland itself.  And note that this refers to recent extraction, which my colleague noted in a subsequent conversation means first- and second-generation emigrants.  This is not, in other words, a matter of counting up the people in, say, the US and Canada with surnames like Murphy and O'Halloran whose families have been on this side of the Atlantic since the 1850's.  Tellingly, current and very recent generations of young Irish are voting with their feet.  Having spent half a year there, I have a fairly clear idea why.

This "Emerald Farewell," then, expresses a bit of a mixture of fondness and exasperation.  There are many positive things to say about Dublin, and if I were still there, I would do my best to defend the place against assessments that emphasize the negatives over the positives.  Leaving aside the second half of the cliche, however, I will simply repeat that it is a great place to visit.

- Neil H. Buchanan