OK, it's not a snapshot. It's a prose portrait. If you don't like reading, look at the Swazi girls.
This word picture appears in McCarthy's Bar (Hodder and Stoughton, 2000), written by Pete McCarthy, by birth but fully Irish in spirit. His mission in life is to visit any and every pub named "McCarthy's", hence his travels to the Auld Sod which this book describes. This scene is set in Killarney...
Outside the big hotels, pony and trap drivers with the faces of medieval assassins are touting for business among gaggles of befuddled recent arrivals who are wandering around in a collective trance, like Stepford tourists. "Will the horse expect extra oats?" enquires an admirably self-aware American, who, at a guess, has won a trip to Europe as first prize in the Fattest Arse in the Midwest competition.
Perched on top of the card in baseball cap, stripy stretch fabric polo shirt and vast architect-designed shorts, he looks like Tweedledum. It takes two of the assassins to hoist his wife up there to join him, like Tweedledee in drag. The horse craps ostentatiously in derision, and off they trundle, to provide a bit of comic relief for the people stuck in traffic jams....
I'm beginning to realise that the parts of the country I've been in so far have been deserted because every bugger's here. Suddenly the gridlocked traffic is overtaken by Tweedledum and Tweedledee, careering along in their souped-up tumbril as the assassin cracks his whip.
To show that they've been assimilated into Celtic society, they're both now draped in tartan picnic rugs. He's smoking a large cigar, while she's opted for a packet of fudge as big as Dobbin's nosebag, to tide her over till dinner in half an hour's time.
Irish hotels catering for Americans are aware of the need to serve American-sized portions, so she'll soon be tucking into a whole spit-roast pig, followed by a main course, all washed down with pints of Diet Coke to stop her from getting fat....
As I'm about to leave [the pub], the crowded room is suddenly filled to bursting point as the Tweedles come in with great commotion, accompanied by an even heavier couple....
"So how are you enjoying your holiday?" asks the barman, as he pours whiskey for the men, and something green for their partners.
"Oh, it's just gorgeous," says Tweedledee.
"Yeah, terrific," agrees Tweedledum. "So old-fashioned."
"And so unspoiled," says Dee. "Say, do you have a rest room?"
"Upstairs."
"Guess I'll wait then," says Dee. "We don't do stairs."
"So where are you folks from?" asks the barman.
"Oh, we live in Chicago," says Dum, "but my father was Irish."
There's a general murmur of approval and I feel ashamed. This man I've been mocking as a stereotype of mindless tourism turns out to be as authentically Irish as I am. I feel like apologising, though we've never even met.
"Sure, that's great," says the barman. "So where exactly was your daddy from?"
"He was from Texas."
McCarthy's Pub is a fine book, a rollicking good read. And let me reassure American readers that McCarthy is not anti-American. He's just anti-tourist, skewering alike the English, the Germans, the Italians, the Scandinavians...and did I mention the English? Here's a trenchant quote:
Once somewhere has more tourists than local people, more knick-knack shops than newsagents or groceries, then equilibrium has been destroyed, the game is up, and the balance has irrevocably shifted in favour of revenue, occupancy and the forces of darkness. Real life may continue, but to the visitor it's all but invisible.
Agent 3, who lives in a tourist trap (and sent McCarthy's Pub to me) says this is all too true.
* Note from Ed.: Walt wrote "Eire", not "Ireland", but I changed it so Americans would understand.
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