The most surprising things I learned while studying abroad in Ireland

Last summer, I was lucky enough to have the chance to go to Ireland through Berkeley’s Global Internships program- which is like study abroad, except you work at a local company four days a week. I lived for two months on a college campus in the south part of Dublin, working at a local culture magazine- and learned some pretty weird, surprising things about Ireland while I was there.

There are no sprinklers anywhere in Ireland.

It took me an embarrassing four days to realize that no one here has ever watered their lawn, ever. Because it rained, at minimum, once out of every three days, and that was in the summer. As a result, pretty much everything is green. I already felt like I was never going to see the sun or be warm again—I don’t even want to think about what their winters are like.

Speaking of seasons, on the day I arrived sunset was after 11pm.

Intellectually, most of us know that the difference between night and day are more drastic in parts of the world that are further north than Berkeley. But this was more extreme. The Berkeley Global Internships program started just before the summer solstice, aka the longest day of the year. At that point, there was still light peaking over the horizon at 11pm—and sunrise started at 4am.

And honestly, there is nothing like it being light out past 11pm to make your jet lag even worse. The following photo was taken by me, in my dorm room, at like 9:30pm.

Ireland does not believe in peanut butter.

At all. The little grocery store on campus only had tiny, tiny jars of peanut butter, like maybe a third of the size of a standard peanut butter jar in the US. And they only had it in one brand, Panda, which seems to be the Irish equivalent of Jif. Going to an actual grocery store was a little bit better—but not much. Instead of one brand of tiny peanut butter jars, they had two. One was organic and tasted disgusting. The other was Panda.

Almost all social activities that happen at coffee shops in the US, happen at pubs in Ireland.

That’s at least one stereotype that’s mostly true. Pubs usually serve food, not just alcohol, and so they function more like sit down restaurants in some ways…except they all have alcohol.

Social activities that are, apparently, supposed to meet in pubs, where they would probably meet in coffee shops in the US, include pretty much every time you want to ask an Irish person to meet up with you outside of, say, a workplace, and the book club/reading group affiliated with the Berkeley Study Abroad class and taught by the instructor.

 

You’re never going to master Irish spelling and pronunciation. Don’t bother.

Yes, there is a mostly self-consistent phonetic system to Irish. But you’re not going to master it. And all the Irish people you meet will look at you weirdly whenever you try to pronounce the name of something. For example: Niamh is an incredibly popular Irish girls’ name. It’s pronounced Neeve. Because “mh” makes a “v” sound. Because of course it does. Same way Siobhan is pronounced “Shyvonne” and Sidhe is pronounced “she.”

The language, by the way, is actually called Irish, not Gaelic or Celtic or Irish Gaelic. Gaelic is nowadays only spoken in Scotland, so it’s in your best interest not to confuse the two.

The country of Ireland has about the same population as the city of Los Angeles.

Most things happen on a very different scale in Ireland, but it’s hard to grasp at first how small it is compared to the US, and what most Berkeley students are used to over here.

The country of Ireland contains 4.59 million people (not counting Northern Ireland, who are about to be subjected to Brexit, the poor dears). The city of Los Angeles contains 3.8 million people. That’s literally just a difference of 600,000 people—and if you go by LA County, instead of the city? LA county, clocking in at 10 million people, is just over twice the size of Ireland.

So yeah, that entire country has the same population as my hometown.

And lastly: abortion is completely illegal in Ireland.

Ireland is one of only two EU countries to ban abortion (the other is Malta). It’s an incredibly, incredibly contentious issue in Ireland, in the middle of an ongoing legal battle, to the extent that several of my coworkers had sweatshirts that just said “REPEAL” on them, and nothing else–and everyone knew they were advocating to repeal the 8th Amendment, which bans abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

Obviously, abortion is a very contentious issue in the United States too, but as this country has just elected Donald Trump and Mike Pence, I find myself thinking more and more about what it was like to spend three months in Ireland, where people had to leave the country to get an abortion–and more than that, where people still died in childbirth because their doctors refused to grant medically necessary abortions. In Ireland, the only exception for abortion is if the life of the mother is in danger–but there are far too many cases of doctors misjudging an already substantial risk, and women dying anyway. Considering the number of U.S. politicians currently advocating the even more radical position that abortion should be banned without any exceptions, including the life of the mother, it’s important for us to remember that people dying because they can’t get an abortion should be abnormal–even if it sometimes happens in the US too.

Being in Ireland was a great experience- it was also a strange experience. 

I knew when I chose Ireland that, out of all the study abroad locations, it would be one of the cultures most similar to our own. I didn’t expect quite as many differences as I found, and as seen above, some of the ones I did find were surprising (seriously, who doesn’t believe in peanut butter?!?!). But it was an experience I’m grateful for, and as the differences broadened my own perspectives on what is normal and universal, I learned to appreciate them much more.

You know, except for the abortion ban and the peanut butter.