Author: tchandra

Four weeks sound like a long time in theory, but in practice, it flies by so quickly. In between classes every morning and afternoon, and activities every evening, July flew by so quickly, and my time in the beautiful hills of Donegal came to a close. I bid a longing farewell to the ocean, the glen, and my two donkey-friends Nellie and Bella.

Living in remote Donegal for a month has been an illuminating experience, and has prompted me to think critically about intercultural interactions. Thinking about Hofstede’s D6 model, and relating it to the three places I have now lived in for a significant amount of time, it’s interesting to compare how these different places approach ideas like power dynamics and hierarchies, and the sense of individualism and community.

In both India (my home country) and the States (where I currently live), there is a clear imbalance of power in educational institutions, for example. It mellows out a lot at the graduate level, where one is working with the faculty not just as students, but also as colleagues to an extent; but at the undergraduate level, there is a more obvious hierarchy of power between students and teachers. But this was not at all the case in Ireland, where teachers and students (of all educational levels) have a much more informal relationship both within and outside the classroom; it isn’t odd to go swimming together in the ocean and grab chipper van food for dinner.

This informality, and a more diffused sense of power dynamics ties into the strong sense of community that I felt in my time in Ireland. Much like in India, Ireland has a strong sense of a ‘neighborhood culture,’ where it is common and expected for you to take an interest in your neighbors’ lives and vice versa, and maintain close ties. In fact, there are several specific words for different kinds of community interactions in Irish, be it a night-visit to someone’s house, going to hear stories, or going for a gossip. This strong sense of community also feeds into a very relaxed understanding of private property; while it feels odd to even step into someone’s front lawn in the States, it is perfectly normal to cut through people’s yards and gardens in Ireland–basically, if you can imagine a shortcut in your head, you can make it happen in Ireland. Not so much in the States, where there is a more pronounced individualistic approach to life, and imagined shortcuts have to stay in the imagination if they involve trespassing through people’s private lands.

Overall, I would say that the Hofstede D6 model, is a helpful tool to think about some of the foundational aspects of any National Culture, especially when one is interested in comparative cultures!

My second week here at Oideas Gael, in remote Gleann Cholm Cille, Donegal, began with a very interesting experience.

My housemate from Week 1, Anastasia, who is a musical theatre director from San Francisco, left on Friday, and I was joined by Catherine, a Spanish language writer of Irish descent. After having a wee chat at the shared house, I showed Catherine the shortcut down to the school (it is quite normal here to cut through your neighbours’ yards to get from point A to B; an understanding of private property that was so lovely to me!), and headed out for a walk.

An hour passed, I saw the fair sights and green glens of Gleann Cholm Cille, and was enjoying a lazy stroll back to the school when I felt someone staring at me from across the street. It was a woman I had not seen at the school before. She stared at me with a little frown, crossed the road, and said, “Are you the Indian girl, then?”

Gleann Cholm Cille has a population of 200. It was a fair assumption to say that I was the Indian girl. And I said as much to the woman.

“Do you have a housemate named [let’s call her] Catherine?” she goes. “Tall, old woman?”

At this point, I began to get an inkling of what had happened. “Yes,” I said.

“Oh good!” went the woman. “She got lost on her way back home from the school, and was asking around for the wee Indian girl she lives with! And there are not a lot of Indians in remote Donegal, so I thought it might be a fair shot to ask you.”

And it was. 

This humorous incident led to an interesting conversation with the woman, named Tasneem, who is of mixed Irish and Lebanese descent, and who shared some of my initial concerns about not being an obvious speaker of the language—and who was also very pleasantly surprised at how very welcoming and open this remote corner of Donegal had been.

Being in Oideas Gael as an Indian citizen currently residing in the States is an experience an-súimiúil; at the beginning of every week, I introduce myself as “Is mise Tirna. Is as India me, ach, tá mé i mo chónaí in Indiana anois” (I’m Tirna. I’m from India, but I live in Indiana now). As such, this is often followed by someone going “Ah, why are you learning Irish, then?”—a question Tasneem receives as well.

My answer, where I try to explain my intellectual curiosities and why learning the language is critical to my doctoral work (in halting, but gradually improving Irish), is well-received, and is sometimes followed by a polite and puzzled frown, and a “Do you have any Irish connections at all?”

“None at all,” I explain. “I’m just here because I love the language.”

A lot of the Irish people I have met in Donegal have the assumption that if one is American (or from the U.S.), and is partaking in Irish language or cultural activities, it must stem from a personal, genealogical connection to the land. While not being a stereotype, I found this to be an interesting assumption; the idea that personal, familial connections are the usual motive for Americans to try to learn the Irish language—and by and large, this is an accurate assumption; a third of the participants at Oideas Gael are American, and the vast majority of them have Irish roots. This puts me in an interesting position, where people are often politely unsure of how to categorise me.

Reflecting on this instability of category led me to realize that I myself have internalized this assumption; upon my first encounter with Tasneem, I had taken her to be a tourist, and not a student at Oideas Gael. Without me being aware of it, I had internalized a stereotype of who could be an Irish speaker, and excluded myself from it in the process. However, being here at Oideas Gael, and slowly gaining competency in the language, has been a transformative experience; it has made me realize that there is no such thing as an ‘obvious’ speaker of a language.