6 Easy Things Any Emigrant Can Do To Feel They’re Back In Ireland Again

For any Irish who may be homesick in America or elsewhere here’s a little list of 6 easy things you can do to help you feel home again.

1. Burn an egg. Break an egg into a frying pan while taking great care not to break the yolk but, and this is important, failing. Then just burn the thing like your grandmother would. Don’t give a moment’s thought to anything being over easy or slippery side arseways; it’s just an egg. No two should be alike.
2. Change in public. Grab a large towel, though not one as big as the state of Nebraska. Go outside and open your car. Do not get in. Stand beside the open car door and wrap the towel around your waist. Underneath the towel introduce swimming togs before shuffling and grunting and overstretching. When the pains and the fear of embarassment subside, walk out of your towel a changed man, just like Mr Bean.
3. Turn the water off. Grab a large plastic bowl. It will be labelled in America as a small plastic bowl. Place it in your sink. Put dirty dishes into the bowl. Turn on the hot water tap. The next part is the most crucial. When the water level rises so high within the bowl that it is about to spill over the edge, turn off the tap. Without turning the tap back on, wash all the dishes in the bowl.
4. Eat gritty sandwiches. Using sliced white bread, as unsweetened as you can find, and ideally not tasting of plastic or feeling robust enough to bounce like a basketball an unmouldy two months after purchase. Make sambos. Egg sandwiches. Salad sandwiches. Chop eveything up tiny and mush it with something moist before putting it on the bread. Finally, sprinkle a pinch of sand for that full seaside flavour.
5. Dispense tea unsolicited. Wait for high summer. When the temperature reaches triple figures be sure to always have a pot of tea made. When anybody steps into your home, without asking them, just hand hand them a hot cup of tea, already milked. As they look puzzled, ask them if they had wanted sugar.
6. Delay the TV news. Record the 5 O’Clock news on television. At 6 O’Clock play an audio recording of church bells you have made earlier. Sigh for a full minute while you wait for the bells to finish. Get up to go and start to make a pot of tea, only for the bells to finish. Start your tape of the news at one minute past 6pm.