The Spanish Invasion

Well, it's happening already. Was out shopping today and saw a few gangs of what looked like spanish and italian kids hanging around outside the English college on grafton st and sheltering from the rain at the entrance to Stephens Green Shopping Center. Were doing the usual, standing around blocking the path, chattering at the top of their voices and ignoring anyone trying to get past them. this is a worrying tend; most years the invasion of annoying little kids didn't start til around Paddys Day, then subside a bit til about may/june. Is starting early!

So, seeing as ye're arriving early, here's a bit of advice to our southern european cousins coming over to make their trip to Ireland a little bit more pleasant - for the rest of us:

- Big Groups are bad. We know that there's apparently safety in numbers and there has been occasions where some of you have gotten the shit kicked out of you by scumbags when you were foolish enough to venture into fairview park or down by dun laoighre by yourselves, but it is actually possible to go around in gangs of less than 20 or 30. You draw less attention to yourself that way.
- learn to make room for people. When you're hanging around in your cast-of-thousands groups outside McDonalds, Trinity or the GPO, try moving in a bit to allow other people to pass you. We live here, you're visitors: we own the pavement not you. I don't care how bad your english is (see below), someone walking up to you and stopping right beside you for 10-20 secs, moving from side to side all the time translates as "I want to get past you, please give me room" in any language. Rather than standing there acting dumb and not moving, try making room for us before our ingrained politeness is overcome by our urge to shove you out into oncoming traffic.
- Learn to shut up, or at least tone it down a bit. I've been to Spain and Italy, and I've lived with Spanish and Italians. Ye aren't all that loud all the time. Well, maybe ye> are, at home, and that's why your parents are getting rid of you for the summer. Really though, we don't need to be able to hear your conversations from 25 feet away - is not like we'll understand it anyway. This goes double on public transport: the bus or DART is a confined space and your voices are amplified, plus the rest of us can't get away from you for some quiet no mater how much we want to.
- Speak English. Allegedly you're here to learn English, so maybe it'd be good if you practised every now and then. It might make life easier when ye all go into McDonalds - the same person doesn't have to keep going up for everyone.
- Buy stuff occasionally. You may have heard that there's a recession at the moment. So, rather than going into some cafe/restaurant/fast food place and having 10-15 of you sitting around one can of coke, try buying a few more or even (gasp, shock) a drink each! I know your parents probably didn't give you much pocket money and things are expensive here, but the cafe owners need to make money too, and you're taking up the space of someone who actually might want to buy something.

So, "students", follow these simple little rules and we'll all get along fine until you learn to cop on a bit. For the rest of us, this does actually happen eventually - I half-jokingly asked my Spanish flatmate one time "so at what age do ye Spanish kids stop being irritating little fuckwits?", and she said "oh, about 17 or 18". So there is hope on the horizon! :-)