The Irish are happier than the French? Yeah right | Hilary Fannin

It’s summer, apparently. You can tell by looking at people’s footwear on public transport. They may be sheathed in rainwear or cushioned by bulky knitwear, they may even be wearing the thermal vests they dragged out from the airtight bag of winter wear that they stored under the bed in early June when, if memory serves, the country experienced a couple of consecutive days’ sunshine.

But folk seem reluctant to jettison their summer sandals, no matter how damn cold it is. It’s just too blinking depressing to dust off your Doc Martens in August and go stomping around the sodden pavements like it’s bleedin’ February.

I have not checked the long-range weather forecast, so I suppose it’s possible that you may be reading this in the middle of an August heatwave, which would be excellent and absolutely gobsmacking news. Hell, you may be casting this column aside to strip off down to your Y-fronts and swim with dolphins in a blistering Irish bay. Or perhaps you’re throwing caution to the wind along with your newspaper/ laptop/iPhone and sunbathing naked in the bowl of Macgillycuddy’s Reeks.

Fantastic. I’m bloody delighted for you.

Meanwhile, back here, knee-high in the wetlands of an Irish midsummer Wednesday, I’ve been riding the bus into town to buy myself a cardigan.

“You’ll need a cardigan.”

“Do you not have a cardigan?”

“You’ll freeze to death; you should’ve brought a cardigan.”

There are certain mantras hardwired into our DNA if you’re born in this country, phrases that follow you through life like hayfever or an arthritic dog or a vague yet persistent interest in heraldry.

Goose-pimpled life

“You’ll need a cardigan” ranks up there with the most dismal. So familiar and tedious is the expression, in fact, that I was considering, “Finally, I don’t need a cardigan” as my shagging epitaph.

No! No, I don’t have a cardigan. I never have a cardigan. I’ve spent my life cardigan-less. I’ve led a louche, goose-pimpled life. No wonder I never earned a Fáinne; no wonder I don’t have a pension, or a canteen of cutlery, or half-decent glassware.

Anyway, I was riding the bus into town, in storm-force gloom, watching people getting airlifted by their umbrellas as they tried to concertina their brolly spokes while finding their travel passes in the pockets of their sodden windcheaters and getting on board.

Bruised by wind and rain they may have been, but it was remarkable how many intending passengers were shod in delicate little open-toed confections, nicely displaying their muddied, marble-cold pinkies.

It cheered me up no end. It’s a sign of untrammelled optimism that, as a nation, we can still get out of bed in the morning and actually choose to wear our cerise-pink flip-flops, despite the overwhelming evidence that, sooner or later, those angry little angels up in God’s heaven, who’d rather be down here on Earth watching Netflix and flicking through Tinder, will, out of sheer cherubic spite, start chucking it down on us in bucketfuls.

According to the 2015 World Happiness Report, Ireland ranks as the 18th happiest nation on the planet. We are marginally happier than the people of Belgium. Then again . . .

We’re happier than the British, the Germans and the French, apparently. I assume the happiness index isn’t predicated on prevailing winds or the fickle nature of the Gulf Stream, which is always too far north or too far south.

I get that we’re happier than the British: we spend less time queueing for things like dental benefit forms and musicals; there are fewer of us. I go to London, planning on zipping around to see old friends, visit some dead bloke’s major retrospective and check out the underwear in Uniqlo, and I have to lie down after an hour. People shock. I’m bloody exhausted.

Great teeth

As for the Germans, how can anyone know we’re happier than the Germans? The Germans might just express happiness in a different way. Doggedly. Mind you, the Germans I know look perfectly happy; they’ve good sunblock and great teeth and state-of-the-art camping equipment.

The French, though? We can’t be happier than the French; that’s insane. They have wine and cheese and sunshine. And they’re thin. Hot and thin. Happier than the French? The French only use their cardigans for decoration; they’re a sartorial frippery, not a necessity for the preservation of human life.

Happier than the French? Tell it to the woman with the bluing toes and goose pimples. It’s almost her stop.