The Irish and Italians have a shared empathy and attitude to life, despite their many differences – and the occasional defeat at football, writes JUSTIN COMISKEY
THERE IS AN instinctive empathy and sympathy between the Irish and Italians that is very rare. Italians feel at ease and at home in Ireland and in the company of Irish people.” This was the judgment of former Italian ambassador to Ireland Dr Alberto Schepisi when asked why the two nations apparently get on so well together. He couldn’t put his finger on why this empathy exists but his judgment was sincerely held and he was anxious for the relationship to deepen.
At first glance the Irish and Italians wouldn’t appear to have much in common, given the obvious differences of location, climate, history, culture and language. The riddle of our empathy becomes even more odd when you get to know Italians better and discover their twin obsessions – great food and looking good all the time – which are not exactly top of the list of priorities among the Irish. Add in another Italian trait which the Irish are not renowned for – an impatience which borders on extreme rudeness – and solving the empathy riddle can lead to a lot of head scratching.
The typical Italian spends quite a bit of time and money on their appearance. Looking your best, no matter what the circumstance, is priorità numero uno in order to avoid making a brutta figura (bad face). A friend from Milan illustrates this trait with a story about his mother. “She was being rushed to hospital in the middle of the night with suspected appendicitis. The poor woman, dressed only in her nightclothes, was in a lot of pain on the stretcher in the ambulance. She looked terrible. I asked her: ‘Mama, is there anything I can get for you?’ She said: ‘Yes, my make-up from my bag so I don’t make a brutta figura when we get to the hospital.’ ”
This obsession with looking good leads some to suspect that Italians are frivolous and superficial. Not so – putting your best foot forward is deeply ingrained in the Italian psyche. Looking your best shows you’ve a healthy respect for yourself and who you’re going to meet. If you want Italians to take you seriously, particularly in business but also socially, you must be well presented. “If you’re not,” says one Irish resident of the Eternal City, “you might as well walk around with a great big sign on your head which reads ‘I’m an eegit’.”
When it comes to food, Italy is world renowned – something the Irish authorities are keen to match. The sector makes up a fair chunk of Italy’s exports – nearly all high-value-added products bearing iconic brand names – but nothing could prepare you for how food dominates everyday conversation in Italy. As the Irish make casual conversation about the weather, Italians will talk till the cows come home about food: what’s in season and how to cook it.
My Italian father-in-law, would regularly bemoan a lack of interest in “real” (political and cultural) issues among the average citadino who prefers to talk about what’s on today’s menu instead.
“We’ve got Berlusconi to get rid off,” he thundered one day, “but all the average Italian can do is talk about stuffing their face.”
After his first encounter with Irish cuisine, however, my father-in-law won’t enter Irish airspace without Italian coffee, salami, wine, pasta, garlic and Parmigiano (Parmesan). He’s also smuggled in the odd steak and rock-like Italian biscuits that are dipped in wine or brandy.
He brought over so much Parmigiano to Dublin – Italians believe it’s very good for children – that one of his granddaughters here christened him nonno Parmigiano (granddad Parmesan).
Whenever the story of nonno Parmigiano is told in Italy it always gets a good laugh. And this is not surprising because, as Italians spend so much time discussing it, a lot of their expressions and humour are based around food and a good food-related story cracks them up.
So, if it’s fair to say that the Italians have a more sophisticated approach than the Irish to fashion and food – not to mention drink (drunkenness to Italians is the worst form of Anglo-Saxon savagery). Why then do we get on so well?
“The Irish and Italians love to enjoy themselves with large groups,” says Eileen Dunne Crescenzi of Dunne Crescenzi in Dublin, a food shop and restaurant she runs with husband Stefano. “We’re very social, very curious, very talkative, naturally good humoured. The Irish and Italians love to chat and to gossip, and the Italians are every bit as begrudging as the Irish.
“I recall, as a young teenager, going to the Vatican with a group of Irish friends, chatting and joking as we walked. At the entrance the porter on duty stopped us and asked if we were Irish. ‘Yes,’ we replied, ‘and how do you know that?’
“ ‘Working here at the Vatican for many years I have noted that the Irish look like the Italians without a tan.’ That’s an interesting observation that I have never forgotten.”
Dunne worked for 20 years with IFAD, a UN organisation in Rome, and says “the majority of us foreign girls were married to Italians. Most of those marriages broke up – Swedish/Italian, English/Italian, American/Italian, etc – but the majority of Irish/Italian marriages remained strong. It must be because we love children and family so much and that we’re such good communicators. While we share many traits, the Italians have a more sophisticated approach to many of their interests. Irish people seem to have an innate curiosity while the Italians have a learned curiosity.”
Another reason why we get on so well, says one long-term Italian resident in Dublin, is because when the Irish “think of Italy they think of the warm weather, great food, beautiful places, so they’re positively disposed towards Italians to begin with. The Italians and Irish also have a tendency to exaggerate, to be larger than life – and know that they won’t be held accountable for promising more than they can deliver.”
There are many other similarities between Ireland and Italy. Both have a common religion and a shared history of emigration and colonisation. There is no historical baggage between us and, bar the occasional defeat at football, there is nothing to sour relations. But what really unites us is that “we seem to share an attitude of dialogue with everyone” as former ambassador Schepisi rather diplomatically put it.