You’ve probably noticed the plethora of road signs around the country that proclaim that the town or village you’re entering is twinned with some other town or village, usually somewhere in Europe or the Americas. But have you ever asked yourself why?
The notion of ‘twinning’ started after WWII and, in theory, it was a noble idea – the British, Germans, French, Americans, Italians and so on could kiss and make up again after they’d been batin’ the shite out of each other for six years. But why is the practice so rampant in Ireland, which was neutral during the war?
The official reason is that twinning promotes goodwill among nations, fosters cultural exchange and encourages tourism. All very honourable, selfless and virtuous of the councillors to arrange. So can we assume that, since Carrick-on-Shannon was twinned with the village of Cesson Sévigné in Brittany over a decade ago, hordes of French people have been spending loads of dosh and teaching all the locals to speak French and cook poulet à la Bretonne and crêpes suzette? Or that hordes of Italians have been pouring into Cobh from Potenza Picena in sunny Italia, throwing money around and teaching the locals how to sing Puccini’s La Bohème? Yeah? Well, there’s about as much chance of that happening as you have of being decapitated by a soggy beermat.
The real reason for twinning, as we all know, is so a bunch of Irish councillors, along with their equally craic-loving counterparts abroad, can spend loads of taxpayers’ money on junkets, usually to sunny or exotic places. They will argue that the EU provides grants for this sort of nonsense so the Irish taxpayer isn’t bearing the full cost of boozy weekends in five-star hotels. Well, that’s ok then, so long as they’re wasting someone else’s cash. Not.
It is a rare thing, you may not be surprised to learn, to come across an Irish town twinned with some really wojus, cold and miserable kip in Ukraine or northern Scandinavia. Instead, we prefer our piss-ups, sorry, cultural exchanges to be with towns where the climate is balmy, our favoured destinations being the US, or pretty little hamlets in France and Italy.
And many a town and city has been blessed with multiple twinnings, such is the councillors’ craving for peace and harmony among nations. Among the leaders are Limerick with eight ‘twins’, Killarney with seven, Clonmel, Dublin and Cork with six each, and Castlebar and Naas, with five. But the All Ireland champion by a long stretch is Galway, which seems to be on a ‘world twinning tour’. The good taxpayers of that fine city are best friends with no fewer than eleven other towns spread over four continents. And, you know, it’s often hard to get a hotel room in Galway for all the tourists from Qingdao in Shandong in Eastern China.
Money well spent, lads!
