The Long Coach comes up the coast, pulls in to the edge of town, but cannot navigate the narrow streets.  No matter.  The tourists scramble out, wearing backpacks, dragging wheeled suitcases, and in ones and twos spaced out and eyeing the streets and locals, they descend on the town.  They size up the buildings, the eateries, the pubs, the shops.  They assail the inn, and unpack their weapons–cameras, wallets at the ready, water bottles and collapsable umbrellas ready to hand at a moment’s need.  And like the tourists of Scandinavia 1100 years ago, they set out to take the best food, drink the best beer and whiskey, and survey the land for the best pictures and stories.  Unlike the Vikings, though, they leave gold and wealth in their wake, rather than taking it out.

They are an odd people, the Tourist clan.  They are a people of the Book.  Like earlier missionaries, they rush to the churches, eye the stained glass, light a candle or two in the chapel.  But their book is devoted to a different god–the great and powerful Rick Steves, who knows all, has seen all, who is the way and the truth and the light of touch.  He enters Europe not through the false profits of Swisshotel and Radisson and Sheridan, but through the Back Door.  His followers are devoted, asking themselves repeatedly “What would Rick do?” and checking pages 135-142 to find the answers.  They travel alone and in packs, and sleep at night contentedly, knowing they are on the favored path.

They are a people of movement, many of whom came from this land many generations ago looking for something better than spoiled potatoes and religious persecution, and who found in their wanderings over the generations a better life abroad, raised in private religious schools and living on potato chips.  Yet now they have returned, briefly, to find their roots, as if the potatoes were not enough.  And the ones who were left behind welcome them, share a pint, and play some music, and delight the ear with their brogue.  And the ones who wander smile and laugh, spend their money, enjoy the scenery, and wander off again, eventually back to their Long Coach, to the next town, the next site, wandering on.

Ireland has seen many people come and go, give and take, and the Tourist clan is simply another invasion to be met, assimilated, and sent off again.  Someday, they will be remembered in a museum exhibit, and the visitors will find them a strange and incomprehensible people, but romantic and appealing in a wistful kind of way.  Maybe there will one day be great recreations of Tourist Days–held a few weeks after Renaissance Faires–and we will all think of the way they lived, glory in it for a few hours, but then go home and in the end be glad that we have it much better than they did then.  We will not live out of suitcases, re-wearing the same clothes until they wore out, washing them in the sink, looking always for the best bargains, the best camera angles, marching onward in sweat soaked Goretex and bright colored tennis shoes.

But I want to be a historical re-enactor that day.  I think I will be good at it.