OH MY GOD WHAT A COMPLETELY IRISH ENCOUNTER

I’m AJ – a 34 year old Irishman from Dublin living in London the last 13 years. Today in Kensington, London, I had a double Memmeh encounter (DME – an encounter with two irish mammies from the country or ‘memmehs’) which resulted in me going completely out of my way to make sure they didn’t, basically, die in a ditch somewhere between the ticket machine (where I bought their tickets for them because ‘this is an awful mess altogether, all we want to do is get to Liverpool Street and it keeps asking us to touch in – WE DONT HAVE ANYTHING TO TOUCH IN WITH FOR GODS SAKE’) and their train to Stanstead Airport.

I’m in the ticket line, topping up and I hear loud Memmeh voices (two, age mid to late fifties, sound countreh, probable home location near Shannon airport as I keep hearing murmurs about it)

I lean over and say in my most oirish accent Where are ye off to?

This gets a ‘Liverpool Street, only one way!’ and an admission that they can’t touch in but they also don’t want to (and possibly don’t know how). I get them their tickets and whilst I’m topping up my London travel Oyster card, their long winded discussion with a helpful if brusque passerby as to possible ways to get to where they’re going is so painful I hike up my backpack and with true irish mammy’s son gusto, inform them to follow me.

‘SHUR ARE YA GOING TO LEAD US ALL THE WAY!?’

says Memmeh 1

I am, says I. I’ve a doubt you’d make it at all by yourselves so you wouldnt. You’ll end up dead in Epping forest and RIP.ie won’t even know to mourn you. (RIP.ie, for those not in the know, is how irish people find out who’s dead. It’s basically the only bookmark half the irish parents have on their Safari, from the sounds of it)

Having bought their tickets for them, I then have to instruct a bemused Memmeh 1 that no, she can’t wave her paper ticket at the oyster scanner because it’s… well… paper. And once she manages to get through the barrier with a rueful eye roll and a smiling mortified inhalation at the World that confounds her, we’re on our way.

Despite my earlier CLEAR AND PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF RIP.IE and my usage of MANY IRISHISMS we are on the platform having a chat for five minutes before

Memmeh 2: c’mere to me. Are you… Irish?

Me: 😐😒 why else would I be taking the time to make sure you get home in fairness.

Memmeh 1: but why do you sound English?

Memmeh 2: I thought I heard a hint of an accent

Me: why do I sound en – I’m tempted to leave ye on the fucking platform to try your luck with the map now ladies. Hint of an accent my bollocks.

Memmeh 1: (peacekeeper extraordinare – also clearly terrified I’ll now leave them to rot out of spite) of COURSE he’s irish. Our saviour! I’d be telling my son to grow up like him only I can’t admit we needed help sure. Never hear the end of it.

Me: (Marge simpson noise)

Memmeh 2: it’s awwwwful expensive here isn’t it. Well it would be. Except we didn’t have an Oyster card and we kept getting on the buses asking them to let us pay on and sure didn’t they all let us ride for free!

Collective Memmeh laugh: not a fly on Memmeh

On the tube via IS THIS US!?

(Yes follow me, this is us. Mind the gap: here let me help you take your luggage out of the gap… There we go)

Memmeh 1: oh GOD it’s rammed. Rush hour!

(It’s 2:30 and there’s so much standing room I just can’t. I just physically can’t)

Memmeh 2 gets to sit down.

Memmeh 1 stands and in fairness to her, there is a lack of evils being thrown at seat holders which surprises me.

Me: so what do you ladies do back home?

M1: I’m an accountant for a small software firm and herself is a laaaaady of leisure

M2: I do nawwwwwtin

Me: that sounds excellent. Is there dental with that?

Collective Memmeh laugh, head nods in my direction, gas eye rolls at the sheer hack of me

When I tell them I do a kids show on RTE there is a glimmer of nostril flared approval that I haven’t defected to the BBC like a Commie. In some small dark part of me, I lap this up like a thirsty puppy.

We change tubes, with me guiding them every literal step of the way, in a manner that would embarrass a blind person. Memmehs distrust a crowd, they distrust change, they distrust literally everything except the blissfully Irish guide who is keeping them, essentially, alive.

On the platform between train one and two I tell them to stop where they are before they hurt someone or themselves and another howl ensues. GOD if her son could see her now, arsa Memmeh 1. (Arsa is ‘said’ in Irish)

(Standing on a platform about to get a tube. She CRAZY)

We get on the next tube (9 stops to their destination) and I am subjected to the Memmeh Squint-and-ask at every station, as M2 looks in vain at the tube map across from her and I have to point out which dot we are at, lest I somehow have plonked us on a train going somewhere Protestant. Five stops in I mention that my friends PHD party I am attending is nearby and Memmeh 1 tells me that she’s sure they can manage from here.

Me: I’m … really … not sure you can

M 2: but we only have to sit here for four more stops. No changes. Is that right?

Me: yeah but…

M 2: we’ll be grand. You’ve done sooo much already. Gwan and sure we’ll see you on the telly.

Me: okay….

I get off, worried, and watch the train pull off as they wave.

I’ve been checking rip.ie all afternoon just in case

PS I just remembered, one of them said to me just before I left ‘Me mammy always said, sure you’ll never be lost while you’ve a tongue in your head’ WISDOM

MEMMEH WISDOM

I’d like to think that their ghosts will be travelling the circle line dispensing such bon mots and asking people whether they’re on the right line and if someone has a sandwich, for eternity. If you see two slightly transparent women in their fifties clutching wheely suitcases, give them a hand and explain which dot they’re at, won’t you. Thanks like