Oh, am so sorry. that's unfortunate. It was definitely rather hard to get used to the fact that people treated me coldly at first, not because they were being mean or outwardly racist but because they thought I couldn't speak English. And it's very strange for them to see non-whites interacting with white people. I'm Asian, and a really tall one at that, so the number of gawks I got was unnerving. People handled it best when I was in Dublin, but elsewhere in the country I was so out of place and people often acted like "What the heck is SHE doing here?" When I went to Waterford, I actually had this old lady stop me and say, "Your people are a wonderful compilation of people..." whatever the heck that was supposed to mean, and then I think she mumbled some referency to WWII. And when some guys talked to me at parties or clubs, they were like, "Gee, that's funny...well you LOOK asian!!" The whole mix of races that we've gotten used to in NA definitely hasn't happened there yet, but it's getting better.
Some of my own teammates actually wouldn't talk to me or introduce themselves to me because they thought I couldn't speak English, but once they realized I could, and that I was American, they warmed up quite a bit. And I would never go to a pub or club without my irish friends (or other american/european) friends there.
I also remember talking to Africans there. They hated it. Although some managed to befriend native Irish people, they still felt uncomfortable in bars and clubs. I didn't ever see outward racism, but it was more in the form of non-inclusion. But on the other hand, a couple became fully integrated into their society and had no problem with the culture. One of my best friends attended TCD and she was half-Jamaican, half-anglo of Galway descent, although she lived most her life in London. She said SHE got a lot of stares in her Irish dancing troupe 🙂 . All this of course being much more complicated and subtle...my Irish friends had no idea that we picked these observations out of their culture until we had a lengthy discussion (over wine) one day. And afterwards, they started observing how other Irish reacted to us upon first impression, and they were amazed. It was sooo funny the first time my friend saw this old lady do a double take complete with jaw drop at the tall asian twins who spoke fluent English. She mimicked the old lady for weeks!
