I took my order of fish and chips (fries) and sat on the step of the tiny shop. They were the first fish and chips I'd ever had outside of the United States, and they were almost too delilcious to be true.

In the USA the fish from a fast food restaurant was always small and previously frozen. The newspaper-wrapped piece I had in my hands was a good one-foot long and six inches wide, and as fresh as the water slapping aginst the dock pilings. The fries were not thin, limp, and lukewarm but, rather, thick and crisp and so hot I had to wait several minutes before my tongue could tolerate them.

At least a dozen times, while I was eating, the locals walking past smiled at me and amusedly asked, "Enjoyin' yer fish and chips, are ya'?"

How in the world could they tell I was an American eating my first English fish and chips? It was quite obvious by their looks I was doing something that to me was out of the ordinary. I tried crossing my legs, eating with my left hand, not blowing on the fries, but the locals strolling past kept smiling and asking. Finally I just concentrated on enjoying my meal and only answered with a grunt each time a question was put to me.

While returning to the ferry station, a teen-aged boy with thick muscles and unkempt black hair stepped from a doorway to block my path. He stood perhaps only to my chin, but he acted as if he was the bigger man.

"Wha' be yer name?" he asked in a voice only the devil would have thought friendly.

"Steve," I answered, all the while watching his hands.

"Would ya be takin' the boat to Dun Laoghaire tonight?"

I nodded.

"Steve, do ya 'ave a quid to gi' me fer a box?"

"A box?"

"Smokes."

I'd forgotten that here many of the brands of cigarettes are packaged in cardboard, instead of in paper and cellophane.

"Well..." I started to shake my head no.

"Are ya on 'olidays?" he pressed.

"You could say that."

"Why Ireland?"

"Never been there."

"Better ya take yer 'oliday in this country."

"Why?"

He edged closer and spoke with a tone of disgust. "The Irish are a lot of dumb trash. There's nothin' over there worth seein' or speakin' to."

"I take it you don't care for the Irish too awful much."

He laughed harshly. "Tis aren't no secret that there's not much love lost between the Irish and the British." His voice grew louder, more serious. "Ever' time they kill another of our men, I'd like to see the whole of their murderin' lot pushed into the sea!

"Is it any wonder we look down on them? When all's they's good fer is making babies and murderin'?"

I sensed I better move on while his thoughts were occupied with the Irish, not quids.

He grabbed my shoulder. "What of me quid, Steve? It's two miles to me house, and I got no money on me."

I gently pulled away. "Maybe the walk'll cool you down. Besides--" I smiled ever so slightly. "my ancestors were from--"

"Ireland?" He backed off, as if I was diseased, then spun about and sulked off uttering profanities.

I wondered if many other young people in the British Isles thought likewise of the Irish. He hadn't been the first Englishman I'd heard call the Irish lowly, and dumb, and no good. But he'd certainly been the most vehement.

Several hours later I was asleep on the ferry, as it plowed its way across a calm Irish Sea toward Dun Laoghaire, which is about fifteen miles south of Dublin.

The weather when I stepped ashore in Ireland in the dawn was blustery and spitting a cold rain. Hardly the greeting a tired soul needed. I added a little excitement, though, to the bland setting by riding a double-decker bus to the center of Dublin.

Dublin struck me as a "small big city." There was a heavy mixture of old structures with new ones, none of which was very tall, say over twenty stories. With the usual bumper-to-bumper traffic and crowded buildings, it hardly struck me as a very quaint place. And yet it had something that definitely set it apart from every town and city I'd seen in England or Wales.

It had color. All of the drab conformity of the British was absent. Everyone I saw heading to work was dressed as they pleased and in whatever color and style and degree of orderliness they felt comfortable with.

Dublin was by all appearances a city of individuals, not an institution like London.

But were the people as friendly as I'd always heard them to be?

Steven