Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
Chapter 2: How does the Irish sense of humour adapt in different cultures?
Now, how well does the Irish sense of humour really travel? Well, that is something my next guest had to find out after moving to rural Germany and trying to settle in like a local. I'm joined now by author of Top of the Morgan. See what he did there? Laurence Falconer, you're very welcome to the programme, Laurence.
And when I was reading your book, I was thinking, what could have driven somebody to move from Ireland to rural Germany, not to one of the big capital cities where lots of other Irish people live? And of course, the answer had to be love.
How are you, Ciarán? What's the crack? Indeed, it was love. Yes, the good old-fashioned reason. Yeah, I used to be a history tour guide. That was one of my jobs when I was living in Dublin and basically met my love there. And yeah, she was a German from... The middle of nowhere, essentially in Germany, Baden-Württemberg, up in the mountains there, kind of very close to the Alps.
I knew nothing about it, but we lived in Dublin for four years or so. And then I followed her over to Germany. And yeah, that was basically how I moved over, love.
And there you remain. I mean, when you went over there, first of all, what were your expectations of living in rural Germany? What did you think German society would be like? And culturally, I suppose, what did you find most difficult at First Lawrence?
yeah, do you know, I really didn't have a clue. I'm fairly, I just kind of do things and I tend to do things quite on a whim. You know, I didn't particularly research where I was going or whatever. I was just essentially going with the flow and I thought, ah, yeah, sure, that could be grand and see what happens. But Jesus, I wasn't prepared for how lovely the place was.
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Chapter 3: What motivated Laurence Falconer to move to rural Germany?
That was the biggest shock. I had been to Berlin a couple of times, basically on clubbing holidays with my brother and some friends over the years and I had an uncle who lived in a place called Recklinghausen up around northern Germany as well. Anyway, I was absolutely shocked by the general loveliness of the place. It's a Mediterranean vibe is what I would say almost, you know.
Geographically, I'm only around four and a half hours from Milan. to kind of put it into perspective. It's kind of down around Lake Constance. I had never heard of that lake, but it's bloody lovely. Huge lake there, borders Austria, Switzerland and Germany. And it's absolutely a paradise.
So it's like basically stunning, stunning little towns everywhere, gorgeous architecture, clean, lovely, safe. And the Germans themselves, I would say, were more German than I was expecting. My experience with Germans was, as I said, Berlin and stuff. But down here, it is much more socially conservative and they are more German than I think I was even expecting.
What is more German to you?
And I have family in Germany, so I'm going to be diplomatic here. Well, let's say things like, you know, if you make any kind of mistake, they'll just instantly point it out to you. If you park your car facing the wrong way on a street, they'll be very quick to stick a note in your car.
If they see you doing something wrong, if they see you putting the wrong bottle in the recycling thing, they'll just go, eh, eh, no, no. from like, you know, like 10 meters away, they have no problem whatsoever basically upholding the rules of their society. And at first I was like, Jesus, this is intense. You know, this is, I was offended.
You know, I was thinking, oh, I was thinking they hate me. This is, I'm completely out of my depth here. I thought they were being overly mean to me or something at first. But then after a while of essentially observing them communicating with each other, And I was like, no, geez, this is actually just how they talk. This is how they are. It's just a different culture, you know.
And as I said, initially, I was a bit kind of freaked out by it. But the proof is in the pudding. Like, you look around the place, and even though I, from my Irish kind of like overly kind of friendly chatty self, was a bit perturbed by that or a bit freaked out, you can see what the results of that bring. And the results are an absolutely brilliant,
It's a gorgeous society, safe, clean, lovely, peaceful, respectful. And yes, it has huge upsides that come to that, what I would say, German-ness, you know.
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Chapter 4: What were Laurence's initial expectations of living in Germany?
And again, initially, that gave me anxiety. But then as time has gone on, I've just started to really appreciate that and respect that. I think there's something very calming about that. Essentially not rushing to just overly talk or just try to soothe over every social situation. They don't care. If they don't feel like talking, they won't talk. And that's grand.
If they're not in a good mood, they won't fake a smile. And it's to be commended, I think, overall, to be honest.
Chapter 5: What cultural differences did Laurence notice in German society?
You started an Instagram account, An Irishman in Germany. It's nearly 300,000 followers. And of course, you've written this book now. Were you concerned at all at how they would react to you sort of gently ribbing them online quite publicly?
I was. No, I was. I was relatively concerned that they would not take it well. I actually resisted doing it for a while. I had another Instagram channel just making my own nonsense, unrelated to Germany or Ireland or anything, just random nonsense. But nobody was watching that, and that was grand or whatever. It was just for the crack, and I would have loved if it had blown up, but it didn't.
But anyway, my partner, she was saying... oh, you should do like cultural comparison stuff about Germany and Ireland. And I resisted it for around a year and a half or something. And I just, a little bit of it was thinking the Germans would just dislike it, you know, whatever. But anyway, I banged up a video then, started the page, just called it Irishman in Germany.
Literally the first name that came to my head. It was like, grand, that'll do. And on the nose and banged it up and sure the thing exploded. The first video just went viral. And I was like, grand, I'll do that.
And that became the book. That became Top of the Morgan, really, didn't it?
Yeah, yeah, basically, yeah. Sure, the channel kind of blew up and the Germans seemed to really like it, thank God. And it actually got quite a large international audience. So it was Germans and Irish people, but then there's a big following of it in the UK and over in North America. And then, so it's actually, it got quite big.
And then luckily, yeah, Penguin Michael Joseph reached out to me, which I thought was, jeez, I thought it was a scam or something. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I got an email off them and said, Yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous, carry on. But they asked me to write a book. So there you go, yeah.
So there you go. Irish man living in Germany. You're a comedian, an actor and now a published author. Lawrence, I'm going to let you go back and sit in your silence there and be comfortable in it and say tschüss, my little bit of German. Lawrence Faulkner, thank you so much for joining us.
The Clare Byrne Show. With Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at 9 on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.
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