Far too masochistic and guilt-ridden to be an effective snob; an Irish snob is a contradiction in terms; unless, perhaps, he is a Kennedy. Bernard Shaw put it far better than I ever could:
"An Irishman's imagination never lets him alone, never convinces him,
never satisfies him; but it makes him that he can't face reality
nor deal with it nor handle it nor conquer it: he can only sneer
at them that At last you get that you can bear nothing real at all: you'd rather starve than cook a meal; you'd rather go shabby and dirty than set your mind
to take care of your clothes and wash yourself; you nag and
squabble at home because your wife isn't an angel, and she
despises you because you're not a hero; and you hate the whole
lot round you because they're only poor slovenly useless devils
like yourself....And all the time you laugh, laugh, laugh!
eternal derision, eternal envy, eternal folly..."
