There are few sights more alarming than an Irishman dressing for summer.
For most of the year, he is perfectly comfortable. Jeans, shirt, jumper, fleece, jacket, possibly another jacket in the car, just in case. A man knows where he stands with this system. It has served him through funerals, football matches, Mass, trips to the mart, and sudden squalls coming in sideways off the Atlantic.
Then one day, without warning, the temperature hits 25 degrees.
Panic sets in.
Somewhere in the house, there must be shorts. He remembers owning shorts. He may even have worn them during the famous summer of 1995, or on a holiday in Portugal when he got sunburned on the first day and spent the rest of the week walking like a man transporting a pane of glass between his knees.
The search begins.
Drawers are opened that have not seen daylight since the changeover to the euro. There are old swimming trunks, a belt that no longer goes round him, a pair of sunglasses with one arm missing, and, eventually, at the very bottom, shorts.
Several pairs are examined.
The first pair refuses to close and is dismissed as having “shrunk in the wash”, despite not having been washed since Bertie Ahern was Taoiseach. The second pair reaches halfway down the calf and gives the impression of a man who started wearing trousers and lost interest. The third pair have pockets big enough to smuggle turf. After some thought and a bit of breathing in, a pair is selected.
Now comes the T-shirt.
This is another minefield.
Some T-shirts have become mysteriously tighter around the middle, which is clearly a textile issue and nothing to do with biscuits. Others were bought on foreign holidays and feature cheerful slogans, palm trees, or the name of a beach bar where he once drank a pint for €3 and still boasts about it. Such garments may be acceptable in Lanzarote, but they are not suitable for a walk through Donegal town unless the man wishes to be mistaken for someone who is in a midlife crisis.
Eventually, he finds a plain one. It is not too bad, provided he does not raise his arms.
Then there are socks.
This is where summer fashion truly collapses.
In the adverts, young, tanned men wear smart white ankle socks with expensive runners and look as if they are about to play tennis with royalty. The Irishman owns no such socks. He owns black socks, grey socks, and one pair of navy socks that may once have belonged to someone else. They are proper socks. Reliable socks. Socks that have seen hardship.
He puts them on.
Then he realises the shoes are wrong.
Trendy runners are required, but his only runners are used for gardening and are decorated with grass stains, dried clay, and something mysterious from behind the shed. They are not so much footwear as agricultural equipment.
So, he wears brown leather shoes.
This is bad enough.
But there is worse.
Some men, in a moment of madness, reach for sandals. And not just sandals. Sandals with socks.
At this point, if there is a wife in the house, she may intervene. She will appear in the doorway, take one look, and issue the fashion equivalent of a straight red card. No appeal. No VAR. Off you go and change.
But clearly, many men have no wives or have managed to slip past them while they were on the phone.
You see them in town on hot days, walking about with great confidence. Shorts, black socks, brown shoes, a T-shirt from a hotel in Majorca, and the expression of a man who believes he has adapted well to continental living.
Some go even further and wear a hooded jacket on top.
This is classic Irish logic. The legs are out for summer, but the upper body is prepared for a weather warning. The man is both on holiday and ready for a downpour. His knees are in Spain, but his shoulders are in Glenties in November.
To be fair, Irish weather encourages this sort of confusion. A man can leave the house in sunshine and return through hailstones. It is unwise to trust a blue sky in Donegal. A blue sky here is not a promise. It is more of a suggestion.
Thankfully, these hot spells do not usually last long. After a few days, the temperature drops, clouds gather, and Irish men everywhere breathe a sigh of relief. The shorts are returned to the drawer, the holiday T-shirts go back into hiding, and the comfortable old uniform is restored.
Jeans. Jumper. Fleece. Jacket.
Order returns to the world.
Still, for those few sunny days, the spectacle is worth it. The Irish male summer wardrobe may not win awards in Milan or Paris, but it provides something far more valuable.
Entertainment for the rest of us.
