Irish education and food are great but ‘as a sober person, it’s very odd to be here’

Max Wolpoff is barely here a wet weekend but already he has much sussed.
He is from a Maryland suburb near Washington DC and is doing a one-year master’s in sports management at UCD, one of a large cohort of international students. Life here is “familiar, yet foreign enough to notice. I nearly got hit by a truck my second day when I looked the wrong way crossing the street. The bathtub height is higher than back home. The most difficult part is adjusting to not having a car. Bus and train travel in my area is hit or miss and the population is connected better by the roadway.”
After a degree from Boston University, a law degree from Miami, Florida, and two frustrating years looking for a job, his mother suggested UCD, where they had noted this course nine years ago on a family holiday. He was accepted after a virtual meeting with the programme director. “In truth, it felt insane to stay in America. I hit a wall moving beyond entry-level positions. While it was scary to leave, at least it would mean a change.”
There’s a smidgen of Irish ancestry on his mother’s side, six or seven generations back. “Those Irish people who moved to the US eventually found my mom’s Austrian-German side, which eventually found my dad’s Russian-Jewish side. So that sort of blended together to make an American family at the end of the day.”
Understanding “some of the ins and outs” of his new home included “learning what the Leaving Cert is. I’ve noticed even people who score the best they’ve ever done on the exam don’t get their first choice.” In comparison, “there’s a way more free market approach in the US”.
He did some sports journalism in college, and “I enjoyed every day I got to go to the rink, go to the field, go to the park, go to the stadium. Every day I spent there was a good day, whether the game was good or not.” He hopes his master’s will help him work in college sports in the US. “I love it so far. The people in the programme are incredible. It’s a really small cohort, which allows us get to know each other very well.” There are two Americans out of 28 students. Irish students are helpful in “understanding the local lingo, the local sports, how things work around here or don’t work. I won’t understate that the people in this group have been incredibly welcoming to me as an outsider, as someone with a completely different viewpoint.”
Students offered advice too. “One bit of advice I’m not going to take is knowing how to hold my liquor, because I don’t drink. As a sober person, it’s very odd to be here.” In a pub after class one day he saw “just how central drink was to Irish culture”.
So far, aside from others on his course, “everybody else sort of exists as non-playable characters in a video game”. He has joined the American football club and gone to a history society pub quiz – “which we call bar trivia” – and was surprised to do okay.
“It’s stunning to hear people complain about the price of education,” he says. “From what they’re used to, it’s a lot, but from what I’m used to, this is the cheapest education I’ve ever had.”
The Irish sports world is completely different, too. He needs two vocabularies; aside from the obvious, such as football (“the sport we Americans call soccer”), a closed professional league where there’s no promotion or relegation is “a foreign concept” in Ireland. Irish sport seems “undercapitalised”, he says. “Sports here are competitive, they’re fun to watch, enjoyable.” Someone invited him to a GAA club match in Westmeath, “a completely different experience. All I had to do was pay €10, I got a team sheet and I got in. There was no security measure, no assigned seating, no pomp and circumstance. There was no anthem, no announcement, no sponsorship. It was sort of expected the people there knew what was going on, and I picked it up along the way.”
[ ‘I feel so alive playing camogie. I feel Irish when I play it. I feel like Cú Chulainn!’Opens in new window ]
He’s renting an apartment a 20-minute walk from college. When he and his parents visited UCD in June, “we kept hearing: ‘There’s a housing crisis. You got to find a place to live.’” They contacted thirty-plus real estate agents. “One returned our messages. And that’s where I’m staying right now. I lucked out finding this place.” Was it more expensive than he expected? “Yes!” he says resolutely. All the same it’s cheaper than DC.
“Y’all complain about the bus too much,” he says, laughing. “Coming from the US, the transit system here is a dream.” In most places in the US, “you gotta drive”. He’s adapting to relying on busses, trains, and “my own feet”.
“I am stunned at how friendly and trusting people are here.” On the train to the GAA match in Westmeath, “the woman I sat across from offered me a ride to the stadium after chatting for maybe 20 minutes. The Irish professors and students are all in favour of connecting me to anyone they know who might help me with my research. Students at UCD just leave their laptops and stuff at a spot in the library and walk away, expecting everything to be there when they get back. Americans seem way more cut-throat and protective by comparison.”
He finds that in Ireland “people are way more open to conversation, at least on the surface level. They’re more open to asking, ‘What’s the crack?’ – I’m still getting used to that phrase – or sitting down at a table if there’s an open seat. People are seemingly just a lot nicer on the surface.”
He’s enjoying the course, which is less intense than law school, and plans a thesis comparing America’s NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and the GAA: “both are amateur sporting organisations, in current turmoil about their future”.
It’s an exciting time in DC. He sent his postal ballot (he’s not saying how he voted), but now “I’m done … I am not going to bother myself with too much more” about the election.
Wolpoff finds the cost of living reasonable here. “Everything is expensive, but for me, it’s about the same” as at home. He’s “surprised at how great the food is here”, both in shops and eating out, “up and down the food chain. The food here is some of the freshest I’ve ever eaten. It’s incredible food, incredible work. The people really do a great job of farming this land, a concentrated effort, making sure everything’s fresh, local, making sure we have Irish meat products, cheese, bread. That’s not necessarily a thing everywhere in the US. I have yet to have a bad meal here.”
After the master’s, he intends to return to the US, “but if I have a reason to stay, I will stay. And I don’t know what that will be. I don’t know how that will come about, but I’m looking for it.”