(Potentially) Deep Thoughts From A Dingle-ite

Sitting at Murphy's Bar in Dingle having my Sunday lunch, I started talking to a old man who looked like he could have founded the town himself. We spoke a little Irish, mainly about the beautiful weather, but let's not kid ourselves, I could only really communicate with him in English. When I found out he had lived in Dingle his whole life, I decided to try out a joke I had read somewhere. Not really a joke, but just a comment about life on the peninsula that I thought said volumes about the line of thinking of the locals.

A tourist visits Dingle one day and starts up a conversation with a local. Eventually the tourist asks if he has lived on the peninsula for his whole life. "Not yet," says the Irishman.

With a faraway smile in his eyes, my friend slowly says, "no, that's not quite the answer," and then says nothing else until we say our goodbyes when I get up to leave. I'm hopelessly confused by what he meant, even as I'm writing this today, but maybe it'll hit me one day.