The Myth of the Craic

From the reading: The Myth of the Craic

Every culture maintains a story about itself — a condensed, exportable version of its own character, polished for outsiders and repeated until insiders half-believe it too. Ireland's version is unusually durable: the warmth, the wit, the unforced hospitality, the particular genius for conversation that has no precise equivalent in any other European language, bundled neatly into a single untranslatable word. Craic — the quality of good company, of a room alive with talk — has travelled further than most Irish exports, appearing on pub signs from São Paulo to Seoul, invoked by people who have never set foot on the island and would struggle to explain exactly what it means.