The Friday 7.30 pm Cork-Dublin train slowed before pulling into a station at Mallow, one of Cork City’s satellite towns. I sat alone at a table seat, my laptop open and powered on. But the week had been long, and working a Friday evening seemed a form of self-flagellation, so I just gazed out the window instead.

‘Excuse me, anyone sitting here?’ a lady with short-grey hair asked in an American accent. A taller man, with grey hair also, followed her.

‘No,’ I said. They sat down, and for a while we said nothing, which seemed strange.

‘How was Mallow?’ I asked, after a little while.

He looked but said nothing.

‘We didn’t see Mallow, only stopped there this morning on the 7.30 train,’ she answered, ‘We were on the Ring of Kerry and in Dingle.’

They were doing a trip most Irish would allow at least three days for.

We began talking. They were siblings from the state of Indiana, living somewhere on the outskirts of Indianapolis, separately. Middle-class, retired, affluent enough to afford another trip to Europe (Paris, London, Ireland), both slightly reserved or perhaps tired from their trip. Her daughter worked in London in the film finance industry and lived in an apartment just off Hyde Park, which seemed to please both mother and uncle.

Conversing with American tourists is a conundrum. On one hand many Irish people are burdened by attitudes-of-old and conscious of their duties of representation, like unpaid minions of the national tourist board. On the other, one is also acutely self-conscious of their personal reactions and opinions, not to mention an awareness of the pricked ears within listening distance, taking in the tourist talk with a mixture of glee and caustic cynicism.

In this particular instance the issue of heritage and family name surfaced within 10 minutes, the two visitors intensely interested in any relevance to their surname and insatiable quest for links to the past. What else could I do but smile thinly while thinking of those sitting in the carriage -- particularly younger generations -- sniggering to themselves and thinking something like ‘huh, those Yanks are really full of it,’ or ‘typical Americans.’ Of course, there is a chance of inaccuracy using the term Yanks, but this wouldn’t occur to many Irish.

Upon my instigation the name Bill O’Reilly arose. For the first time, his face brightened.

‘We love Bill O’Reilly, watch him every night. He’s the most popular guy on cable.’

Smiling, I looked hard at both of them. She returned my smile but then stopped, knowing I was bluffing, smelling my judgment like it were bodily odour veiled by deodorant sprayed that morning.

‘But you Irish are so liberal. You probably wouldn’t understand where he was coming from.’

We talked some more, well, she and I did anyway. He sat and corrected her when he thought her facts and figures were off.

Summary: George Bush was a nice guy who was hounded by the media. The Clinton administration had caused the subprime crisis by altering banking laws to enable easier access to mortgages. Republican’s were always brandished with the same label. Bill O’Reilly was impartial. The liberal media portrayed Republicans as gun-toting tax-cutters. All American media were cruel and too powerful.

Taking opportunity of the mellowness our conversation created, I opened an article I had written for Online Journal and left them staring at my laptop screen to get a cup of tea. The article was entitled An Evening’s Exploration of American Media.

‘Bill O’Reilly isn’t a journalist,’ she exclaimed on my return, ‘he’s a commentator.’

She stressed the word like it was elastic. But the word was a minor victory, she didn’t argue against any other aspect of 700 words or so,

‘Yeah, but I meant journalist in the broadest context, as in his profession.’

She wouldn’t hear of it. Journalist was clearly the chink in the article’s armour. The mellowness temporarily evaporated.

‘What was your reaction when Iraq began the second time round?’

‘Well, my husband was in the Marines,’ she said.

We exchanged knowing smiles. And out of the ensuing silence she summed it up: America was a different place now, a place she found difficult to comprehend. She and her husband had worked -- he in broadcasting and had once submitted a CV to the Irish national broadcaster -- to pay for all the necessaries; mortgages, school, college, braces, heath care. They didn’t wait for handouts or anybody to assist them, they rolled their sleeves up and got busy. That was the problem, she said, nobody was prepared to do anything of the sort anymore.

We left it at that, a nonconfrontational impasse. At Portarlington -- approximately 45 minutes from Dublin’s Heuston -- the conversation skipped onto more lightweight subjects; Michael Jordan’s natural heroics to give the Bulls a single-point win over the Jazz during the 1998 playoffs; how the Indianapolis Speedway can hold somewhere in the region of 400,000 people on any one day; OJ Simpson’s most recent trial.

Still something simmered. OJ should have got it the first time, she said, the authorities just knew they wouldn’t be able to deal with the consequences. Charles Barkley had wicked gambling problems.

However offensive and provocative, their views were interesting. Any American I had previously met in Ireland detested Republicanism, so much so I sometimes wondered if being a Democrat or anti-Republican were causes for leaving the States.

But none of those had ever told me what it was really like to live in their hometown, how it was to live outside the urbane belts on either coast, never gave a straightforward account of the decline of a key industry like the automobile for Indiana and Detroit.

The train was behind schedule, as trains often are in Ireland. A man in the carriage began singing Irish songs, as if for the benefit of any visitors within earshot. He, the brother, seemed relieved for the distraction and confirmed my suspicion that he hadn’t been very interested from the outset, perhaps only in the sports section.

When the train pulled into Heuston eventually, we three shook hands -- no hard feelings. After all, all we had was differing points of view. No hard feelings, but still I walked so fast along the platform I began to brush against the backs of other disembarked passengers. My girlfriend waited in her car.

‘How was the journey?’

‘Fine.’

‘Meet anyone?’

‘Two Americans -- left Dublin this morning to do the ring of Kerry and Dingle.’

‘And their coming back up tonight?!’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are they crazy?’

I just laughed, trying to forget their patriotism and blueness, but couldn’t. Nor could I remember any of the previous conversations I’d ever had with other American visitors.