Strangers Bearing Gifts: On the Irish Pilgrimage of Arpad Szakolczai

According to Simmel’s classic definition, Arpad Szakolczai was, to us, a stranger, one who ‘comes today and stays tomorrow’, though who has ‘not quite shed the freedom to stay or go’. When he arrived in Cork in 1998 for what was to be a stay of two decades, he was inescapably different, not just in his accent, but in how he thought. Herein we consider Arpad’s time in Ireland as a kind of pilgrimage, reflecting on the character of Irish society and academia, and considering him as gift-giver, of anthropological concepts, historical perspective and imagination.