Is it in-breeding?

We've frequently marveled at the interconnections between people in Ireland. Seemingly random connections occur everywhere, discrediting any chaos theory and instead just proving that it's a small world (after all, repeat).

My wife and I, through separate channels, got to know someone pretty well. She through online activities, me through work with schools. Totally different paths, yet we ended up intersecting. How funny.

Then, this morning, it got ridiculous. At our son's school, another parent there knows him, too. They, in fact, have known each other since they were young out in West Cork when his family would go there for holidays and she happened to live nearby. They've been friends for more than 20 years.

So perhaps the Central Statistics Office is playing with the numbers and the population is perhaps much smaller than previously suggested.

Ireland should have the Three Degrees Of Any Irishman to supersede the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. :-)

It's a small world

I went to visit a friend in Gorey today. I only know her and one other couple there. Unless Wexican Alleged Comedian lives there, in which case I'd better mention him as he's touchy like that...

Anyway, I was trying to leave, bit got delayed by my daughter having one of her trademark tantrums, then getting clawed by a kitten and wailing so loudly that I wouldn't get near her to comfort her as the baby would scream with fear if I either got too close to the horrible noise, or tried to put him down in the other room. My friend had no first aid except plasters and the pain in my back from holding the baby the while was so exhausting, I was tempted to just run away.

Anyhoo, the point being, I left later than planned, and drove out of the estate, down the road, stopped in traffic, looked up, and there's my two friends getting out of their car. Mad.

Do people who know each other gravitate towards each other? How do you explain the converging series of events that caught to the same place at exactly the same time?

I know people who went to see the Grand Canyon, stopped away from the main car park to enjoy the solitude, but were annoyed to see a small van approaching across the emptiness. The can parked beside their car, a guy got out and said 'Anne, Mike!' - it was a friend from Ireland.