Swedish Extraction

Reading about Malmo and its gangster problems reminds me of the Swedish builder that I met nearly 25 years ago. Like a lot of migrants from the advanced north of Europe he regarded Irish products as rubbish. Wheelbarrows were nonsense and the standard wire nails a deplorable iron age relic. He imported his own nails from Sweden. I used them on a job, a timber framed house with cedar cladding (siding). They are in fact quite good, thinner than wire nails and galvanised fluted that makes them hard to extract, I’m told. They are also more flexible which with seasonal wood movement is a significant strength.

Some years ago he went back to Sweden with his Irish wife and children but only stuck it for a while. Things had gone down badly but they still had the best wheelbarrows. He’s now an Irish citizen. Cead mile failte arais.