Hitchhiking With a Fridge

“I had clearly arrived in a country where qualification for ‘eccentric’ involved a great deal more than that to which I had become used.”

Tony Hawks, Round Ireland With a Fridge

I first heard about Round Ireland with a Fridge book in a YouTube video on underrated books. It is the sort of book that is calls for a double-take. Ending up at the receiving end of a drunk bet, author Tony Hawks finds himself shopping for a mini-fridge, and planning a hitchhiking journey around Ireland. Some rudimentary Googling also revealed that this first book sort of set the precedent for another – for want of a better term – rodeo. Round Ireland was followed by Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, in which Hawks plays tennis with every single member of the Moldovan soccer team – also the result of a bet. Furthermore, twenty years after the journey that led to the book, Hawks also repeated his journey in an attempt to see what, if anything, had changed about Ireland.  The latter are, however, conversations for another time.

Inspired partly by another hitchhiker-fridge duo he sees on an earlier trip to Ireland but propelled by the bet, Hawks begins his journey at Navan near Dublin, in the vague vicinity of where he saw the ‘original Fridge Man’. He then goes on to traverse the periphery of Ireland (minus North Ireland), eventually circling back to Dublin. Throughout the course of the book, Hawks’ combine goes from being an oddball on the roadside to becoming somewhat of a celebrity by the end of things, accompanied as he is by regular radio broadcasts with a sizeable audience. People now look out for the Fridge Man, timing their trips so that they might pick him up. The fridge – now called Saoirse (“freedom”) – is also a celebrity by the end of it, covered from top to bottom in signatures and messages from well-wishers. Ireland welcomes their Fridge Man in ways one can’t quite fathom: there are parties in pubs, special toasts to Saoirse, a grand welcome in Dublin, and even a surfing experience that’s a first for both Hawks and his fridge. A journey by no means easy – what with the botched plans and bad weather – it is nevertheless a journey full of love, and the sort of love that envelops you and makes you feel like you belong in the party.

Round Ireland with a Fridge is a charming book, both because it delivers exactly what its title promises and because it manages to push the boundaries of its own ridiculousness while doing so. In a word, the book is eccentric, an assessment Hawks himself admits to. Hawks is witty, and endlessly funny. At the same time, he is extremely kind. His writing is filled with a lot of love for the journey and all the travellers involved. His love affects you, keeps you hooked, and by the end of things it is difficult to not want to go to Ireland – or trawl the map on Google Earth, as I did – if not to hitchhike yourself, then at least as a pilgrim on Fridge Man’s trail. Hawks has a gift for walking the line between absolute clownery and stubborn eccentricity. He creates a book that is much more than a travelogue, one that has a lot to offer, including but not limited to an in-depth knowledge of fridge-friendly ways to get around Ireland. There are new friendships formed in highly unexpected ways. Hawks reminds you, over and over again, that there is a sense of community that lies in collectively experiencing something truly bizarre. In what is then a delightful celebration of the human capacity for pure tomfoolery-induced-joy, as well as Ireland’s unfailing warmth and goodwill, Round Ireland With a Fridge is about trip that is a lot more than just a trip.