“Addressing a jubilant crowd in Belfast, shortly after the declaration of the original ceasefire in 1993, Gerry Adams reminded his audience that ‘they haven’t gone away, you know’. He meant that even as ‘the cause’ was dwindling, its upholders—’the boys’—were still among us. He might just as easily have been talking about the Klan.”

You are Irish. You live in America’s marginal South, where being Irish remains sufficiently unusual as to be found exotic. You get used to the conversation. It seems to happen once a day, every day.