Present Tense

• What does it mean to be Irish?

  March 12, 2008 @ 8:18 am | by Shane

  

  Given the week that’s in it, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be Irish. Here are some of the things I identified.

  Being Irish means…

  1) Knowing, within two minutes of meeting someone, where they are from, where they are going, who they went to school with and at least one person you have in common.

  2) Never resigning. Ever. No matter how much you screwed up.

  3) Thinking we have the best crisps in the world.

  4) And the best biscuits.
  
  5) Never, ever talking about what you earn.

  6) Always, but always, buying your round. Even if there are 43 people in it and you’re tens of thousands of euro in debt. And your doctor has told you that one more drink will kill you.

  7) Getting the joke in the Carlsberg “Irish” ad.

  8 ) Swearing.

  9) Knowing that any start time is an approximate time, and that you can add at least 15 minutes on to pretty much everything, from flights to rugby internationals.

  10) Never wearing a giant green hat.

  11) Looking forward to funerals.

  12) Believing that the old days - you know, the time when we locked up mothers, stole their babies, beat children, protected paedophiles, allowed priests to rule communities, kept terrible secrets, emigrated, had no money or jobs - were the golden days.

  [As has been pointed out several times now, today’s Irish Times front page picture (above) seems to disprove the point about never wearing giant green hats. However, I would still argue that we would never wear them in Ireland, in the same way that we would only wear leprechaun outfits when visiting Twickenham.]
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40 Comments »
1.
March 12, 2008
9:14 am
Being accused of begrudgery if you dare to air an uncomplimentary opinion about an artist/ sportstar who has had mild success outside these shores.
Begrudging any artist/ sportstar their success.
Comment by Brock Landers
2.
March 12, 2008
9:30 am
Number twelve has made me all misty eyed. Those were the days.
Comment by Marcas
3.
March 12, 2008
9:35 am
10) Never wearing a giant green hat.
Are you sure? Have you seen the front page of your paper this morning?
Comment by Terry
4.
March 12, 2008
9:41 am
Also being able to wear a Celtic shirt at any occasion …
and believing that “having the craic” covers everything from pulling a mate’s chair away when he’s about to sit down to setting fire to his hair when he’s asleep at a party
Comment by TinMan18
5.
March 12, 2008
9:42 am
“10) Never wearing a giant green hat.”
Looking at the front page of your newspaper, I think you might want to have a word with the picture desk.
Comment by cw
6.
March 12, 2008
9:54 am
Laughing out loud at the rounds one. That DEFINITELY is a cultural more ignored by other nationalities. Especially if you’ve just bought them a pint.
Comment by Green Ink
7.
March 12, 2008
9:57 am
13) Going out in shirt sleeves on the first sunny day of “spring”, even if it’s still 8 degrees out.
Comment by Catherine
8.
March 12, 2008
10:10 am
I dunno shane, point 10 seems to be disproven in the photo on the front page of the times today???
Comment by enda
9.
March 12, 2008
10:12 am
5) Never, ever talking about what you earn.
I think this might only be relevant to people born before 1980.
Comment by Steve K
10.
March 12, 2008
10:23 am
Dervala posted a classic take on this back in 2003, in response to the Molson
“I Am Canadian” ad: http://dervala.net/2003/07/19/zeds-dead-baby/
(btw #12 really gets up my nose these days. far too much of that about alright)
Comment by Justin Mason
11.
March 12, 2008
10:27 am
13) saying Now when you pour someone a cup of tea
14) excessive use of the definite article, e.g. the Christmas, the bed, the lungs, as in “He got a terrible dose in the lungs and he had to take to the bed for the Christmas.”
Comment by 73man
12.
March 12, 2008
10:29 am
13) Knowing that ‘yer man’ does not in fact refer to your husband / boyfriend but in fact to any male….at all. ‘yer one’ being the female version…obviously.
Comment by Lianne
13.
March 12, 2008
10:41 am
Ha-so true! Another one in relation to drink is that you always say NO when asked if you want another one and always expect one regardless. Was caught out a couple of times when I first came over from the States and hurt look on peoples faces said it all!
Comment by TenaciousT
14.
March 12, 2008
10:44 am
13) Displaying a remarkable degree of tolerance, if not outright affection, towards blatantly corrupt politicians.
Comment by Neill
15.
March 12, 2008
11:10 am
14) Never complaining about service directly to the person who has served you. Even if a waiter has squatted on the restaurant table and pissed in your soup, just look up and smile and then bitch about it later to your dining companion.
15) Competitive drunkenness
16) Perfecting the rather incredible emotional balance of thinking “aren’t we great” while simultaneously suffering from acute self-hatred.
Comment by UnaRocks
16.
March 12, 2008
11:29 am
-Referring to one fire engine as “a fire brigade”
-Accepting that tax discs can be rectangular
-Squeezing the butter through the holes in Marietta biscuits (this one will show your age!}
-Thinking they’re called The Golden Pages everywhere
-Quoting bits from Fr. Ted
Comment by roisin
17.
March 12, 2008
12:12 pm
Obsessively supporting English football clubs but never ever the English national team.
Comment by Claire
18.
March 12, 2008
1:17 pm
Being condescendinly over-friendly to non-nationals (particularly Americans) and then sniping about them incessantly once their backs are turned.
Comment by Vandala
19.
March 12, 2008
1:43 pm
Feeling the need to say “Nice one” or “Good work” in response to a colleague saying “Oh my God, I was SO locked on saturday night.”
Comment by Andrew
20.
March 12, 2008
1:52 pm
Our working-class male teenagers copying the hair & dress sense of British working- class male teenagers ! (Replace working with upper and the same problem exists)
Comment by Tom
21.
March 12, 2008
2:07 pm
Listening to the Q102 news jingle (Live across the world’s greatest city, this is Q102 news) and thinking: “yeahhhhhh we’re the greatest, being Irish is GREAT” while you’re sitting on a bus, in traffic, freezing, earning the minimum wage with no prospects of ever owning your own home.
Our unique sense of optimism is what I’m trying to get at!
Oh, that and breaking into the cupla focail when you’re abroad even if the last time you spoke a word of Irish it was 1986 during the scrudu beal. Yet get us on a plane and it’s all “slan” and “conas ata tu” until the cows come home.
Comment by Karen
22.
March 12, 2008
2:19 pm
Karen, what makes the Q102 jingles all the more withering is the fact that 99% of their continuity voices seem to be Australian.
Comment by cw
23.
March 12, 2008
3:06 pm
What’s Q102?
Comment by Steve K
24.
March 12, 2008
3:33 pm
To use “ah sure” as a catch all for things that aren’t that sure at all.
“Ah sure, isn’t that always the way.”
“Ah sure, he meant well.”
Comment by Dan Sullivan
25.
March 12, 2008
3:56 pm
Steve K- It’s a giant robot that roams around Dublin pumping out jingles in order to keep morale up amongst the huddled masses.
Comment by Brock Landers
26.
March 12, 2008
5:19 pm
I know lots of people who talk about what they earn, but only if they earn more than me.
Can’t believe swearing isn’t in the list. I’ve never encountered any other nationality that uses the work fuck without thinking about in casual conversation so much.
Comment by David Bowie
27.
March 12, 2008
5:40 pm
Bowie: Swearing is number 8 on Shane’s list
On a different matter, does anyone else think that the Irish are more obsessed with what defines Irishness than any other race?
I mean who cares? I don’t know why we can’t just get over ourselves.
None of the traits mentioned here apply to me or anyone I know. Does that mean I am not Irish?
Or maybe it just means I don’t like to define myself as part of the national collective.
I AM A HUMAN BEING as the elephant man put it so eloquently. Not an Irish human being. Just a human being.
Am I on my own? Is everyone here going to be feeling “proud to be Irish” on Monday?
Comment by AE Mouse
28.
March 12, 2008
5:41 pm
Being Irish? Same as being British apart from a few minor things that we make a big deal out of because of our inherent insecurity. We shop in British shops, we watch British tv, we follow British sports, we buy British newspapers etc etc.
Being Irish is more of a geographic thing than a cultural thing, has been for a long time.
Comment by de tick
29.
March 12, 2008
5:57 pm
RE my earlier comment: “Does anyone else think that the Irish are more obsessed with what defines Irishness than any other race?”
I realise this is probably badly worded. What I meant to ask was whether we are more obsessed with our national identity than other races are of theirs.
de tick: Well said.
Comment by AE Mouse
30.
March 12, 2008
6:47 pm
Well, bang goes my ‘original’ Patrick’s Day post idea…
Comment by OneForTheRoad
31.
March 12, 2008
6:49 pm
OneForTheRoad - That’s why newspapers always run their features early, because they know everyone else will have the same idea at the same time.
Comment by Shane
32.
March 12, 2008
7:00 pm
AE Mouse I was just about to make the same point. Being Irish does seem to require a great deal of discussion about what being Irish means. In the 80’s we were always dying to know what other countries thought of us. Now we’re always dying to know what we think of us. I wouldn’t go as far as to say we’re no different from any other country, but I bet a lot of Immigrants here wish we’d just get over ourselves. By way of commencement, I propose a morotorium on the phrase “Only in Ireland”
Comment by Fergal
33.
March 12, 2008
7:01 pm
__Our working-class male teenagers copying the hair & dress sense of British working- class male teenagers ! (Replace working with upper and the same problem exists)__
But weirdly, middle-class teenage girls’ hair is unique. You don’t see the bleached, straightened-then-back-combed, -then-piled-up hair you see on every 16-year-old girl on the DART anywhere else.
Comment by mary
34.
March 13, 2008
7:56 am
My Jewish mother-in-law refers to ‘jewish mother things’ which are no different from what my Irish mother would do. A recent French poll found that the nationality they find most annoying in the entire world are other French people and what’s Schadenfreude except begrudgery with a happy outcome?
So it’s the same all over.
Except we’re all crammed into a fairly small place and it rains a lot.
On this planet there’s us, the English, Scottish and Welsh, Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Jamaicans, Trinidadian’s and a few other Caribbean Islands who speak English as a first language and since it’s the dominant language we’re left understanding the nuances of everything that’s going on extremely well and we’ve contributed our people in large numbers to most of these countries while at the same time, we, as a nation, have no influence over world events.
That has to give us some sort of a unique take on things?
Re:14
I agree. There should, without a doubt, be a national moratorium on the abuse of the definitive article.
The comment about funerals is a bit harsh though. My dad is 72 and provided he didn’t know the person too closely there is nothing he enjoys more. He gets to meet people he hasn’t seen in years and him and the other older men have the enjoyment of knowing that they beat that fecker too.
Comment by Stop the Lights
35.
March 13, 2008
10:08 am
Being able to laugh at yourself, even if you have a Dublin 4 accent
Comment by Tadhg
36.
March 13, 2008
10:23 am
Constantly pronouncing the merits of Irish literature, music, spirituality, craic and landscape while simultanaeously
a) Championing anti-intellectualism and lauding ‘cute hoors’.
b) Flatly refusing to countenance traditional Irish music (the odd drunken whirl at a Paddy’s Day céilí notwithstanding) while contributing to James Blunt’s millions
c) Acknowledging the role of the Church in the awfulness of the period described in Shanes no. 12 while still wanting to get married in a Church.
d) Thinking it’s perfectly alright to bitch and moan about every little problem that society visits upon you. Which is fine. Because you’re great craic. After a few pints.
e) Never, ever going outside.
On the positive side, our blind optimism in the face of constant struggle is hilarious, bizarre and touching all at the same time.
Comment by Royston
37.
March 13, 2008
11:22 am
Pronouncing vehicle wrong…
Comment by Sean
38.
March 13, 2008
1:28 pm
Sean: I’ve figured out where that came from!
when guards are filling out their paperwork about traffic offenses, stolen cars or what have you, they fill out bilingual forms. The Irish word for “vehicle” is something like “feithicil” if I recall correctly. Later, when the guard would go on Garda Patrol, they’d get the two mixed up and pronounce “vehicle” as “feithicil” — hey presto, an entire nation copies him and here we are.
Comment by Justin Mason
39.
March 18, 2008
10:50 am
its a fact…we do have the best crisps in the world
Comment by cg
40.
March 22, 2008
9:48 pm
I thought the Irish word for veicle was ‘gluaistán’ (sp?).
You’re right about it all, all of you. Though I also think a lot of our identity cmes of identifying against well, the English, mostly.
Teh best thing about the Irish is the way we tell stories, we casually entertain. We’re not literal, like our neighbours. We get the joke.
Comment by Jo

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