What it means to be Irish

Irish Guitarist

Ireland is the only country where "go home with yer big head on ya" is considered a witty remark. Or maybe that's just in Carlow. I must have been on the receiving end of that a hundred times.

Bosco and Wanderly Wagon were the height of entertainment when I was a kid. My sister brought me to see Wanderly Wagon performed live back in the late seventies or very early eighties. There's still a picture somewhere of my sister standing next to Eugene Lambert.

Ireland is probably the only country where a (alleged) former Nazi could make a fortune from producing school text books. Not that I knew who was making my school books at the time. That bee symbol brings back memories though.

Haircuts with a 'tail' at the back. Anyone remember them? They were what all the 'hard' kids used to wear back in the late eighties. Again, that may have just been a Carlow phenomena though. Either way, they were crap. About a quarter of my class looked like tadpoles.

I loved no uniform days. It was easier to mitch when not wearing a uniform.

I once wore my tracksuit to school as it was sports day. On that day someone punched me in the nose and I thought it was broken. I went to the principal with my nose spouting blood to ask if I could go home. His reply was "why aren't you wearing your uniform?".

Sir Gallagher

-Leelo- wrote: »

My dad lived in Germany while I was a kid so when I was 8 I went over to visit him for the summer, I was the envy of all the kids on my street, and I had the best material for the "My Summer" essay they made you write when you returned to school in September My one and only holiday till I was 15

The big budget epic version of "Our News"

billymitchell

Getting pissed on alcopops at 14, then cider at 15, then sh*te lager at 16(harp, carling), budweiser at 18. Cheap sh*te during college, then everything and anything ever since!!

Getting pissed alot is kind of what I am getting at here

Terry

feelingstressed wrote: »

In the 1980's a VCR could cost over 400 punts, crazy amount of money at the time! Sure a DVD player nowadays costs €60, nothing in comparison.

If you rented videos from the local shop there would have just a few so you put down your name a few days in advance.

And Xtravision threatened to fine you if you didn't rewind the tapes before returning them :eek:



They truely were pieces of junk, often leaking on wet days, falling apart and unsafe.
It was either that or cycle, lol only few got driven to school.



Foreign holidays? Spot the rich family
We went to Leisureland in Salthill once a year for one day out. Can Galway folk tell me if Leisureland is still around?

****ing Leisureland.
My cousin talked me into going down the waterslide despite my protestations that I could not swim.
Got to the bottom and I went under the water straight away. He pick me up, let me go and I went under again. I told you that I couldn't swim, mother****er.

These days leisureland and the like are sued for undue stress upon the child.

who the fug

Ruu wrote: »

Being in the country meant that the summer job was picking stones or working on the farm.

Picking stones, :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:that and stooping turf.

Both were justification for killing my parents when I was 12

thebigbiffo

SODASTREAM!!!

well, it's not what it means to be irish but its a definite feature of my childhood.

up for anything

bonerm wrote: »

As to your memories OP I'd imagine it'd have been exactly the same had you been born in the UK (note how your post makes absolutely no mention to the use or learning of the Irish language for example).

He was writing about pleasant things. :P

mikemac

Ah picking stones,

Or better still, stacking square bales.
And then they all are stacked on trailers the kids sit on top for some extra weight as you bounce around everywhere and dodge tree branches,

The gardai would probably stop the tractor is they saw that these days for being unsafe

But we loved it

Terry

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

Ireland is the only country where "go home with yer big head on ya" is considered a witty remark. Or maybe that's just in Carlow. I must have been on the receiving end of that a hundred times.

Yeah. Probably Carlow.
Although, calling your friend "A big bollix" or something similar as a term of edearment seems to be lost on foreigners.

Bosco and Wanderly Wagon were the height of entertainment when I was a kid. My sister brought me to see Wanderly Wagon performed live back in the late seventies or very early eighties. There's still a picture somewhere of my sister standing next to Eugene Lambert.

Yeah. School trips to the Lambert Puppet Theatre were a staple of our school trips around that time.

Haircuts with a 'tail' at the back. Anyone remember them? They were what all the 'hard' kids used to wear back in the late eighties. Again, that may have just been a Carlow phenomena though. Either way, they were crap. About a quarter of my class looked like tadpoles.

Had me one of them. It then grew into a mullet. Thankfully that was only for about a year and no pictures exist.

billymitchell wrote: »

Getting pissed on alcopops at 14, then cider at 15, then sh*te lager at 16(harp, carling), budweiser at 18. Cheap sh*te during college, then everything and anything ever since!!

Getting pissed alot is kind of what I am getting at here

Alcopops? There was none of that crap in my day.

abouttobebanned

Oh...the Christmas presents....

Mr. Frosty...the game of life....battleship...go for broke...annuals! Buster...Look In...shoot!

up for anything

gurramok wrote: »

That first part just shows how mollycollied todays kids are.

When we grew up, we were not sitting on our arses playing computer games. We were kicking a ball on the street and roaming around causing mischief!

Computer gaming along with Mcburger bingeing has made todays kids FAT.

There is always someone cribbing about the youth of today. When my dad read this thread and came to your post he was disgusted at your ball playing and the fact that you had time on your hands to cause mischief! He asked how come you weren't doon tha pit like he had to be when he was a kid.

Ms. Captain M

Fortycoats. And spokey dokeys!

AskMyChocolate

Sugradh Sonas and Spraoi (Irish comics)

Chris P. Bacon

I'm going to be 30 in a few weeks and everything you said just bring back memories

Also remember i lived about 1 minute from the primary school,and always had to walk past the house on the way home,and we could smell the dinner up the road and we would run even quicker to get home

Remember too when my father worked in MB and we used to go to the xmas party and actually meet santa,it was the highlight of the year.One of the most vivid memories i have when i was about 10 is of sitting on the couch on Christmas eve with all the family around and the beautiful smell of turkey n ham and Guinness and farts all over the room and nobody having a care in the world.

I have a lot of memories of standing outside off-licences asking people to get us champagne cider which was £1:50 a bottle,and then heading into one of the lads's shed in there back garden to smoke a 10 spot,which we were able to afford from all the windows washed and gardens we cut that day.

Simpler times and us Irish can only appreciated times like that,with so much sht going on around us now people should think back to the days when they were truly happy,and maybe bring some of that happiness back into their lives,and make this great country happy again

livinsane

Everybody is talking about childhood but if you're still living in this country, what makes you feel Irish these days?

For me its coming across a road bowling match and having to stop and wait for yer man/wan to throw the bowl.

Or else going to a local festival/road racing and getting a carton of chips from the chip van.

Passing a church and feel a bit guilty for not blessing myself.

Mint Sauce

OP that describtion sounds more like any typical childhood influenced by UK culture. I grew up in england done all my schooling there, and sounds preaty similar bar the outing destinations, bobby sands, and glenroe. as for the TV shows mentioned, most of them were made by the BBC or ITV.

fontanalis

AskMyChocolate wrote: »

Sugradh Sonas and Spraoi (Irish comics)

jebus

Aprilmay

AskMyChocolate wrote: »

Sugradh Sonas and Spraoi (Irish comics)

They still produce these my son got one in school last christmas:)

Irish Guitarist

I just remembered another few things.

The Angelus. When I heard it on RTE I knew my dinner was ready (my mother always had the dinner at six).

The crap programmes on a Sunday evening when there was only RTE, BBC and HTV. One was Bullseye. Another was Glenroe. Hearing the Glenroe theme tune was like a death knell telling me the weekend was over and I had another week of school in the morning.

We used to have an old television with only five channel buttons. One day my sister discovered that if you pressed numbers one and five together you could get S4C. I thought it was great having a new channel at first. Then I realised most of it was in Welsh.

Bleached schoolbags. Everyone I knew used to bleach their bags for a kind of tie dye effect. I thought it looked good so I tried boiling my bag in water and bleach. It turned out alright until my bag fell apart one day and all my books fell all over the road.

Also writing band names on your bag. The 'hard' kids would write Metallica or Iron Maiden on their bags. The 'cool' kids would write Happy Mondays or The Stone Roses. Me, I used to write Erasure and Jesus Jones on my bag.

Irish Guitarist

bonerm wrote: »

There's a flashback. We had that too in our house. I remember the better off kids in school would have a kind of clear-plastic material stuck on their books that both protected AND displayed their schoolbooks.

Oooh how I envied those damn richers! :mad:

That clear plastic was (and is) called contact. I wasn't rich but I had it on my books. At the start of every school year my mother would buy loads of rolls of it and spend hours sticking it to all my books. I was jealous of the kids with no covering on their books. I thought they were more carefree and rebellious. In hindsight their parents probably couldn't afford contact. I thought the wallpapered books were just disturbing.

zebeedee

Going to Youghal, and eating sandy ham sandwiches and drinking warm red lemonade. Bliss!

Voodoo_rasher

so you had a bath just x1 times per week *guffaw!*

pajo's junkbox was a hoot

Chris P. Bacon

Voodoo_rasher wrote: »

so you had a bath just x1 times per week *guffaw!*

pajo's junkbox was a hoot

Yep once a week on a Saturday night after blind date.

Voodoo_rasher

WTF was there to see in Chester; Hollyoaks did not exist in yer day?

Chris P. Bacon

Voodoo_rasher wrote: »

WTF was there to see in Chester; Hollyoaks did not exist in yer day?

A big Zoo.

Voodoo_rasher

oh for flips sake, when was this ever a socialist country

L

o

L

Anita Blow

Tara and Ben

Lupine

Mici, Lulu agus Rira

scientific1982

AskMyChocolate wrote: »

Sugradh Sonas and Spraoi (Irish comics)

Thats a serious blast from the past. Completely forgot about them.

Voodoo_rasher

being fluent in no other language but what u grew up speaking (english)

and an inability to ;curse/swear in yr native language like every other nation can, calculate what u eventually owe on a 50 year mortgage. Alas.

to be 'spineless' cos the church removed it from you in the only way it can