What it means to be Irish

mikemac

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

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

Nah, you have dinner at 1pm or so
Supper at 6pm, last meal of the day

Dinner is the meal at the middle of the day, or at least in my house it was

Anita Blow wrote: »

Tara and Ben

Ann and Barry

Snakeblood

Voodoo_rasher wrote: »

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

It was far from Dublin, relatively speaking. Also, they had an army surplus store.

CHealy

Getting a bottle of milk every morning at 11 in a glass bottle. On a Friday if the milkman was in a good mood it would be the strawberry flavoured milk, made my day.

Conkers. Used to be a tree in an industrial park not far from my terrace that they used to grow on. We'd all head up there in the evening and get a load, then bring them home to our Dads who would stick a hole in them with a nail or drill and tie a lenth of fishing line around it. Happy out goin to school the next day ready for battle.

During the summers getting up at about 10 in the morning and not coming home until 6 for dinner, then off out again for a bit.

Happys days I have to say. Its much different now, kids are bombarded with all sorts of games consoles and the likes.

tom spanks

moonage wrote: »

Being Irish (or any nationality) is an accident of birth and is nothing to be proud of.

HE NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT BEING PROUD

johnn

Leprechauns, Shamrocks, Guinness, Horses running through council estates, toothless simpletons, people with eyebrows on their cheeks, badly tarmacked drives, men in platform shoes being arrested for bombings, lots of rocks and...... Beamish.

philstar

here you go.....;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP2HR3PZX-M

Ruu_Old

Lupine wrote: »

Mici, Lulu agus Rira

I have the books still. Féachaigí

Terry

feelingstressed wrote: »

Nah, you have dinner at 1pm or so
Supper at 6pm, last meal of the day

Dinner is the meal at the middle of the day, or at least in my house it was

My friend is the youngest of 8. Still lives with the parents (looks after them).
He makes Sunday dinner for about noon/1pm every week. His father insists upon it. Really old school.
The old man hoards non-perishables, and onions, which he thinks are non-perishables.

Chris P. Bacon

Terry wrote: »

My friend is the youngest of 8. Still lives with the parents (looks after them).
He makes Sunday dinner for about noon/1pm every week. His father insists upon it. Really old school.
The old man hoards non-perishables, and onions, which he thinks are non-perishables.

Yeah dinner time was always 1pm in my house,and still to this day i have never seen my parents make their dinner after 2pm

Terry

I've just thought of one thing uniquely Irish.
A cup of tae in the kitchen for guests.

None of this fancy crap of coffee in the living room, dining room, sitting room or whatever.
It's a cupán tae sa chistin.

Then there's the nod or hello to complete strangers you pass when you're out walking. That's uniqely Irish.

mikemac

In a rural area you must salute anyone you see out walking if you are driving.
If you are walking then you are expected to salute the drivers.

Especially if it's a narrow road and the walkers are standing by the ditch and the driver is slowing down.

That's the rules.

It puts a smile on my face to get salutes from people I don't know.

Move to the area and fail to do this and we'll be gossiping about you, the new unfriendly blow-in after Sunday mass! :eek:
It's what seperates us from the townies

Irish Guitarist

feelingstressed wrote: »

Nah, you have dinner at 1pm or so
Supper at 6pm, last meal of the day

Dinner is the meal at the middle of the day, or at least in my house it was




Ann and Barry

When people get out of work (or school) at 1 PM they call it a lunch break not a dinner break. As far as I'm concerned there's three meals; breakfast, lunch and dinner. I find the word supper disturbing.

mikemac

Plenty call it dinner break
And in school it was sos

Killer Pigeon

tl;dr

Chris P. Bacon

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

thread's legendary, delightful read

It sure is.

FunnyStuff

minotour wrote: »

banana sandwiches:D

I still love them, my wife is Slovak and she thought it was the most disgusting thing she ever heard.... until she tried it, now she's converted

oicherider

feelingstressed wrote: »

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

Ya.. but you have to remember that it was rolling the bales along before you were able to lift them - but the real rub was that you did it with shorts on and they ate the legs off ya!!

Going off for a wander up the fields with the dog - chasing a few rabbits, looking for a new spot for a den or tree house and landing back after a couple of hours and all that was missed was the dog! :rolleyes:

Also a few years later - HAVING to go to mass with a hangover that would knock a Rhino.. and nearly barfing/and passing out in the back of the church.. They are the kind of things that shape Irish people..

Gyalist

I'd never heard of banana sandwiches until I moved to Ireland. I still find the concept very disturbing. Someone i know made her new boyfriend a banana and onion sandwich the first time he visited her home. He must have like it because they are now married with four children.

storm2811

feelingstressed wrote: »

In a rural area you must salute anyone you see out walking if you are driving.
If you are walking then you are expected to salute the drivers.

Especially if it's a narrow road and the walkers are standing by the ditch and the driver is slowing down.

That's the rules.

It puts a smile on my face to get salutes from people I don't know.

Even if you don't like them, they drive by and you do the old wave/salute, then call them a dick under your breath.:pac:

Ectoplasm

feelingstressed wrote: »

Plenty call it dinner break
And in school it was sos

In ours it was 'little break' and 'big break'.

Dave147

FunnyStuff wrote: »

I still love them, my wife is Slovak and she thought it was the most disgusting thing she ever heard.... until she tried it, now she's converted

My girlfriend is Slovak and she loves banana's in everything! Toast especially :P

Do you like Halusky?

Mackman

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I
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.

The rat-tail, its making a comback here in Australia. Feckin bogans. :rolleyes:

Lovin this thread, good times

Gyalist

Mackman wrote: »

The rat-tail, its making a comback here in Australia.

I believe that it was Roberto Baggio who popularised that hairstyle.

WWC1

abouttobebanned wrote: »

There was school tours...could you ever forget the excitement the night before a school tour. The phrase "packed lunch" has never been so exciting. Turning up at the school at 7:45 for a bus..when usually you didn't arrive in til 9...standing there in the dark thinking about all the other kids who were still in bed but had to get up soon to go in for school... Of course we were only going to Fota Island or Kilkenny castle or some place but it was thrilling.


My school tour involved getting on the bus, armed with notebook & pen, going down the hill and getting off again and into the local creamary for a "tour". It was crap! A lot of the kids' Dads worked there. We gave the whole day watching and learning how they made cheese....oh man the smell. Kids were getting paler and paler as the day dragged on. Back on the bus, back to school and then hometime. We had to write an essay about the day. I had to write mine twice becuse in my 8 yr old innocence wrote that the place was smelly with some really cold rooms and some really hot rooms and that I thought it was a horrible place to go and I felt sorry for all the Daddies that had to work there. Red biro all over it and told write it again....sigh...

Going to my much older cousins house, 8 miles away for my summer hols for a week. She was a primary school teacher so De Mammy capitalised on this fact and I had grinds while on hols here. Oh man the injustice of it all. I also saved up all my holiday money and bought De Mammy a cruet set of a pair of yellow ducks. I insisted on her displaying these on either side of the clock on mantlepice in sitting room for ages....I thought they were so divine and super classy..:D:D:D

Other things....spacehoppers, barbie, The Twinkle, going to mass way too early to "get a parking space", fruit cocktail...what were the green things??, sunday best, faclon crest, dad rustlying the paper during JR's love scenes, the L-shaped sheets used in JR's love scenes, first time eating those round pizzas i think came in two flavours, pk cheewing gum, eveyone out on the road playing tennis during wimbledon, emerald sweets...yuck, coming in late smelling of night air, tractors with ribbons in the patricks day show...sthat till goes on i guess, putting those clasps on so your bicycle wheels would make clicking when turning, brother phoning home from England every sunday...well phoning mam at the public phone box at a prearranged time, mam sending him the local paper every week, rollerskates...

Could go on and on...

PS Mam still has the cruet set

checkyabadself

Seeing as the thread has turned into a childhood memories one,,,,,,

We used to watch thundercats, mysterious cities of gold and transformers.
We ate Farmer Browns smokey bacon crisps and drink milk from glass bottles.
We played with pogs until they were banned due to us throwing the metal ninja throwing stars that came with them. We swapped premier league stickers, with the shiny ones being worth 100 swaps. We spent days playing nods n volleys and double mexico, where the invisible crossbar ranged from 3-11 feet tall depending on your perspective.

I remember having to hold hands in the "lína" with girls who were stupid and annoying. Also, in school there was always a nerdy kid who had a TV remote built into his watch that would FF the boring videos during religion classes. I remember writing dirty words upside down on


calculators, pól peist, aine asal, Búil Liom/Leat, diarmuid an dragún, texts and tests, busy at maths.

After school always involved coke cans stuffed into the bike to sound like a motorbike, bmx's with pegs!, fishing for minnow with jam jars and tinfoil, having the legs in agony from the itchy old bus seats on Saturdays trips to town for pool and pizza.
I remember that home time was always whenever the street lights came on.

(reminiscent sigh)

Millicent

OP, this thread has put the biggest smile on my face so thank you. All the killjoys -- out of the thread! If you don't like it, don't comment.

I'll add blackberry picking to the thread, after school. Can't do it so much now, more's the pity.

who the fug

Millicent wrote: »

I'll add blackberry picking to the thread after school. Can't do it so much now, more's the pity.

The old fella use to make blackberry wine, so we ended up hating blackberry picking.

He use to ferment them in the hot press, the bottles exploded over me mother best linen.

Cost the old fella a fortune in dinners to get out of that one

Millicent

who the fug wrote: »

The old fella use to make blackberry wine, so we ended up hating blackberry picking.

He use to ferment them in the hot press, the bottles exploded over me mother best linen.

Cost the old fella a fortune in dinners to get out of that one

Hahaha! That's brilliant!

kfallon

Climbing over fences of local GAA/soccer pitches just to have a kick around and the joy on our faces if the 'nets' were still on the goals!

cleremy jarkson

Feeling like sh'it on a sunday night when you hear the angelus and you still haven't done your homework! No time left to put it off!