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Old superstitions you've heard of/still use

  • 13-06-2021 6:15pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 259 ✭✭


    Ones I've heard down through the years...
    Never sign your name in red.Bad luck.
    If giving a knife to someone include a penny as otherwise this will cut the friendship.
    Being able to draw a perfect circle on paper is a sign of madness.
    The colour lilac is bad luck to be found in a home(used to be put in coffins to mask the smell).
    Peacock feathers-very bad luck in a home..


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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 8,355 ✭✭✭corner of hells


    Ones I've heard down through the years...
    Never sign your name in red.Bad luck.
    If giving a knife to someone include a penny as otherwise this will cut the friendship.
    Being able to draw a perfect circle on paper is a sign of madness.
    The colour lilac is bad luck to be found in a home(used to be put in coffins to mask the smell).
    Peacock feathers-very bad luck in a home..

    Sure if you were in a coffin , you probably wouldn't be worried about the smell.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭AllGunsBlazing


    I remember being admonished for writing in red brio by a teacher. But it was considered bad form not bad luck.

    I'd imagine the peacock feathers thing was worse luck for the peacock.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I have heard of the perfect circle one and recall it being said DaVinci could do it. But, likely impossible freehand more than anything.


  • Registered Users Posts: 48 Mollydog123


    When you see a lone magpie always say 'Hello Mr. Magpie, and how is Mrs. Magpie'. Have tried it a few times but they all just flew away. Still dont know how Mrs. Magpie is after all these years.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    When you see a lone magpie always say 'Hello Mr. Magpie, and how is Mrs. Magpie'. Have tried it a few times but they all just flew away. Still dont know how Mrs. Magpie is after all these years.

    I still salute the fûcker. He never waves back, Josepha Madigan will sue me now in a minute for assuming the gender.


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  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,684 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    It's unlucky to be superstitious.


  • Registered Users Posts: 919 ✭✭✭Hyperbollix


    Very superstitious,
    Writing's on the wall,
    Very superstitious,
    Ladders bout' to fall


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,135 ✭✭✭Suckler


    .
    If giving a knife to someone include a penny as otherwise this will cut the friendship.

    The person you gift the knife to gives you a coin in return.
    (is my understanding)


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,402 ✭✭✭McGinniesta


    Superstition is the ultimate in feeble mindedness.

    It beats religion and anything else you can think of.


  • Registered Users Posts: 505 ✭✭✭zanador


    Never buying a wallet for yourself, and putting a penny in one you buy for someone else. I don't believe it but I like it


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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,283 ✭✭✭fixXxer


    The only one I still hold on to is I will always say hello to a magpie.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,569 ✭✭✭PsychoPete


    I'm not superstitious, but I'm a little stitious


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,799 ✭✭✭Doctors room ghost


    I still salute the fûcker. He never waves back, Josepha Madigan will sue me now in a minute for assuming the gender.




    Same as that Bertie


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,969 ✭✭✭✭alchemist33


    I have heard of the perfect circle one and recall it being said DaVinci could do it. But, likely impossible freehand more than anything.

    Giotto apparently did one in Renaissance times to impress a patron, and then got the gig


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,597 ✭✭✭dan1895


    When you see a lone magpie always say 'Hello Mr. Magpie, and how is Mrs. Magpie'. Have tried it a few times but they all just flew away. Still dont know how Mrs. Magpie is after all these years.

    My missus is forever waving at magpies


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,905 ✭✭✭Gregor Samsa


    I remember being admonished for writing in red brio by a teacher. But it was considered bad form not bad luck.

    That’s because if you hand up something written in red, they’re afraid you won’t notice all their corrections and sarky comments, which teachers traditionally write in red pen.

    I remember handing up an Irish essay written on an A4 page, but in a plastic sleeve. Teacher obviously couldn’t wait to rip into me and wrote all his comments (in red pen) on the plastic sleeve itself. The full page from top to bottom. Then he obviously realised his mistake and went back and wrote them all again on the actual page.

    The reason I handed it up in the plastic sleeve was because the teacher had an awful habit of dribbling on your work (due to an illness he had), and you’d get it back with drops of drool all over it, smudging the writing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,905 ✭✭✭Gregor Samsa


    My only superstition is: if you’re in a desert and you see a Vulture, it’s bad luck to play dead.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,081 ✭✭✭theguzman


    Never disturb a Lios, fairy fort, rath etc. I still continue the superstition out of respect for the old beliefs and from a historical and archaeological point of view I would like these ancient monuments to continue undisturbed into the future. Instead nowadays you have some thick farmer with a head on him like a kosangas cylinder and the IQ of a midge will come along and bulldoze it out because it is ruining his field of silage or whatever after that thing lasting for for thousands of years previously, protected by ancient pisheogs, curses and warnings of bad luck to let it alone. The old people had respect for the dead and ancients, they had absolutely nothing but never touched these places, today some moron with a 211 Toyota Lancruiser worth €90k will bulldoze these out of sheer greed for a few sq metres of topsoil.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,081 ✭✭✭theguzman


    That’s because if you hand up something written in red, they’re afraid you won’t notice all their corrections and sarky comments, which teachers traditionally write in red pen.

    I remember handing up an Irish essay written on an A4 page, but in a plastic sleeve. Teacher obviously couldn’t wait to rip into me and wrote all his comments (in red pen) on the plastic sleeve itself. The full page from top to bottom. Then he obviously realised his mistake and went back and wrote them all again on the actual page.

    The reason I handed it up in the plastic sleeve was because the teacher had an awful habit of dribbling on your work (due to an illness he had), and you’d get it back with drops of drool all over it, smudging the writing.

    I had a jobsworth in the ESB refuse a wiring cert two years ago because the sparks wrote up the form in red ink.


  • Registered Users Posts: 293 ✭✭Fils


    You should always trust yourself if you have pulled off a ghostly. Checking with a wipe brings a dose of scour sooner or later.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 128 ✭✭Taeholic


    Never sign your name in red.Bad luck.

    My granny was very superstitious. She believed using a red pen to sign your name was signing a deal with the devil himself.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,431 ✭✭✭Sky King


    Its like the old saying goes, if it takes two men four hours to dig half a hole, how long does it take a spider wearing boxing gloves to pull a thorn out of a frogs arse?

    What was this thread about again?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,575 ✭✭✭monkeysnapper


    Taeholic wrote: »
    My granny was very superstitious. She believed using a red pen to sign your name was signing a deal with the devil himself.

    Holly Jesus feck ....I work in a warehouse and always signing dockets with a red pen !!!!!

    I'm in real trouble now


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭AllGunsBlazing


    Opening umbrellas indoors?


    Spilling salt is supposed to be another bad one.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,439 ✭✭✭tupenny


    My gran went mad at me for putting new runners on the table. Ahh the 90s!
    Bad luck apparently


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,133 ✭✭✭Hamsterchops


    Walking under a ladder brings you bad luck.

    ....so I don't, just in case.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6 AndyWhite1


    Hold a breathe when entering a tunnel - if you make it, you are gonna be rich (c.) Granny

    that kind of superstitions when people didnt have LONG tunnels, huh

    but I tried when I was a kid


  • Registered Users Posts: 977 ✭✭✭revelman


    Ones I've heard down through the years...
    Never sign your name in red.Bad luck.
    If giving a knife to someone include a penny as otherwise this will cut the friendship.
    Being able to draw a perfect circle on paper is a sign of madness.
    The colour lilac is bad luck to be found in a home(used to be put in coffins to mask the smell).
    Peacock feathers-very bad luck in a home..

    Are these specific to an area of the country? I’ve never heard any of these.


  • Registered Users Posts: 637 ✭✭✭Endaaaagh


    Before I built my house, I planted 4 posts where the 4 corners of the house would be. This was an old way of checking to ensure you weren't blocking a fairy path with your house. If the posts remained upright, and weren't knocked then it was OK to build


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  • Registered Users Posts: 18,069 ✭✭✭✭fryup


    what's the one that if you're selling a house to bury a statuette of st jude or someone similar in the back garden ??


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