Surrealistic Ireland.

poundapunnet wrote: »

Getting the school bus home once, bus stops all of a sudden, two of the lads get off and I look out the window and see them running down a field, chasing a tyre. Ask the bus driver what's going on and he said "ah sure, you know"

I think the best part is that we all "know". *Pictures shrugging and nodding in agreement with the driver*

A local character was unhappy with the world so he got hold of a chainsaw and our xmas tree on the square here in Dunmanway .
Also, the xmaslights seemed to become a target every saturday night so the council started replacing them with ordinary bulbs.

salonfire wrote: »

I know of an aul man that travels by horse and cart. He would come into the village, tie up the horse and goes to the pub.

Hours later he comes out shit faced. They bundle him into the cart and let the horse go. The horse trots up the road back to the house while your man is lying passed out on the cart.

Sounds like the Clare story The Savage Pigs of Tulla, except the drunk guy falls backwards into the cart when it arrives home and he gets eaten by the pigs in the back of the cart, I think I heard it from the storytelling of Eddie Lenihan on Clare FM sometime in the 1990s.

My father was and still is friends with this utter oddball called Jack. Think Tom from Fr.Ted. The man lived in a ramshackle mobile home outside a long forgotten Protestant church and grave yard. People used to ask him how he could stick living there but he would only say "Sure tis grand, I can make as much noise as I want and the neighbours don't complain!" He was meant to be a pure genius when it came to fixing motorbike and two stroke engines and it was quite a scene to land down outside this guys place and see a grave yard strewn with odd ends of motorbikes, chainsaws, quad bikes and lawn mowers.

My father tells this story better but anyway, my fathers chainsaw decided to pack it in one morning. Now my dad is a bit of a whizz when comes to all things mechanical and started tinkering around with it but no way would it work. He decided to take it this Jack guy who, my father was damn sure, could resurrect it. So off my father goes and he arrives at Jacks place. But as my father is pulling into the side of the "yard" he notices another car pulling into the "yard" from the other side. A man gets out of the other car and goes up to Jacks door and enters. A few moments later the man legs it out the door and barely gets to his car before Jack appears at the door with a running chainsaw which he flings towards your man. The father didn't know what to do but Jack saw my dad sitting in his car, wanders over and calmly explains that the other man owed Jack money and didn't want to pay Jack for fixing the chainsaw.

What must also be surreal to a Spanish person is that we can can gather together in groups larger than two while not regularly exceeding the decibel levels created by a Space Shuttle launch

Here's something you don't see too often, auld fellows lilting tunes, this man is lilting the jigs Tom Billy's and the Pipe in the Hob with some fine bodhran accompaniment.

Lou.m wrote: »

This junkie guides swan COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN IRELAND ...we have the nicest junkies

How do we know he's a junkie? :pac:

Just seems to be some fellow trying to make sure the lost and confused swan doesn't wander into traffic which is what any decent person in any country should have done in the situation as opposed to the eejits rallying round to film it with youtube hits on their mind.

This might fit in here.

A few months back I was on Bus Eireann going to Dublin and just before Longford the bus pulls in on the side of the N5 for some reason.

Turns out a minibus full of old women had broken down as they were returning from a day out in Knock.
As they got on they split into three groups, two women sit in front of me, two more the far side of the aisle and the rest head for the back of the bus because that's where all the cool kids hang out.

The group to my left start proclaiming that it's a miracle that someone found them (even though they were stood at the side of one of the countries busiest roads), the two in front of me start talking about ringing Joe Duffy and about 20 minutes later the gang down the back into the first glorious mystery of the rosary.

I was on a bus in Chile with my aunt who can speak Spanish. They handed out all these cards and then every body started to play bingo. A bit surreal two Irish people playing bingo in a bus in Spanish. After that the conductor got blankets and tucked everybody in and switched off the lights and said have a nice sleep in Spanish

Raminahobbin wrote: »

My granddad had a shed/outhouse. In this shed, it was like a graveyard of bicycles. Frames hanging from the rafters, wheels stacked haphazardly against the walls, and various tools lying around. He liked 'mending' them. One day, my cousin was gifted a deadly brand new bike for his birthday. He cycled it up to the house to show us, and stayed over that night leaving the bike outside. He awoke the next morning to find it had been stripped into parts and reincarnated as several Frankenbikes

We didn't find out until after my granddads funeral years later that he was something of a local oddity. He would cycle up to 30 or 40 miles to do various messages, but if he met someone he knew, he would get a lift off them, and throw his bike into a ditch so he could get it a few weeks later. People didn't even have to ask if he owned the bikes- if they found one in a ditch as they were out driving around, they brought it to him, assuming it was his.

‘I do not believe in the three-speed gear at all.’ the Sergeant was saying, ‘it is a new-fangled instrument, it crucifies the legs, the half of the accidents are due to it.’

‘It is a power for the hills,’ said Gilhaney, ‘as good as a second pair of pins or a diminutive petrol motor.’

I'm off to read the Third Policeman : )