Top o the Morning to You

....And Other Irish Cultural Observations

Fitting In
"The friendliness of the Irish is world renowned. They have a welcoming attitude towards strangers...." excerpt from the Lonely Planet.
Let it be said that The Lonely Planet Guides are a whole load of crap and that their writers aren't in any position to comment on culture. (Remember the scandal where writers were caught writing guides for countries they had never visited?) According to the Lonely Planet Ireland guidebook, the Irish are easy people to make friends with. True, the Irish are generally friendly on face value, but that the end of the day, it's a case of being happy to have a casual chat with you, but having no interest in taking it further. The Irish are generally cliquey small town people and even if you've lived in the town for more than thirty years, you'd still be considered the "blow ins" and not a part of the town. (My colleague told me when friends of theirs were lost and looking for them, the people in town told them that "there were no Shannons from that town".) Saying hello on the street or chatting away to strangers at the bus stop is the Irish form of politeness and as the documentary I saw in Belfast said, "not necessary a form of invitation". Before everybody goes up in arms and starts telling me that I'm just making gross assumptions, I'd like to point out that the above comments have been made by various Irish people across the country.
"The Irish will tell you to come back to visit them and that their door is always open to you, and then when you do go back to visit, they'll be wondering why the hell you're back again." said a boy from Mayo.
Most aptly said was one Italian guy who told me, "I want to move to London because I don't feel welcome here."

A number of my clients have also mentioned, "If you're not interested in going to the pub or going to the (Catholic) church, you have no business and place in society."

From my own personal experience, I have invited my colleagues over to my house numerous times. While they have quite happily visited, the invitation has never been reciprocated (aside from on occasion). I did have one colleague invite me to her boyfriend's birthday barbeque, but it was one of those, "You can come if you want," half-hearted comments with no follow up closer to the date.

"Weetabix"

The extra syllable does my head in. (The Australians will know what I'm talking about....)

The Language
The Irish languish is called Irish, and not Gaelic, like what the rest of the world assumes. Yeah I know, it sounds wrong - almost like the Americans who tell you that you speak "such good American" (yes, in that grammatically incorrect fashion). Gaelic is Scottish, which is different from Irish. Annoying are the people who try to correct me on this one (both neither Irish or having lived in Ireland). It's like those idiots who try to tell me how to pronounce my own surname.

Swimming
I am amaze that the Irish cannot swim. I always assumed that it was some sort of a life skill. One of my colleagues (around my age) once told me that she could swim, but her version of swimming was that her "arms and legs would move, but she wouldn't go anywhere".
By this she basically means she's not drowning - yet.

Exercise
My Italian colleague thinks that the Irish are extremely sporty. Personally, I think she's delusional. (Drinking and watching TV is not a sport.) If I were to join a gym class in Australia where we were warming up by running around the oval, I would inevitably be in the bottom twenty percentile of the class. Over here when I was unfit, I was coming second after the marathon runner. Now that I'm fitter, I am beating the marathon runner. (Yes, with my short little legs.)

It is also apparently okay to be a gym instructor and have beer gut.
Buffed people at the gym are few and far between.
As mentioned in a previous post, there is a bar, a cigarette machine and a vending machine selling chips and chocolate.
http://closetblonde.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
The most common form of exercise the Irish engage in is called "walking" and at that, this isn't at any great speed. Then they go and drink their ten pints of Guinness and eat their cheese and butter, and wonder why they aren't losing any weight.

It is considered normal and acceptable to have a beer gut by the time you hit your mid to late twenties.

Stereotypes exist for a reason
Examples of typical preschool activities:
Story Time



Arts and Crafts
(Yeah, notice that the Shamrock is cross-eyed. Funny that.)

The Potato Bus and the Potato Market (Cork & Limerick respectively)


Children play "potato race" instead of "egg and spoon race" at birthday parties.

The potato flask


Ryanair
The stereotype of the "crazy Irishmen" is alive and well in the form of Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary.

He's the only CEO I've seen who looks medically certified crazy. For a man who's trying to portray himself as "fun loving", he sure makes some mean ass proposals such as:
1) Charging for using the toilet on a Ryanair plane. (Toilets will be coin operated.)
2) Canceling all check in baggage counters and making people carry all their luggage to the plane to an awaiting baggage handler.
3) Trying to remove seats on the aeroplane and making people stand like in a cattle pen. (The aviation authorities obviously said no to this one!!!!!! I mean, wtf; how could anybody be safe for take off or landing?)

Oh Ryanair, how I hate you, you cheap bastards.....

The Best of Riverdance

Photographic evidence that it does exist. Normally shown around Christmas time as re-runs.

Problem Solving
There is a saying in Ireland that goes, "An Irish solution to an Irish problem." Initially, I didn't get it, but now I've come to understand that this basically means providing a completely illogical solution to a problem that never existed. Examples of these are as follows:

1) Turning off the traffic lights at busy intersections during peak time, particularly when it is raining. (The Gardi seem to think that this will improve traffic flow.) And all the while, I had assumed that the traffic lights were faulty.......

2) Removing all taxes and rates on water, and then having absolutely no revenue to maintain the water pipes. (Yes, water from the tap is free, a totally bizarre concept for somebody who's lived in Australia most of her life.) It rains so much in Ireland that they could make a huge profit on exporting water alone, but alas, 50% of the water leaks out from the pipes before it flows down one's tap. (Geez, I wonder why.....)

3) Raising the cost of private health insurance at a time when the Government is trying to reduce the pressure on the public sector.

4) Increasing airport taxes to fly into Ireland, consequently discouraging tourism and the additional revenue/expenditure that go hand in hand with this.

Technology (or the lack of,)
The iphone craze hasn't descended on Ireland. Not surprising given that many places don't even have broadband, and there would be absolutely no point with apps such as Google maps unless they have an Irish specific version that can direct you to, "Go up the hill and around the bend, and then you'll see two flowers on the side of the road, and then you'll see a little lane way about half a mile after that but you don't turn in there....." I once mentioned this to some colleagues, but bless them, they didn't get my dig and just looked blankly at me.

"Father Ted is Alive and Well"
I have a client who lives in a house with a lady who claims to be the "housekeeper"/"friend". I then find out about four months later that there is also a priest who lives in the house every so often. (It's all a bit bizarre......)

The Umbilical Cord Factor
Irish guys are the biggest "mummy boys" and are forever attached by the umbilical cord. It is culturally acceptable to still be living with mum in your thirties, with mummy doing all your washing, cooking and also changing your diapers for you. It is only necessary to move out once the boy get married (with the new wife taking over mummy duties). People have explained to me that they don't move out of home as it is too expensive to rent. This is a load of crap as you can get yourself a one bedroom apartment right in the middle of Cork city for about 600 euros a month.

Definition of a Contract (n.): A binding agreement between two or more parties for performing, or refraining from performing, some specific act(s) in exchange for lawful consideration.
Definition of a Contract....in Ireland: A contract is a piece of paper with funny talk and drawings of potato stick men on it.
Contracts mean NOTHING in Ireland, and....what do you know, both my work place and my gym tried to screw me over. (In any other country, they would have been in deep legal shit.) Bitter....? Somewhat.

"The Irish are Everywhere"
This is what Irish people always say. I personally think that this statement is a load of crap as whenever I've traveled, I've hardly ever met any Irish people. True, there were a fair few that moved over to America back in the 80's when times were bad, and then you do get a fair few of the younger ones who go over to Australia for a year, but they all inevitably always come running back to Ireland even though they will always tell you that their lives, jobs etc were better wherever they were before. (Call it the "umbilical cord factor".) My Aussie colleague's Irish boyfriend is a prime example - and she was stupid enough to believe her boyfriend when he made out that his home town (which can hardly even be called a town,) was something comparable to Dublin. Somebody obviously didn't check wikipedia. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.........

The reason why the Irish assume that they are "everywhere" is because there are Irish pubs all around the world. This is akin to assuming that Americans are "everywhere" because there are McDonald's all around the world.

To be fair, the French also say exactly the same thing - ie: that they are also "everywhere". I don't believe this either, as the French usually feel somewhat culturally superior to others, and therefore do not see a reason to move out of France.

For the Irish who do "travel", they inevitably end up in an Irish pub which in my definition is not traveling at all. I one time asked a colleague whether she went out at night when she was in Portugal, and her answer was, "We didn't really go out as there weren't any Irish pubs to hang out in."

A Year in Australia.....is often a rite of passage for the Irish. By this they mean that they all move to Sydney, hang out with Irish people in Irish bars for a year and then go back to Ireland and tell everybody that they've lived in Australia.

Religion
The Catholic church has a strong hold on the community. Majority of people from what I can see aren't true "Catholics" and will have sex before marriage, and likely feel extremely guilty about this. (More on the subject matter later.) Although technically not "religious", they will still go through things such as first communion, something else called "confirmation", and when they have kids, they will half-heartedly take them to church just for a little while, as this is perceived as the "good way of bringing them up", inadvertently instilling a sense of guilt around subject matters such as sex - and then the vicious cycle continues........ So begs the question, if they don't believe in God and aren't religious, why go through the half-arsed motions of the religion? Surely God never lets anybody into heaven that way. Just saying.

Dating
Spotted.....A couple on a date riding a tractor. This was seen by one of my ex-Aussie colleagues. She reported that they stopped off at a petrol station to get a bar of chocolate. Had I witnessed this, I would have had the urge to slit my wrists. (It's the "city girl" in me.....) One of my clients (who has a real cheeky sense of humour and knows how to push my buttons,) keeps egging me on by telling me that I can "hook up with a West Cork farmer".

Sex
From what I have observed (or more like heard,) I can only conclude that the Irish are bad in bed for the reasons of the Catholic church making them feel guilty about it, and their over consumption of alcohol. According to the clock on my Fujitsu laptop, an average performance seems to be around the 2 minute mark. (Is this really normal?) Well good for the non-participant ie: me anyway :p

It is also apparently okay to have sex and then not to shower and come downstairs and pretend like nothing's happened. (Yes, I am outing my housemates.) But then I suppose, at two minutes, it's almost like it never happened. Meow.

It is also okay to have your boyfriends/girlfriends stay over at your parent's place. I CANNOT get my head around this one as how as a parent could you tolerate hearing your offspring having sex? ARGH..........The thought does my head in.

Condoms cost 11 euros in the supermarket, and I'm guessing that this is another stupid reason why guys wouldn't want to put one on. Never mind STD's or pregnancy, "it'll be grand".

Mating
This is a little bit of a postscript here...... The Irish seem to have a penchant for breaking into one's bedroom (in the middle of the night) and climbing into their victim's bed. Is this a gross generalisation? Decide for yourself.......I only say this from the following collective experiences:
1) The above happened to me on THREE separate occasions with DIFFERENT guys in DIFFERENT houses. So much so that I think everybody in London thought I was the girl crying wolf. ("Are you sure? Didn't this happen, in a totally different house, with a different person?" is what many said.)
2) My friend who use to live in Cork City was asleep and had an inexplicable feeling that there were eyes looking at her, only to wake up to find that her housemate was staring at her while standing at the foot of her bed....at 5am. (This was prior to my own personal experiences.) "I thought you wanted to chat." he said. Right.
3) Another friend in ANOTHER town had a funny incling that something was going to happen - so much so that she locked her bedroom door - only to wake up in the middle of the night with the door knob rattling.
4) Another colleague was sleeping and again, had a strange feeling that there were eyes staring at her, and woke up to find her housemate "wanting to have a chat" - at 4am.

Given that these aren't isolated incidences, the only conclusion that I can come to is that this is how they mate. Am I bitter? Definitely.

Politics
Politicians really drop in to visit unannounced. AND expect a cup of tea.

Good Lord, thank God I missed this one.
In the European elections back in 2009, it seriously didn't matter as at the end of the day, the election was won by some fellow called "O"......





Death
People have great respect for the dead, and it is an expectation that you will attend funerals for people whom you have little connection with (ie: neighbour's brother's father's uncle). I get the feeling that people must think I am really rude as I haven't attended many of my clients' funerals. I did get caught out once with one of my colleagues unsubtly hinting (well, more like directly saying), "I think you should go". The next thing I knew, I was standing outside his house for the "removal" (where they take out the casket out of the house and into the hearse), found myself walking behind the hearse to the church, standing in church for a 2 hour mass, and then somehow accidentally ended up partaking in Holy Communion when trying to make a sneaky exit. (Yeah, I'm still confused.)

Television
The TV Version of the Ginger & the Burly Irish Man

Closetblonde verdict: Yeah, she's hot, and he.....at least doesn't look like Colin Farrell.

Irish Idol
Okay.... I'm pretty sure it's not called "Irish Idol", but that's what I'm going to call it. My housemate was flipping channels one Saturday night (I was just walking by,) when he tumbled across a programme that had some guy who looked like a priest (although I'm pretty sure he was just a judge,) judging some competition with red headed kids either playing harps, Irish flutes or Irish dancing. "You're tru to the next round," is what I heard the judge/priest person say. My housemate then muttered something in effect of, "This is a whole load of shite," and promptly changed the channel. I never saw it again.

News
Only in Ireland will the devastating earthquake in Pakistan where tens of thousands of people have died be the side story, and the main piece of news be about some dairy farmer and his cow.

What's the Time Mister Wolf
The Irish have never been known for their time keeping and the country runs on what is called "Irish Time". Here are some examples to support this statement:
1) The clock on public buses are always out by at least seven hours.
2) "When we say the meeting is at 2 o'clock, we mean 2 o'clock," - exact words from the primary care team coordinator.
3) When trying to make appointments with my clients, they frequently tell me to "come over now". I then have to explain to them that I am too busy to "come right now", and that I am making an appointment to come and see them on another day. Then I tell them that I'm coming to their place at let's say, eleven o'clock, and when I rock up at eleven o'clock, there is a look of shock and they will tell me, "Oh, you actually meant eleven o'clock."
4) My Northern Irish colleague (who also doesn't run on "Irish Time",) always gets frustrated as inevitably, there is also somebody who rocks up two hours late for their appointment, and still expects to be seen.

The Irish (not even the elderly,) are not early risers and it is impossible to make an appointment before 10am. People seem to sleep in until 3 or 4pm nursing hangovers on the weekend.

People say "half twelve" and not "12:30pm", quarter to four and not 3:45pm. If you say the latter, nobody knows what the hell you're talking about.

Boiling the Kettle
It is an OCD compulsion to turn on the kettle even though it has literally boiled one second ago, and you've had your colleague/housemate (ie: ME) tell you so. Never mind that re-boiling the water encourages a metallic taste and that it's a waste of electricity - it's an OCD twitch that cannot be stopped.

Food
In the "Ethnic Food" aisle of the supermarket, you will find items such as pasta.

Overheard in the canteen: "I hardly ever eat meat - only maybe two or three times a week. I mainly eat chicken and pork."

Some of my colleagues assumed I was vegetarian for over a year because I have vegetables in my lunch.

There's no two fruit and five veg, it's only five a day (all fruits & vegetables inclusive), and I can only assume that there are people out there who think three of their five a day can be potato in three forms (ie: fried, mashed and baked). The Australians have that saying of "meat and three veg". Over here it's "meat and two veg".

As mentioned in a previous post, when you go to the pub for a meal, you get served potato in three forms - mashed, fried and baked.
http://closetblonde.blogspot.com/2009/01/irish-never-conquered-earth-because.html

Louie the Fly
Louise has a cousin called "Dopey" in Ireland. The flies in Ireland are really dopey and fly really slowly. (They're extremely easy to swat!!) When they accidentally fly into the house, they get into this real panicked state and hover around the windows trying to get out. If they could talk, they would be saying, "Bzzzz!!! Oh no!! Letmeoutletmeoutletmeout!!!!" They're actually quite pleasant as unlike the flies in let's say Australia or Singapore, as they seem to have no interest in wanting to eat your food and no intention of wanting to stay in. (Must admit that I didn't try leaving alcohol out in the open.)

Halloween
One of the most popular outfits is to dress up like a priest.

Black trousers + Black shirt + Piece of white A4 paper folded into a small rectangle and sticky taped to the collar = Lame-O IMO.

This is so lame that I couldn't muster any fake enthusiasm when my housemate told me he was going to dress up as one on Halloween.

On the Subject of "Good Looking Guys"
One of my colleagues commented that there was a "really good looking" physio starting at work. So there I was waiting for about four months for this "dishy" looking guy to appear, and then I realised that they were talking about the guy who had already been there....for the past four months.

Alcohol
Every stereotype is true and probably twenty folds worst. Ireland is culturally stifled, and there's literally nothing to do aside from drink. Go to a small little village and there will be no store to buy provisions (such as bread or milk,) but there will always be a pub. It is normal for everywhere to be covered in vomit by around 12 midnight, and for the streets to be covered in broken glass. It is recommended not to use the toilets past 11:30pm.

It is apparently okay to drink while you are pregnant. And then there's research to say that even with moderate drinking, your children can end up with higher executive functioning/cognitive problems that only become apparent in adolescence. Combine that with the "it's okay to marry your cousin" and well....you get the picture.

Women most commonly write that they're "looking for a man who has more interests than just drinking" on online dating sites.

Hospitals have to lock and hide their alcohol hand sanitiser away in case people steal them for drinking purposes.

I met a couple in Kildare who were on holiday in London. They asked me to recommend what to see and do (as it was their first time there,) so I started raving on about the wonderful museums and galleries and markets.......They looked really disinterested until I mentioned the walking pub tour. Then their eyes lit up and they said, "Oh, we must do that tomorrow then."

The Reason Why I Obsessively Plotted for Several Months on Somehow Taking a Sneaky Photo of My Colleagues
When I first walked into work, this is what I saw:

Note that this is only an example (out of one of my work manuals), and not my actual colleagues, as I never figured out how to hide behind the filing cabinet without appearing to be a stalker. I did try coughing and pressing the shutter on my camera at home one time, but you could still hear the camera beeping over the coughing.

"The Irish will smile sweetly at face whilst kicking you in the groin" -
Statement from an (Irish) manager in Kilkenny. Okay, I'm the kind of girl who really doesn't get subtle hints, and because of this, it took me almost two years to realise that the Irish will tell you one thing, but will really mean another. And I only realised that because one of my clients (again, originally from the UK) told me that she finds that people in the UK are a lot more direct. (Erm, really? I recall my time in the UK wheelchair service having to practically twist one lady's arm to get her to tell me what colour she wanted her wheelchair to be.) With the Irish, it's a case of them saying whatever YOU want to hear, and it's up to you to try and figure out what they REALLY mean.

Political Correctness
The Irish are plain and simple creatures.....who haven't quite mastered the art of political correctness.
My colleague went out with one of the Council Engineers who see a family who had a child with Down's Syndrome. The Engineer took one look at the child, shook his head and went, "My cousin has one of those."
Oooh ouch.

Night Clubs
The Irish will complain about how shit a certain night club is (ie: the housemates are a prime example) and yet will faithfully end up there every single week. It begs the question of, if you spend 100 euros on drink every single week, why don't you just save that money, and then take a cheap Ryanair flight to London for 40 euros every few weeks and go out there instead? When I questioned the housemates, they just squirmed and muttered something like, "But there's nowhere else to go...." bullshit. Yeah right, I think you actually like it. It's like that girl who gave her number out to some guy, and then complained when he started calling her. I told her that she obviously just gave her number out just for the attention and ooh, was she not happy....

Night clubs aren't for the 18-something year olds. Go to a night club and you'll see anybody from 18 to 60.

The Code of Silence
I really, really struggle with this one.
When you get to a certain age, it is common practice not to be told that you have cancer or that you don't have long to live, even if you are fully compos mentis. Both your family and GP will refuse to tell you what is actually wrong with you, even if you are going through chemo etc. I have had plenty of clients think that they are okay, only to then die about two months later. That or they keep on asking you to "please tell them what is wrong with them," but you can't because the GP told you not to. I really, really, struggle with this one because I believe that people have a right to know, and should have the right to be able to sort out their own affairs and say their goodbyes.

Chain Stores
The owner of a chain store will always put their name in the title of the actual store as a form of ownership ie: "Murphy's Supervalu".


Everyone will then refer to the store as "Kelly's" rather than the actual name of the chain store.

Farmville
The $6400 question to my colleagues: Why play Farmville when you're living on an actual farm? Just asking.