The Irish

look

I did get kissed for not being English yesterday

why isn't this working for me

Recently, a guy I know who was around in London in the late 60s was telling me a long convoluted story - all his stories are long and convoluted - about when the Westway was being built. We got into the conversation because he'd seen the Ken Burns documentary about country music and I happened to mention Merle Haggard and he said that, in the pubs he used to frequent in the area where the Westway was being built, where the clientele was apparently a strange classless rootless mix, the Irish labourers were especially fond of the song "Okie From Muskogee". Anyway, one night, one of these labourers happened to say how, when he went to a building site to ask the foreman if there was any work going for the day, he'd used a particular phrase which my friend had never forgotten, which was, "Any fear of a start?" I'm not entirely sure that's an exclusively Irish turn of phrase, but it sounds like it is.

Not sure if it’s exclusively ours but have heard my own dad say “any fear of a...” for years. Googled & found this

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zjQTfaL8eyUC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=%22any+fear+of+a+job%22&source=bl&ots=TdWsNnKw8-&sig=ACfU3U3dhBZpTgYSBVk5N6NHhRZYNi2jPw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOhJLm-bPmAhVRUMAKHadFCHwQ6AEwDHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22any%20fear%20of%20a%20job%22&f=false

Ah, there you go!

Fave old school derogatory terms that my dad uses to describe people - "óinseach", or sometimes it's a "fed óinseach", "latchyco", "laarrie"

Three types of Irish people - from a 1950s British children's encyclopedia. pic.twitter.com/4v6CSmg5ds

— Tom Moylan (@moylato) December 16, 2019

Sad to say I am none of these, I blame my Norman ancestry from diverting me from one of these paths

I think I can thank the Turkish diaspora 6000 years ago or something.

Oh you should see the Heaney doc Gyac, I thought it was brilliant. A pastoral portrait of the poet through the eyes of his wife and brothers. Slow poetry readings. Images of peat and bogs. How handsome he was! Winning doc imo, hope you recorded it.

Dispatches from Ireland. I'm in Ireland now, tell me what information you would like from here and I will report back.

Most things so far have been grand or gas or a disgrace

what is the band that best addrsses your experience of being in Ireland right now

the fuckin cheek

I can confirm that all bands sound the same in Ireland and that one is called "green cars"

-how much does stuff you’d buy for a hangover cost
-what are people into that you wouldn’t know about if you’d been out of the country for several months
-isn’t it a fucking tragedy Dublin airport got rid of their authentically syntaxed luggage signs?

the fuckin cheek

Supermacs regular chips are E2.50, a large curry chip is E4.70

The biggest recent fads are vegan sausage rolls and woolly bomber jackets but they're not bomber jackets

I have not been to Dublin airport and have only down through it a couple of times

I can report that portions continue to be small

I'm most disturbed that there are motorway serviced now. Awful. Motorways everywhere, good be with the days you had to drive through everywhere; buttevant, charleville, macroom

yes we had that thread about, now i think it, the original accursed borris

Lol yes, my friend Clare once opened a bottle of wine with a stiletto heel in the forecourt of the petrol station in borris in ossory

I can report that portions continue to be small

Don’t want to sound too cynical, but can anyone who’s seen British blue ticks talking about their Irish citizenship post anything they see about historical prosecutions? Can’t say it seems to have crossed any radars...

Superb.

https://twitter.com/NoContextDunphy

content

The pinned tweet is classic, there’s so much Dunphy I wonder if I imagined

pic.twitter.com/KtSRf2WtI8

— No Context Eamon Dunphy (@NoContextDunphy) November 6, 2019

see, if you were listening to yr second captains football podcast youd hear it in the intro twice a week

(they do social/political stuff every now and then fyi, not to a great degree or anything tho)

You are literally the third person to recommend this to me in the last ten minutes!

we cant all be wrong

Richie sadlier will be president of ireland some day, mark my words.

it's a good podcast

I think probably most of us have seen this already, but for those who haven’t:

This letter in today’s ⁦@IrishTimes⁩ https://t.co/wqR6Bi1kSz pic.twitter.com/XWfvYE34BG

— Hugh Linehan (@hlinehan) December 21, 2019

‘Irish Traveller Family’, Killorglin, County Kerry, Ireland, 1954 a fascinating Kodachrome by Inge Morath. I love this photo. pic.twitter.com/RyiENzbgb9

— Davenant (@SirWilliamD) December 23, 2019

this Inge Morath pic is incredible. That it is a 20th century social history pic full of rich detail that is unmistakably from a long gone era and also looks like it could have been taken only yesterday - is just one of its many qualities.

Thanks to both of you there - that letter is amazing, and so is the photo - my mother would have been 9 at the time.

There was a follow up to the letter: nb, it’s tough reading

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/mother-grieving-loss-of-all-three-children-says-there-is-too-much-space-around-me-now-1.4122965

I see Liveline has spoken for the nation. Wtf is number 10?

Your high points of the last decade!! ⁦@RTENewsNow⁩ ⁦@rteliveline⁩ ⁦@rtenews⁩ pic.twitter.com/dGyRUp4xPF

— JOE DUFFY (@joeliveline) December 23, 2019

"closure of head shops" not especially conducive to highs I would have thought

Despite heavy rain, the wrenboys were out in force in Dingle collecting for charity.

The west Kerry town is one of the last strongholds of the St Stephen's Day tradition that is believed to have pagan origins | Read more: https://t.co/dwWItCbqYD pic.twitter.com/wA4RFoprYv

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 26, 2019

So, this is when that Wenceslas dude did all that looking out at the snow, eh?

Byrne aged quickly, like many Irishmen.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 26 December 2019 21:42 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

:(

I went from top pretty boy to getting stopped for police line-ups between the ages of 17 to 22. This is definitely a thing!

hmph its prettier i get

Depends very much on yr genes & lifestyle same as anyone else, there’s lots of variation in my own family

Is aoibhinn libh é a fheiceáil
https://i.postimg.cc/6QC2VWSd/D32-E87-DC-8068-42-A1-968-D-5-BC90-E0-A7661.jpg

Come Out Ye Black n Tans No. 1 in Ireland, No. 3 in Britain ... Fine Gael got their answer .... https://t.co/3rOa8XiyEN

— The Wolfe Tones 🇮🇪 (@wolfetones) January 9, 2020

this was retweeted by my main homey RLB. I always remember the Wolfe Tones - Rifles of the IRA album hidden at the back of the record shelf, like it might be illegal to own it!

Did RLB really retweet thT It’s not on her TL

oh no it's someone using a play on her name, forget it.

these bloody twitterers and their hilarious spoonerisms!

Ten years ago: man slips on ice in Dublin. More with @rtearchives https://t.co/96jTx8I501

— RTÉ (@rte) January 8, 2020

have you not seen the plaque!