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Christmas week in Dublin city, a pint of Guinness on xmas eve in the pub, watching the seals in Skerries Harbour, the deers crossing the road in front of me when out for a run in Phoenix Park, the colours of the heather in the Wicklows, the arrivals in Dublin airport on xmas week, and so much so much more.
Tv3 On a Saturday night .
Bulmers .
Coddle /Stew.
Irish Craic /sense of humour .
Jedward .(really),
No matter where you go in Ireland you always meet someone who knows someone you know .
Friendly people /neighbours .
Irish music (ballads etc ).
Full Irish Breakfast .
St.Patricks Day .Coddle….I love it!!! I am going to make one this week; although in our family we make a ‘brown coddle’ with some oxtail soup mix added into it. We get a piece of ham from superquinn (its my nanny’s recipe so the ham has to come from there!) and we boil it, rinse it off, chop it into big chunks and slow cook it with potatoes, onions and carrots. Oh, the flipping craving is on me now for that….I will have to make one this week. Nothing better than coddle on a cold winter day with a loaf of thick cut bread….yummm!!!
On the Irish language thing…I actually think we are re-embracing our language. There are lots of galescoileanna and naionrai popping up, I love that our kids are in a gaelscoil & naionra and we get to use the language again when helping with their home work etc. Its amazing how quickly it comes back to you.
I love that we have our own dolphin, Funghi, living down in Dingle. Where else would you have a dolphin that is a tourist attraction like Funghi (he even goes off on his holidays with his dolphin mates every so often but he always comes back) He is so friendly, he fits right in!
I love that there is a pub in Dingle that is also a shoe shop. Where else could you buy a pair of shoes and pint of Guinness at the same time?
When Stephen Gately died I thought it was lovely how Boyzone stayed with him in the church overnight and the way the people of that area reacted to his death. Seeing them paint the railings and get the neighbourhood ready for his funeral, made me so proud to be Irish. (Hearing about them charge photographers to take photos from their houses and gardens made me laugh on a sad day)
And even though Jedward are slightly mental, I was sad they did not go into the jungle, they would have livened it right up. Whatever you think about them, they make most people smile and that cannot be a bad thing!
More things to the list.
Child friendly country / people.
You can go to ANY restaurant, staff will offer high chair, customers are not going to give you the look " you and your kids are going to ruin my diner", I know that look too well, in France unless you go to a restaurant for kids, or in a very touristic place, you’ll get the look.How once I was by myself in the airport with 2 kids, 1 buggy and lugages, where an IRISH mum of 4 with husband, asked her husband to help me to make sure I could push the buggy with baby + lugage cart + hold hand of my toddler, when they already had their hands full.
In and out the planes with more hand lugage than I could carry and 2 toddlers with me to say it was ALWAYS irish passagers who helped me without having to ask for it.Yes, you should be proud to be irish or if not irish by birth you all are by the spirit, I know all of you on this website would hold a door to a mum pushing a buggy, offer to carry bag or hold a toddler hand to climb the steep stairs to go into a plane, it is so obvious, you would not think of it for a second it’s in your nature, but it’s not elsewhere.
I’m sure I’ll find more, and once again
Bulmers and tea (at different times)
great quality of the beef, not so great way of cooking it, but I can live with it (still do it my french way).
Fabiennei dont notice the blue eyes, everyone in my family have blue eyes, cousins etc… dh’s family have green and Hazel eyes…. i notice people with brown eyes but dont notice blue ones.
Sabbi our Coddle is a brown one too… never made it here its my mam who makes it… Back rashers, sausages, potatoes cut in half and onion (i like it minus the onion) My father would butter (the real stuff) chunks of home made white bread to mop up the gravy…. no wonder he died of a heart attack 😯 😆 😆 😆
Im not a huge tea drinking but it doesnt taste the same anywhere in the world
With all the doom and gloom, we have to look at what we have, on the whole we are very lucky
I know you have to be me to notice blue eyes.
9 years later I still stare at all the blue eyes I see 😆 😆 😆
only hazel /brown to dark brown eyes in the family.As well when I say the irish makes you welcome.
I always speak french to my children in private but also outside, in the streets, while in a group of non french speaker, and always felt free to do so, never felt guilty or ashamed to speak a language that other people could not necessaraly understand.
It’s not polite but noone ever gave me "the look".Coddle, I’m afraid I’m not irish enough to know what you’re talking about. It will come in time. Still never had an Irish stew made for me.
About friendly, years ago I asked my neighbour to take care of my cat while away. She did it, but also she got milk and bread for us on our day of arrival.
How nice it was.
My friend who does take cat of the cats, always ask me if I want some milk, and depending on the time of my arrival I’ll say yes.It’s a small country filled with generous people
(with blue eyes 😆 😆 )Fabienne a coddle is a very Dublin thing….. i dont even know if Drogheda people would have eaten coddle, i think its even called "dublin Coddle"
We had it years ago as dinner but mam would often do it for lunch
1. Ireland has a land border with the UK
2.
No, I jest………in part.
It’s a thread about identifying the positive and avoiding the negative so am sure you will all see the above as "having the craic"
Families of more than two kids are not considered irresponsible or anti-social….. & you’re not considered a nut for having them
Someone always knows someone who knows someone (I think a chunk of this site is loosely based on that idea…)
Willingness to chat at the slightest encouragement – I’ve asked the advice of mum’s in cafes about buggies, in supermarket car parks about 7 seater cars, in doctor’s waiting rooms about anything (all total strangers)…. No one yet has blanked me….
At his funeral he had gotten a neighbours teenage child to create a slide show of photos set to music… not one person was missing, he had videos made and played, there were alot of tears shed that day… but ones of laughter…….. it wasnt a sad day it was has he wanted it a day where we looked back on his life and the fun times we had with himin our extended family
Dont think you would get it anywhere else in the world xxxxxThat kind of behaviour tho not common in my experience, is certainly not exclusive to the Irish. I was at a funeral of a 50 yr old woman this time last year, whose 24 yr old son’s wife was pg with their 1st baby, and who had left daughters of 22 and 21 yrs old. This lady had had MS and cancer and if I ever live up to being even a tenth of the woman she was and my kids turn out to be a hundredth of the fine young folk her children are, I will have done myself proud. The church was packed, HOUSES either side brought their chairs in for those attending cos it was standing room only, there was a pp running the whole way thru, with this lady and her family, sometimes paused or slowed down while people spoke. There was no coffin, typical of her, she had arranged for close friends and family only to attend a short cremation service beforehand, but when her husband, daughters, son and daughter in law left the church at the end, they did so to "You’ll Never Walk Alone". She said no flowers, and instaed buckets at the church doors were overflowing with £ for MS Society and Breast Cancer charity. Thousands were made.
I know is off the point, and partly I say all that as tribute to this fine, fine lady, but partly because it makes the point I feel about Ireland again. Yes, it’s got its advantages, despite all economic quagmire of the time, but there is something that just leaves it short of its very best possible self IMHO, and that is a bit of humility and the notion that there IS a world, people, set of cultures out there beyond this island. Be proud of your country, yes, there’s lots to be proud of, but increase the robustness of that idea by acknowledging that there isn’t a monopoly on certain sought after behaviours in the world in being Irish, other countries and places have things to learn from.
But above slightly off at a tangent, I know…
My mum’s uncle died in England recently & basically the body arrived at the church from the morgue & was buried. They went to a local pub where everyone bought their own drink. Some cocktail ssausages were served. And an hour later the only ones left there were the (very puzzled)ones who’d flown over from Ireland that morning.
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Not saying above is an example of this but just feel I need to point out something about cultural differences and I know no-one is making any value judgements on practices, but in the spirirt of share and we learn from each other…Different processes suit different people. In UK, is often considered the height of disrespect to go around to a home/church service/funeral afters if not specifically invited orconnected to the deceased. Along the notion of "clearly we have enough to be thinking/worrying about other than entertaining people who just turn up" I suspect. And perhaps sometimes a little of "we don’t wish to be seen as making a spectacle out of death, with the world and his wife turning up" either, I think. If you are there drinking all day in the pub after a funeral in UK, it can be seen as v bad form, ie you don’t have enough respect for the person you’ve just buried/cremated to have a bit of decorum, I think…
A close friend of mine here lost a parent earlier this year. I went to the funeral mass on my own, sat at back amongst hundreds and was appalled that people behind me, standing, whispered, nay CHATTED to each other throughout, not just one or two and not just once or twice either. Afterwards, I went home because I would never have dreamt of turning up to the afters of someone I had rarely and briefly met, although this person was obviously of enormous significance to someone who is an exceptionally good friend to me. And my friend was APPALLED at me so-doing!!! We laughed about it after, cos she couldn’t understand why I didn’t come, and I couldn’t understand how on earth she would have expected me to come! Same experience, but completely diff ways of approaching it, but we laughed and learned, and that’s the main thing…
My mum’s uncle died in England recently & basically the body arrived at the church from the morgue & was buried. They went to a local pub where everyone bought their own drink. Some cocktail ssausages were served. And an hour later the only ones left there were the (very puzzled)ones who’d flown over from Ireland that morning.
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In UK, is often considered the height of disrespect to go around to a home/church service/funeral afters if not specifically invited or connected to the deceased. Along the notion of "clearly we have enough to be thinking/worrying about other than entertaining people who just turn up" I suspect. And perhaps sometimes a little of "we don’t wish to be seen as making a spectacle out of death, with the world and his wife turning up" either, I think. If you are there drinking all day in the pub after a funeral in UK, it can be seen as v bad form, ie you don’t have enough respect for the person you’ve just buried/cremated to have a bit of decorum, I think…
Hjs i think your missing the point of this topic (positive uplifting posts to lift spirits)…. its to point out "things about Ireland and the Irish" Its not to compare, its what makes us unique and one of the things the Irish are known for worldwide is "throwing a Wake" If you didnt attend a wake in Ireland you wouldnt be showing respect for the family or the memory of the person who died. Its like in a post about how the community stops, they rally, make the sandwiches, park the cars etc…
Everyone has Wakes but the Irish just know how to do it that bit better 😆 😆 😆Am not missing the poinht of the thread thanks, can read.
As said at many points, I know there was some going off at tangent in my posts, and am not denying that there are some good, preferable aspects to living in this country as opposed to other places.
Am pointing out one feature that I feel could enhance furtherthe national characteristic, that’s all. A bit of kop on to the fact that others have valuable elements to their culture too, and that I would have (even) more respect for the positive aspects of living in this country if they were able to be judged in the context of a whole world view. This whole idea of we’re Irish, we’re charming, we have the craic, we’re a people risen up from repression blah blah blah does takes the tiniest shine off itself by being so self-referential is all I’m saying. I do find at times it suits that Irish mentality to be (apparently) ignorant of or choose to ignore the customs annd practices that go on elsewhere in the world, in order to elevate the status of their own.
To even it up a bit and point out that I’m not dissing the Irish only, there is nothing, for 32 years of my life, that I found more repugnant and embarrassing than the arrogance of the English – the kind of flag-waving, jingoistic, 3 lions kinda thing, u know what I mean, the usual stereotypical portrayal of the nationality. Found it an embarrassment and would far rather assert my Scottish or Scouse heritage than the "English" bit of me. But it’s interesting, it’s only since I’ve been living here, although have lived in other countries for periods too, that I’ve begun to be proud of some aspects of my English heritage – if u wanna list, pm me – but often I’m frowned upon here if I assert that. Seems likes its ok to be in Ireland and Irish, French, whatever and be proud of Ireland, but far less ok to be British and while complimentary to Ireland and the Irish in SOME respects, proud also of SOME aspects of your OWN heritage. I would never abandon my home nation and throw myself into the arms of another, seems less of a compliment to your host nationto me to do so, rather than say "yeah, this place is quite good and I am happy to say that EVEN THOUGH there are many positive aspects of where I come form too". But again, I know I am rambling a bit here and going off ther point a little…
And so before we get the (narrow-minded) f**k off back to your own country then if you don’t like what goes on here posts, please bear in mind that I’m not dismissing all the positive things about living here – those of you that know me personally or have read what I’ve said in local/national press on more than one occasion will know all the positives I have to point out in that regard. I also have a right to my comments as I have taken nothing out of this economy (CB excepted) whereas we have contributed an inordinate amount in tax prsi between us since we have been here.
It goes with the territory. If a site is gonna have a thread on a national website inviting comments about what’s good about living in a place, unless you are going to censor, you have to accept that views other than those which you exclusively sought are going to be posted.
It would suit the very mentality I am referring to to assume I am missing the point, but actually I get it completely, I just choose to air my views which don’t quite agree…
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