So you speak English. Why not travel to the land of saints and scholars where English has been lyrically embellished since the dark ages; a week or two in Ireland and I won’t even need a translation dictionary!
A few weeks of hearing your language dancing gracefully and coherantly across the Irish tongue might be more challenging than you think! Ireland may be a predominately english-speaking nation, but the thing that tickled my ears the most when I first moved here and that tends to confuse our stateside guests is some of the slang. So, below is the thirty-fifth in a series I’m publishing on some common Irish slang that used to confuse us when we first arrived.
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It’s a real eye-widening experience, seeing how popular these Irish slang posts have become! Today on IrelandLogue I’m posting a list of all the Irish slang that wifey and I have come across while living here in Ireland. How’s your Irish slang vocabulary?
Below is the Seán Lightholder dictionary of Irish slang for irelandlogue - ZE MASTER POST OF IRISH SLANG!! In this list are all the Irish slang terms we have introduced on this site. Visit this post in the future for all the Irish slang a body can handle.
God bless Ireland and come on the town!
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It’s probably not the best thing to be feeding them at all, but it’s REALLY not a great idea to stroll right up to them and stick out your hand, folks.
It’s not like they’re going to sprout fangs, horns and claws and tear a man to shreds or anything - but those wings can grow to several feet in length and they’re pretty powerful should they decide to whack you one. Changes are they’ll peck you in the eye first, but that’s hardly better, is it?
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I was reading a newspaper article in the Westmeath Independent the other week that stated, “More than one in seven of Athlone population is now non-Irish.”
In the article it delineated the major groups of foreign nationals and stated that there were 91 “Americans” (although I’m sure the paper meant “United States citizens” and didn’t mean to include people from Canada, Mexico and all the countries of South America) and I realised that wifey and I wouldn’t be counted among them as, although we are indubitably from the states, we are registered Irish citizens.
What would have been more interesting, I think, would be to have reported on Athlonians’ places of birth. I know of a German Athlonian, for example, who was born in Saudi Arabia.
This got me to thinking about “Irishness” and being Irish.
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Did you know I have never posted anything about Riverdance?
Did you know that the two stars of Riverdance (Michael Flatley and Jean Butler) were born and raised in the United States?
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What’s wrong with this picture? Well, it’s a bank holiday weekend in the middle of the summer for one. This is the HEIGHT of tourist season. Normally there would be so many rental boats here in Athlone town they’d be moored out 4 deep along the western quay wall of the Shannon.
Look up at that picture - one measly boat.
So what’s going on? It turns out there’s a good reason for the lack of traffic, nautical and otherwise.
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As I mentioned a few posts ago that feeding adult swans might not be the best idea, I thought I’d follow up on how those little swanlings are doing.
As you can see from the picture here I took last week, they’re no longer quite so little! Yes, the Shannon swan family is safe and healthy, those little swanlings have done well on their diet of tourist snacks and Shannon vegetation.
Yesterday the munchkin and I were out for a stroll along the Shannon and …
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It’s about bloody time! Just look at that lovely, sunny blue sky there!
The funny thing is not the sunny blue sky, but what lies beneath it: the water level on Shannon Weir. You may recall last December when the water level rose over the weir (it later flooded the town, actually) and it’s currently very close to that level again - here in July!
Normally at this time of year the weir wall is well above water, dry …
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So you think you’ve got a handle on the English language. So ya think you’ll take a holiday (that’s vacation to you, Mr & Mrs USA) to Ireland and understand what folks are saying.
Think again.
Although Ireland is a predominately english-speaking nation, there will be moments when you’ll wonder whether that’s true or not. It’s not the Irish language, but the way the Irish use English that is truly unique. One of the things that tickled my ears the most when I first moved here and that tends to confuse our stateside guests is some of the slang. Below is the thirty-fourth installment in my series of common Irish slang that used to confuse us when we first arrived.
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It’s hard not to applaud the idea behind this book. It’s also not hard, halfway through it, to get a little annoyed by the narration.
This book is actually British non-fiction describing the autobiographical journey of Tony Hawks as he attempts to fulfill a drunken bet he made with his friends to hitchhike around Ireland with a portable fridge (the kind you find in Frat guy’s dorm rooms). So far, so good.
Tony manages to garner the attention of Irish radio personality Gerry Ryan, bringing his endeavor to national consciousness and ensuring more than a few motorists know that if they spot some British dude on the side of the road with a fridge he’s not some kind of terrorist.
This is kind of where the book slows down.
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