What comes to mind when you think of ireland? in your opinion, what makes the irish, well um.. irish?

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Misty Blue

A devilish sense of humour.
A great love of the auld craic.
No sense of time.Would stay up all night talking.
Stick together.
Generosity personified.
Fights don't mean anything!
Fond of a jar or two.
Well educated
Hard working.
Reliable.
Honest.
Talented.
Entertaining.
Obsessed with owning land.

Swearing is part of everyday lingo.

deburca98

The ability to conjugate the F word and use in in everyday language with out it being a curse word or taking offence.
Eg
Pass the F***ing salt is not a bad thing when said to you.
F***ing pass the salt will ya! is but it just means the person is in a bad mood.
We are not generaly offended by the F word as we as a nation are well adjusted, also it is not that we are ignorant or ill mannered as we have invented the word Feck as a polite alternative to using the F word.
If you use feck the other person understands the code and it has the same impact but to a lesser degree.

barbara b

a warped and generally misunderstood, sarcasm, wit, story telling, ability. All mixed with a Catholic guilt and a good dashing of national pride and identity. You're brought up ,not to let the side down.

Strong family connections and superstitions, mistrust of foreigners and of anyone knowing your business. Now that would be telling ye.

Orla C

A particular sense of humour and turn of phrase.

And anyone who understands the expression 'cute hoor', they are generally Irish.

And who knows what a 'knacker' is ... although the meaning has changed for the worse in recent years.

Someone who can call a woman a bastard and a man a *****, with no slur whatsoever on their parents, but maybe their parenting skills.

Priscilla Duck

I think Misty Blue has come closest to it so far, except for maybe the honesty thing - I find a lot of us Irish take great pleasure in trying to get away with little misdemeanors and generally stick the finger to the authorities whenver we can.

As for blood and birthright and history, I think that's all greatly overstated, much to the detriment of the nation. Being Irish is not about being white or Catholic or settled or straight or having red hair or being born here or having a grandparent who killed Brits or any of that shyte, and such exclusionary narrow formulations of Irishness are offensive and downright dangerous. To be Irish is about openness and learning from others - we've been doing that since the Celts and wave after wave of migration has contributed to what we are today.

Irishness did not form in a vacuum. Being Irish is a state of mind. It doesn't matter who your parents were, what your mother tongue is, what colour you are, who you worship or what way you get out of bed in the morning - being Irish SHOULD be about having the craic, being part of a community, enjoying debate and music, being curious about other people, being friendly and welcoming and loving this land and ALL the people in it.

IRISH AND PROUD

funny, happy to laugh at our selves when everyone else is we don't get offened by it, friendly, right craic, irish music, irish dance(riverdance)

froggequene

I suggest you do a quick survey of the folk around you fenderbloke, see how many of them were actually born in Ireland - do you know how many people I went to school with who had British & American birth certificates, they have the accent, speak the language, support the GAA, can tell what their grandparents were doing during the War for Independence, are they less Irish because of their parents choices? A birth certificate & a place of birth do not determine what we are

I agree with Orla, it's the turn of phrase & the sense of humour, you should have the look on my colleague's face when I announced I was so hungry I could ate a scabby child

niall d

bein cynical all the time! and expecting no miracles from the weather!

bobzeaux

Green. I've been to Ireland recently, and that really IS the first thing that comes to mind when it's the first thing you see. *lol*

Smiley : )

the gaeltacht makes Ireland - all my respect goes to those learning and speaking as Ghaeilge gach lÃ¡.

Im from dublin and im 16 and all i wanna do is move to Gaillimh to where i went to the gaeltacht. wow, its amazing.

fenderbloke

What makes the Irish irish is that were BORN in Ireland

Cailin Ceilteach

I answered your other Irish q yesterday (tx for the BA!) and I shoulda mentioned that we're one of the few cultures that can laugh at ourselves with ease which I think is a good thing, and we do have a green country (literally, grass and fields everywhere) but most of the other stereotypes have disappeared
Fenderbloke you haven't a clue, what about all the Nigerians and Polish here? They are Nigerians and Polish people LIVING in Ireland, not Irish people.

Dinky how come you're so interested in Ireland?

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