When you go out to drink your green beer today, you’ll probably wander into a pub and bump into some smug Irishman who’ll bust your chops for being ignorant of the history & traditions of the land which St. Patrick’s Day was intended to celebrate.
Well, brother, I’ve got your back. Paddy O’Tatertot will dumbstruck by your vast storehouse of knowledge when you regale him with these:
* Bram Stoker was working as a civil servant in Dublin when he wrote “Dracula” in 1897. The main character was based on an old pub lout named Drac O’La who was notorious for sneaking around the room sipping peoples’ beers when they weren’t looking.
* Ballygally Castle in County Antrim, is allegedly one of the most haunted places in the country. Lady Isobel Shaw, whose husband built the castle in 1625, reportedly did not pay off her student loans, and the castle still receives mysterious harrassing phone calls to this day.
* The national sport of Ireland is “hurling”, a similar to field hockey, with much shoving, brawling, and hitting with sticks. It’s been described as “what would happen if last call lasted for an hour”.
* In 2003, a village known as “Dun Bleisce” changed its name back to the indecent-sounding “Fort of the Harlot,” as it was known in the distant past. Some of the residents claim that a more accurate translation is “Fort of the Hilton”.
* It was once popular in Ireland to pin sprigs of shamrocks on your coat on Saint Patrick’s Day in remembrance of his using shamrock leaves to illustrate the idea of the holy trinity. At the end of the day, one would “drown the shamrock” by putting a few shamrocks into a glass and covering them with whiskey. Thus the saying “In Ireland, EVERY day is St. Patrick’s Day!”.
* The national symbol of Ireland is the Celtic harp, not the shamrock. The harp is less popular, though, because it’s hard to find a glass big enough to drown one in.
* Unlike the Scottish bagpipes, the Irish uilleann pipes do not have a pipe going directly to the mouth. However, there IS usually a straw going directly to a pint of Guinness, so sometimes it can be hard to tell.
* An odd Irish birthday tradition is to lift the birthday child upside down and give his head a few gentle bumps on the floor for good luck. The number of bumps should allegedly correspond to the child’s age plus one. For adults, the bumps are replaced with whiskey shots and fistfights.
* The original Guinness Brewery in Dublin has a 9,000 year lease on its property. Legend has it that when the lease expires, God will descend from heaven to punish the wicked of Ireland with eternal sobriety.
* One of the most popular radio shows in rural Ireland is still the weekly broadcast of local obituaries, since people with thundering hangovers keep hoping to hear their names.
* An old legend says that, while Christ will judge all nations on judgment day, St. Patrick will be the judge of the Irish. Denis Leary gets Boston.
* Catherine Kelly, who died in 1785, was allegedly the smallest Irish woman ever. With a total height of just 34 inches and a weight of 8 pounds, she was known as “The Irish Fairy”. At least until Michael Flatley came along.
* According to one rather obscure Irish legend, a ringing in your ears means a deceased friend stuck in Purgatory is ringing a bell to ask for you to pray for him/her. Or that you got drunk and passed out in the church belltower again, Father.
* “Gulliver’s Travels” writer Jonathan Swift is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, where his remains are held fast by dozens of tiny ropes.
* Montgomery Street in Dublin was once the largest red light district in all of Europe, with over 1600 prostitutes plying their trade. To help you imagine this, picture the lineup outside an American Idol audition, except with talent.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go “drown the harp”.
[Tip o’ the green plastic derby to Ireland-Fun-Facts.com]
* The national sport of Ireland is “hurling”, a similar to field hockey, with much shoving, brawling, and hitting with sticks.”
Yeah, and after the shoving, brawling, and hitting with sticks, it ends by hurling up all that Irish Whiskey they drank. That be some real Irish hurling, it be.
Top ‘o the mornin’ to ya, O’Harvey!
Aye, lads and lasses! Good mornin’ to ya! Another fun fact: The Irish presented the Scotish with bagpipes back in 1210 as a joke. A joke, alas, that they haven’t gotten yet. The Scots, in return will send their apprentice pipers to the homes of apprentice Irish drinkers on 18 March early morning to pay their “respects” to the living.
A true symbiotic relationship.
“Catherine Kelly, who died in 1785, was allegedly the smallest Irish woman ever. With a total height of just 34 inches and a weight of 8 pounds, she was known as “The Irish Fairy”. At least until Michael Flatley came along.” Laugh Out Loud Funny! Excellent Post, Frank!
“* Montgomery Street in Dublin was once the largest red light district in all of Europe, with over 1600 prostitutes plying their trade. To help you imagine this, picture the lineup outside an American Idol audition, except with talent.”
lol…what more can I say.
Some of my ancestors were Irish. I’m told that one of the men used to get so drunk that he wanted to kiss his wife and beat the Pope’s foot with a shovel.
Here’s a joke for all ye blessed souls on this fine day:
Two fellows, Terry & Liam, who’d bee friends since they were young boys grew up together to be a couple o’ rowdy, brawlin’ lads. This went on well into their late twenties, where their debauchery and ability to down heroic amounts of alcohol were legendary. Then one day, Terry proclaims to his buddy, “Y’know, this lifestyle is runnin’ me ragged. I believe I’m going to join the seminary, clean up my act & become a faithful missionary”.
“Well, that’s all well & good for you, my friend”, stated Liam, “but I’m having too much fun to stop now”.
And so it went. The years went by, as they are prone to do, and as their lives came to an end, they each ended up in their respective eternal rewards.
As Terry was being given the grand tour of Heaven by St. Peter, he asked him, “Blessed saint, grant me a wish of mine. My long-time friend Liam, as I hear it, died in his sins & ended up in purgatory. Might I have a peek at him to see how he’s doin’?”
“You may, faithful servant of the Lord, but no more than that”. And with that, Peter parted the veil to reveal Liam in purgatory. But what shocked Terry most was that there was his pal, lounging with a beautiful blond lass on one knee & a large jug o’ “mountain dew” on t’other.
“What!?” he proclaimed, “All the years of my service to the Lord got me here, sure, but that lad there never renounced his sinful ways, yet he still gets to live the partying life? It seems a bit unfair to me.”
Peter responded to him, “Calm down, son; Things are not what they seem.”
“How so?” demanded Terry.
“You see,” said Peter. “the jug has two holes in the bottom of it, whereas the blond does not.”
Not sayin’ the Irish are tuffer’n us, but Shane McGowen is their leading moderation in imbibing spokesman and actually made most of his money as pitchman for Crest brand toothpaste.
1.John O’Tool lifted his glass of beer and said, “Here’s to spending the rest of
me life, between the legs of me wife!”
That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night!
He went home and told his wife, Mary, “I won the prize for the best
toast of the night.”
She said, “Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?”
John said, “Here’s to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church
beside me wife.”
“Oh, that’s very nice indeed, John!” A smiling Mary said.
The next day, Mary ran into one of John’s drinking buddies on the street
corner.
The man chuckled leeringly and said, “John won the prize last night
at the pub with a toast about you, Mary.”
She said, “Aye, he told me, and I was a bit surprised meself you know, after all he’s only been there twice in the last four years. Once he fell asleep, and the other time I had to pull him by the ears to make him come!”
2. Q:Where does an Irishman go on vacation? A:He goes to a different pub!
3. Q:What’s the defination of an Irish queer? A:An Irishman who likes women better then whiskey!
Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, “Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey”. Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Paddy looked up again and said, “Never mind, I found one.”
.
What is a 7 course meal in Ireland?
6 pints of Guinness and a potato. lol
Which seems like what I’ve had so far and then some. Happy St, Patty’s Day everybody.
I just started my fourth Guinness of the evening. What a great holiday!
Took my wife to our favorite bar to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
Ordered what I thought was a ‘Green’ beer.
Turned out it was a gluten-free beer from Belgium called “Green’s Quest”.
It was made from rice, millet, buckwheat and sorghum and cost $10.00/bottle.
It tasted like the juice sqeezed from a pot of cold oatmeal flavored with Sweet-n-low, but it gave me a pretty good buzz (8.5%).
“Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he’s a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him.”
– Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883.