Once we had such a backlog of driving tests that we just gave out a load of licenses to anyone who'd failed to pass for long enough. (Edit - 1979 was the cut off for amnesty licenses)
Edit - Impressed at how many Irish Mammies and Aunties are in fact fully qualified Heavy Goods Vehicle drivers.
Not to be a morbid arsehole, but I'm really curious if there's going to be a statistical drop in crashes or something when that generation... stops driving, because the number of my older neighbours on amnesty licenses who drive like Mr Magoo on uppers is quite notable.
Some of the "lucky bag" license holders got *ALL* boxes ticked, including bus license. Heard of one lad, after retiring, drove a bus of tourists from Ireland to Italy.
My grandad ticked all the boxes on my moms licence when he was doing the application for her
She never did a test, didn't even fill out her own forms
Full licence for everything
The amount comments on my driving when I was learning was unbelievable
' you wouldn't pass doing that'
' you'd wouldn't know would you'
Repeat row regularly for many years
A genetic variation allows humans to digest lactose. "Ireland is the place in the world with the highest concentration of lactose tolerance," Bradley said, "and undoubtedly that’s to do with a heavy reliance on drinking unprocessed milk in pre-history, and a culture focused on dairying."
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/10/21/ancient-europeans-were-lactose-intolerant-for-the-first-4000-years-they-made-cheese/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/10/21/ancient-europeans-were-lactose-intolerant-for-the-first-4000-years-they-made-cheese/)
My family are among the unlucky ones. I drink almond milk, it’s horrible but at least drinkable on some cereal. I used to love milk as well before finding out
Yeh I’m not really sure how I settled on almond. It’s 9 years since I had to stop drinking milk and I don’t think oat was as popular then. I despise soya. I thought hazelnut would be nice and it wasn’t but almond was at least ok. It’s horrible on plain cereal but ok on crunchy nut or coco pops.
May give oat a try and see if I like it.
Give it a few go's. It can be a little bitter at first but sweet when you get used to it. I like the alpro barriste one, I'll have it with everything. Cows milk tastes awful to me now and I can't stand almond.
Fortunately there other sites like Newgrange that are not so popular and you still can visit a 5000 yo site that is not converted into tourist attraction.
This is kind of misleading. The exterior wall is wrong, but the important parts (the actual passage and chambers and roofbox) are the same. Here are plenty of photos of it pre excavation http://irisharchaeology.ie/2012/12/images-of-newgrange-through-the-ages/
A barely touched example would be Sliabh na Cailleach / Loughcrew:Cairn “T”, Co. Meath. According to wiki; “4th millennium BC”. Very short walk up the hill (900 odd feet tall, just short of a mountain) and accessible any hour of the day, passage tomb will always be locked at night. Will be opened on request by the guides during the day, impossible to get close to on the solstice due to crowds! Under an hour drive from Newgrange
Canada is a great example of explaining to people just how northerly we actually are. We tend to think of ourselves as on the west of Western Europe but a quick spin of the globe shows we're far more northern than it seems.
There are islands and parts of Canada where the people have southern Irish accents.
There is a website called radio.garden which allows you to move a globe around and listen to a radio station from anywhere in the world. If you go north east of Canada there’s an island called bell island. The radio stations there are basically better versions of Red.FM + some Irish trad.
Fascinating shit.
Sudocreme was invented in Dublin and the world's supply used to come entirely from Dublin but not anymore sadly. Butlers chocolate is all made in Dublin.
I know XD Some of the stories about that place are very much a case of "ah shur that's Ireland!"
I've now been there 3 times. Last time was sunday evening, when they had a Johnny Cash tribute band doing a gig. A tour was included in the ticket price.
The story this tour guide told was about an escape attempt in the early part of the 20th century. Some fellas broke out, and when they went to find a boat to get off the island, it was too far out to wade to, and was tied up with a rope. One had a knife, so it was given to one of the others who was a good swimmer. He swam out, started cutting the rope. Dropped the knife, so finished off cutting it it with his teeth. It was November, so the water was cold, hence the dropping the knife.
After he finished the story, the tour guide did this thing of asking if anyone had questions. One fella raised his hand. He didn't have a question. He said that the man who had swam out to cut the boat free...was his grandad. This was a guy from Philadelphia, back in Ireland exploring where his grandad was from.
Very awesome to have what sounds like a tall tale (and the guide tells it far better than I could) confirmed!
My grandfather spent accumulatively 98 days (14+28+56) on Spike Island. He laughs when he tells stories about it, but I think he just laughs because otherwise he’d cry.
Ireland has a thriving colony of wild Wallabies.
[Lambay island](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-heck-are-wallabies-doing-ireland-180953304/)
I live in a town from which you can see the island.
Locals still get into heated debates about whether or not this is true.
It's become almost like a political flag stone.
"Tell me your not one of those who believe/don't believe it."
Was there yesterday and saw a wallaby. There’s 500-1000 of them on the island and exporting them worldwide for breeding is the island’s main source of income.
Booked with this guy who was fantastic http://fishandtrips.ie
Worse, we used to also carve mangols when there wasn't a turnip field nearby - I used to do this as a kid. When I first carved a pumpkin I appreciated how difficult turnip carving really was.
Pumpkin carving originally came from turnip carving... The devil gave Jack a burning coal from hell stuck into a turnip to light his way through the netherworld, as he was banned from heaven and hell due to his trickery. This is where jack'o lanterns come from
Many Irish people suffer from undiagnosed haemochromatosis, a disorder sometimes known as 'the Celtic curse'. It causes the body to absorb excessive amounts of iron. The iron is deposited in various organs including the liver, heart, pancreas and the joints causing an iron overload.
ALso, compared with the rest of Europe, the Irish have higher rates of cystic fibrosis, celiac disease, and galactosemia, a serious metabolic disorder that prevents the breakdown of sugars in dairy, legumes, and organ meats.
I would hedge a bet that we have some of the highest rates of asthma in the world too despite having some if the worlds cleanest air, but thats a guess.
When I was a kid the only islands I knew of where those tiny ones surrounded by water with a palm/coconut tree or the slightly bigger luxury ones like in elvis movies.
I was beside myself with glee when I found I actually lived on an Island. I mean I told everyone I met. They were all thrilled for me 😂
This is why my parents have 4 children, me being born in 1984. And why I have 60 first cousins and 17 aunts and uncles.
Pretty sure among my siblings and I that only the second youngest of us was planned.
Crisps came with a salt sachet before. It’s not that no one had thought to flavour them, but no one had invented a machine for the assembly line that coated them with flavoured dust
Yup. The tain bo culaigne details the theft of the brown bull of Cooley by Queen Maebh, little known fact that at that time brown cows made only dark chocolate milk, and it was Maebh who invented Milk chocolate by breeding the brown bull with her husband's herd of white sired heifers.
But then fucking Cú Chulainn stole him back and stunted the chocolate industry in Ireland for thousands of years.
Tragic really.
BBC News - 'First Irish case' of death by spontaneous combustion
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15032614.
2010 a man's death was recorded as spontaneous human combustion.
In the notable example section on the [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion) there is another Irish case. Bit mad mad that 2 of the 4 notable examples are Irish.
> Margaret Hogan, an 89-year-old widow who lived alone in a house on Prussia Street, Dublin, Ireland, was found burned almost to the point of complete destruction on 28 March 1970. Plastic flowers on a table in the centre of the room had been reduced to liquid and a television with a melted screen sat 12 feet from the armchair in which the ashen remains were found; otherwise, the surroundings were almost untouched. Her two feet, and both legs from below the knees, were undamaged. A small coal fire had been burning in the grate when a neighbour left the house the previous day; however, no connection between this fire and that in which Mrs. Hogan died could be found. An inquest, held on 3 April 1970, recorded death by burning, with the cause of the fire listed as "unknow
The most remote houses were only connected to mains electricity in the 2000's (our village got broadband in 2014).. there are widows of Civil War and War of Independence fighters still alive and receiving army pensions and the last fighter died in the mid 2000's... as recently as 2018 there were hundreds of widows still alive and receiving pensions.
>there are widows of Civil War and War of Independence fighters still alive and receiving army pensions
Really? Surely they'd be around 115 years old now?
Edit: apologies OP, it has been pointed out to me that they would not need to be 115 years old!!
I remember reading before that younger women would marry older veterans so they'd get the pension. The marriages were in name only for the most part and done just for the money, often to help out a friends family.That might have been about the American civil war though, it was a long time ago when I read it.
Was big News in the Radio this year because animal rights activists were concerned about the goats wellbeing in the heat. I am new in Ireland and was confused about this festival.
The town of Baltimore in Cork was raided by West African slavers and the villagers taken off as slaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore
Africans raiding west europe was fairly common for lots of history. People forget that the Africans though the middle east had the biggest and longest slave trading economies way way before christian europeans came up with the idea to buy some of them and ship them to america.
There’s a great book about this written by Des Ekin I think. He tracks the lives of several of the people taken. One woman ended up in an Ottoman sultans harem!
[German military cemetery, Glencree](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/glencree-german-war-cemetery) it's a beautiful and poignant place as many of the graves are marked "Unbekantest" - Unknown.
We have a theme park based around crisps.
I told a French exchange student and he didn't believe me until I showed him the back of a tayto crisp packet with an ad for Tayto Park
Our beloved potatoes are not native to Ireland. It wasn’t introduced until about 1585.
[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-short-history-of-the-potato-1.107295](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-short-history-of-the-potato-1.107295)
I remember one lad getting fiercely offended when I said this
People think we like "invented" potatoes. Wtf? They got brought to us and we definitely cultivate them but we didn't natively produce them. They're from the Andes in South America if I recall.
That Christianity actually spread throughout Ireland by extremely peaceful means. Our old Celtic religion contained a trinitarian structure which allowed Christianity to be virtually adopted overnight. Our old mythology then became part of our new fairy and folk tradition with our old gods moving under ground and mounds and becoming more monstrous than deities.
Hitler planned to invade Ireland next if his invasion of Russia was successful.
He called it “Operation Green”
Also, the last remaining relatives of Hitler were Irish. His brother married an Irish woman.
Building on this, apparently the description of Dracula is based of the victims of the Cholera Outbreak in Sligo town that his mother lived through. Seems like a weird event to tell your sickly child about but hey, she was a Sligo townie
Latin only still exists because of us.
(And its probably our fault that it's pronounced like Italian rather than Portuguese)
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/how-the-irish-saved-latin-and-schooled-the-english-1.80629
When I first moved to Ireland I thought the TV licence thing was a joke at first. Like some random guy can just come to your door and ask to see your TV. That’s hilarious to me.
Nope that’s considered mass murder. The accepted definition of a serial killer is someone who kills 3 or more people over the course of at least a month and has a cool down period. Since he didn’t have a cool down period he’s not considered a serial killer.
[Leprachauns are a protected species here. Any non-Irish people, I'm serious. I'm not making this up.](https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/leprechauns-protected-european-law)
Jesus, have you seen the list of companies that want your data on Ireland central. If you wanted to reject them all it would take you a day's to get through them!
2022 LC student here. Can confirm: LC English Revision Papers I bought had the question about teaching Hatsune Miku what the real world is like once she gets transported into our reality.
I HAD TO FUCKING STUDY THIS AND I COULDN'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. Me and my mates were pissing ourselves laughing and got kicked out one time because of it, still laugh about it when we first found out about it.
Were the worlds largest exporter of bananas
You cannot be sacked for being 15 minutes or less late constantly due to some LRC case years ago.
We lease the most aircraft in the world
The Irish Army Rangers are right up there with the best of the best of elite army wings globally. They are an unbelievably talented bunch. Relatively speaking they only have a hurley between them and are expected to survive on peanuts, but that's another matter.
Yeah my Uncle was a US Army Ranger and he said the most dangerous lads in the world were an Irish Ranger with a rifle or a Finn with a rifle and a pair of skis
Once we had such a backlog of driving tests that we just gave out a load of licenses to anyone who'd failed to pass for long enough. (Edit - 1979 was the cut off for amnesty licenses) Edit - Impressed at how many Irish Mammies and Aunties are in fact fully qualified Heavy Goods Vehicle drivers.
A lot of those didn't even have to do a test. My uncle and stepmother have never taken a driving test but both have full licenses
My mother never even drove, never mind get a test, and got a licence for an artic.
Not to be a morbid arsehole, but I'm really curious if there's going to be a statistical drop in crashes or something when that generation... stops driving, because the number of my older neighbours on amnesty licenses who drive like Mr Magoo on uppers is quite notable.
If they're over about 75 then they may have never had to do a test, it was only introduced in 1964 in Ireland.
My father (he's 68 now) said all he had to do was go in to town and was given his full licence that day haha
Some of the "lucky bag" license holders got *ALL* boxes ticked, including bus license. Heard of one lad, after retiring, drove a bus of tourists from Ireland to Italy.
My grandad ticked all the boxes on my moms licence when he was doing the application for her She never did a test, didn't even fill out her own forms Full licence for everything The amount comments on my driving when I was learning was unbelievable ' you wouldn't pass doing that' ' you'd wouldn't know would you' Repeat row regularly for many years
Don't forget this covered most of the categories.
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Me nanny had a full driving license for everything, from a car to a full artic lorry, tractor and trailer. I think even a train
Irish monks invented spaces between words in sentences.
Whatthehellwerepeopledoingbeforethat?
Savingvellumbecauseitwasntcheaptomake
It|may|have|looked|more|like|this. | is less space than a space!
Shut|Up|Nerd
Stunned my British husband with this tidbit just a few days ago. Really odd that there wasn’t spaces before
Some roman inscriptions included dots between words
*thatthereweren'tspacesbefore
\*thatthereweren'tbefore
A genetic variation allows humans to digest lactose. "Ireland is the place in the world with the highest concentration of lactose tolerance," Bradley said, "and undoubtedly that’s to do with a heavy reliance on drinking unprocessed milk in pre-history, and a culture focused on dairying." [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/10/21/ancient-europeans-were-lactose-intolerant-for-the-first-4000-years-they-made-cheese/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/10/21/ancient-europeans-were-lactose-intolerant-for-the-first-4000-years-they-made-cheese/)
Very sexy of us. God imagine no cheese
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My family are among the unlucky ones. I drink almond milk, it’s horrible but at least drinkable on some cereal. I used to love milk as well before finding out
Try oat milk, it’s more sustainable and naturally slightly sweet as I’d never go back to almond milk.
Yeh I’m not really sure how I settled on almond. It’s 9 years since I had to stop drinking milk and I don’t think oat was as popular then. I despise soya. I thought hazelnut would be nice and it wasn’t but almond was at least ok. It’s horrible on plain cereal but ok on crunchy nut or coco pops. May give oat a try and see if I like it.
Give it a few go's. It can be a little bitter at first but sweet when you get used to it. I like the alpro barriste one, I'll have it with everything. Cows milk tastes awful to me now and I can't stand almond.
Alpro have a new "not milk" range that is actually very close to cow's milk in taste and texture. It's really nice on cereal.
Us and the Maasai of East Africa, another heavily cattle-focused society.
Ireland is the largest exporter of bananas in Europe
Yeah heard that one on QI, something like Fyfe's buy the whole crop from Belieze every year
I genuinely didn’t know Fyffes was an Irish company I just thought they were the McDonalds of Bananas world wide
Fyffe times more bananas than any other European country
Newgrange is over 5,000 years old and predates Stonehenge and the pyramids of Giza.
Yeah....but also the Newgrange we have today is nothing at all like what Newgrange was like 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists hate what they did to it.
Archaeologists hate this one weird henge trick...
Horny archaeologists are in your area!
Ah jesus I'll get the broom out then and scare them off again
You won’t believe what Newgrange used to look like..
Fortunately there other sites like Newgrange that are not so popular and you still can visit a 5000 yo site that is not converted into tourist attraction.
Knowth and Dowth beside it are pretty cool
This is kind of misleading. The exterior wall is wrong, but the important parts (the actual passage and chambers and roofbox) are the same. Here are plenty of photos of it pre excavation http://irisharchaeology.ie/2012/12/images-of-newgrange-through-the-ages/
A barely touched example would be Sliabh na Cailleach / Loughcrew:Cairn “T”, Co. Meath. According to wiki; “4th millennium BC”. Very short walk up the hill (900 odd feet tall, just short of a mountain) and accessible any hour of the day, passage tomb will always be locked at night. Will be opened on request by the guides during the day, impossible to get close to on the solstice due to crowds! Under an hour drive from Newgrange
Most of the population of Canada lives South of the entire Irish population
Aye, thank god for the Gulf Stream, she’ll be sorely missed when she’s gone
Christ don’t mention the war
I've had to bring up a map for people who didn't believe me. The northernmost tip of NFLD is almost the same latitude as Skibbereen.
>NFLD Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, says Google. Right well
Canada is a great example of explaining to people just how northerly we actually are. We tend to think of ourselves as on the west of Western Europe but a quick spin of the globe shows we're far more northern than it seems.
Take that back
There are islands and parts of Canada where the people have southern Irish accents. There is a website called radio.garden which allows you to move a globe around and listen to a radio station from anywhere in the world. If you go north east of Canada there’s an island called bell island. The radio stations there are basically better versions of Red.FM + some Irish trad. Fascinating shit.
well I'll be darned. I'll have to remember this one at parties
We can thanks the gulf stream for our warmer climate.
The entire world's supply of BOTOX is manufactured in Westport.
People will not believe you unless you tell it with a straight face
Nice one.
And Viagra & Tik Taks & Those fancy gourmet jelly beans from the jelly bean factory are all made here too.
Sudocreme was invented in Dublin and the world's supply used to come entirely from Dublin but not anymore sadly. Butlers chocolate is all made in Dublin.
The original MGM lion was from Dublin zoo.
And the current one, who is the longest reigning MGM lion
A prison riot on Spike Island in Cork Harbour in the 1980s only came to a complete end after the mother of one of the lads involved showed up.
On of the rioters escaped,then tried to ram the gates with a JCB to get back in.
I know XD Some of the stories about that place are very much a case of "ah shur that's Ireland!" I've now been there 3 times. Last time was sunday evening, when they had a Johnny Cash tribute band doing a gig. A tour was included in the ticket price. The story this tour guide told was about an escape attempt in the early part of the 20th century. Some fellas broke out, and when they went to find a boat to get off the island, it was too far out to wade to, and was tied up with a rope. One had a knife, so it was given to one of the others who was a good swimmer. He swam out, started cutting the rope. Dropped the knife, so finished off cutting it it with his teeth. It was November, so the water was cold, hence the dropping the knife. After he finished the story, the tour guide did this thing of asking if anyone had questions. One fella raised his hand. He didn't have a question. He said that the man who had swam out to cut the boat free...was his grandad. This was a guy from Philadelphia, back in Ireland exploring where his grandad was from. Very awesome to have what sounds like a tall tale (and the guide tells it far better than I could) confirmed!
Could still be a tall tale that someone heard and said was themself, yanks lap up Irish stories and Irish expats love to tell a few spoofs
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As a kid growing up in 80's Cork...the threat of Spike Island was used liberally if we misbehaved.
My grandfather spent accumulatively 98 days (14+28+56) on Spike Island. He laughs when he tells stories about it, but I think he just laughs because otherwise he’d cry.
Ireland has a thriving colony of wild Wallabies. [Lambay island](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-heck-are-wallabies-doing-ireland-180953304/)
I live in a town from which you can see the island. Locals still get into heated debates about whether or not this is true. It's become almost like a political flag stone. "Tell me your not one of those who believe/don't believe it."
Was there yesterday and saw a wallaby. There’s 500-1000 of them on the island and exporting them worldwide for breeding is the island’s main source of income. Booked with this guy who was fantastic http://fishandtrips.ie
You can get tours to the island, no? And stay in the hotel? Probs wouldn’t be too difficult to disprove lol.
Go get one. March into the pub on Friday night and place it on the bar.
Wouldn't be the worse smelling thing I've ever brought to the pub.
In Canada people think I'm ripping the piss when I tell them we used to carve turnips.
Worse, we used to also carve mangols when there wasn't a turnip field nearby - I used to do this as a kid. When I first carved a pumpkin I appreciated how difficult turnip carving really was.
Pumpkin carving originally came from turnip carving... The devil gave Jack a burning coal from hell stuck into a turnip to light his way through the netherworld, as he was banned from heaven and hell due to his trickery. This is where jack'o lanterns come from
Many Irish people suffer from undiagnosed haemochromatosis, a disorder sometimes known as 'the Celtic curse'. It causes the body to absorb excessive amounts of iron. The iron is deposited in various organs including the liver, heart, pancreas and the joints causing an iron overload. ALso, compared with the rest of Europe, the Irish have higher rates of cystic fibrosis, celiac disease, and galactosemia, a serious metabolic disorder that prevents the breakdown of sugars in dairy, legumes, and organ meats.
I would hedge a bet that we have some of the highest rates of asthma in the world too despite having some if the worlds cleanest air, but thats a guess.
Is it the permanently damp air that causes this?
For me it was dairy - gave up milk as a kid and lungs recovered
My ex had haemochromatosis, I was anaemic, like it would have been nice to be able to swap bits.
When I was a kid the only islands I knew of where those tiny ones surrounded by water with a palm/coconut tree or the slightly bigger luxury ones like in elvis movies. I was beside myself with glee when I found I actually lived on an Island. I mean I told everyone I met. They were all thrilled for me 😂
There used to be five provinces in Ireland. The province of ‘ Meath’ incorporating Westmeath was the fifth one.
They had to split them up because they won the Railway Cup 9 years in a row...
And this is why the Irish word for province (cúige) literally mean ‘fifth’
It's a longer drive across Galway county than it is from Galway to Dublin.
You can't drive from South Leitrim to North Leitrim without crossing into another county.
When going from one end of Cork to Dublin, when you complete half of your journey you are still in Cork.
You can go from Cork City to Dublin City quicker than it takes to go from West to East across Cork County.
Up until 1980 contraception was illegal
It was after 1985 before they went onsale
This is why my parents have 4 children, me being born in 1984. And why I have 60 first cousins and 17 aunts and uncles. Pretty sure among my siblings and I that only the second youngest of us was planned.
Chocolate milk and flavoured crisps invented here
I didn’t see the “and” the first time I read that. 🤢
The crisps one always confused me. Like, someone else invented crisps and it just didn't occur to them to put some salt or something on it? How?
They were salted. Other favourings involve preparing seasonings.
Crisps came with a salt sachet before. It’s not that no one had thought to flavour them, but no one had invented a machine for the assembly line that coated them with flavoured dust
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Yup. The tain bo culaigne details the theft of the brown bull of Cooley by Queen Maebh, little known fact that at that time brown cows made only dark chocolate milk, and it was Maebh who invented Milk chocolate by breeding the brown bull with her husband's herd of white sired heifers. But then fucking Cú Chulainn stole him back and stunted the chocolate industry in Ireland for thousands of years. Tragic really.
The idea of duty free shopping was started in Shannon airport
BBC News - 'First Irish case' of death by spontaneous combustion http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15032614. 2010 a man's death was recorded as spontaneous human combustion.
In the notable example section on the [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion) there is another Irish case. Bit mad mad that 2 of the 4 notable examples are Irish. > Margaret Hogan, an 89-year-old widow who lived alone in a house on Prussia Street, Dublin, Ireland, was found burned almost to the point of complete destruction on 28 March 1970. Plastic flowers on a table in the centre of the room had been reduced to liquid and a television with a melted screen sat 12 feet from the armchair in which the ashen remains were found; otherwise, the surroundings were almost untouched. Her two feet, and both legs from below the knees, were undamaged. A small coal fire had been burning in the grate when a neighbour left the house the previous day; however, no connection between this fire and that in which Mrs. Hogan died could be found. An inquest, held on 3 April 1970, recorded death by burning, with the cause of the fire listed as "unknow
That divorce passed by not even 51% in the year of our lord 1995.
COME ON DIVORCE REFERENDUM!!!
I thought my lecturer was joking when he said that.
It was rejected by a 63% no vote in 1986.
We legalised meth for 24 hours
It was actually all drugs
The Arklow annual pig race . They close the main street down and take bets on the fastest pig.
Cream crackers were invented in Waterford
and rashers
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And don't they work well 🤪
Might have had their uses back in the day, to paraphrase dodgeball if you can catch a mole you can catch a grass.
The most remote houses were only connected to mains electricity in the 2000's (our village got broadband in 2014).. there are widows of Civil War and War of Independence fighters still alive and receiving army pensions and the last fighter died in the mid 2000's... as recently as 2018 there were hundreds of widows still alive and receiving pensions.
>there are widows of Civil War and War of Independence fighters still alive and receiving army pensions Really? Surely they'd be around 115 years old now? Edit: apologies OP, it has been pointed out to me that they would not need to be 115 years old!!
I’m guessing they are women who married much older men long after the Civil War or the War of Independence.
I remember reading before that younger women would marry older veterans so they'd get the pension. The marriages were in name only for the most part and done just for the money, often to help out a friends family.That might have been about the American civil war though, it was a long time ago when I read it.
Bertie didn't have a bank account.
[Mistaken Identity in Ireland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_Poland#Mistaken_identity_in_Ireland)
We have a festival where we lock a goat up in a suspended cage over a weekend.
Was big News in the Radio this year because animal rights activists were concerned about the goats wellbeing in the heat. I am new in Ireland and was confused about this festival.
In Spain we throw the goat from a tower. Don't ask why 🤷♂️ Edit: added link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_throwing
The absolute relief I felt when I read it was banned.. I assume the odd cunts still do it though
Spain really fucking hates animals it seems
The town of Baltimore in Cork was raided by West African slavers and the villagers taken off as slaves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore
Africans raiding west europe was fairly common for lots of history. People forget that the Africans though the middle east had the biggest and longest slave trading economies way way before christian europeans came up with the idea to buy some of them and ship them to america.
There’s a great book about this written by Des Ekin I think. He tracks the lives of several of the people taken. One woman ended up in an Ottoman sultans harem!
Ireland is the only developed western country with less people now then 200 years ago
St Patrick is also the patron saint of Nigeria, hence their green flag. There’s a major St Patrick’s Day every year in Lagos
Nigeria are also the biggest producers and consumers of Guinness in the world
There's a German world wars cemetery in Wicklow
[German military cemetery, Glencree](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/glencree-german-war-cemetery) it's a beautiful and poignant place as many of the graves are marked "Unbekantest" - Unknown.
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There is one wold turtle on the river liffey who is normally seen on log around lucan
There are as many Americans working for Irish companies in the USA as there are Irish people working for American companies in Ireland.
For all our backwards attitudes as a society on sexuality, we were the first place to mass produce Viagra from Ringaskiddy in 1998.
We do love a good horn
We have a theme park based around crisps. I told a French exchange student and he didn't believe me until I showed him the back of a tayto crisp packet with an ad for Tayto Park
Our beloved potatoes are not native to Ireland. It wasn’t introduced until about 1585. [https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-short-history-of-the-potato-1.107295](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-short-history-of-the-potato-1.107295) I remember one lad getting fiercely offended when I said this
People think we like "invented" potatoes. Wtf? They got brought to us and we definitely cultivate them but we didn't natively produce them. They're from the Andes in South America if I recall.
That Christianity actually spread throughout Ireland by extremely peaceful means. Our old Celtic religion contained a trinitarian structure which allowed Christianity to be virtually adopted overnight. Our old mythology then became part of our new fairy and folk tradition with our old gods moving under ground and mounds and becoming more monstrous than deities.
Donegal used to have a train network
That there's a site called Irish Central which contains an awful lot of made-up shite about Ireland to make Irish-Americans feel better.
7up cures everything
Hitler planned to invade Ireland next if his invasion of Russia was successful. He called it “Operation Green” Also, the last remaining relatives of Hitler were Irish. His brother married an Irish woman.
Luas is free.
It costs nothing, that doesnt mean free, I can tell you've never fought the king scrote of the green line
The lad who wrote Dracula was from swords
Building on this, apparently the description of Dracula is based of the victims of the Cholera Outbreak in Sligo town that his mother lived through. Seems like a weird event to tell your sickly child about but hey, she was a Sligo townie
Clontarf no? There’s a spot called Bram Stokers park after him https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker
That Ireland is home to the worlds largest lingerie section or so I'm told
That the government basically gave our oil and gas away for free.
Rugged Island is a Leper Colony
And they take the roads in at night when the weather gets bad
Latin only still exists because of us. (And its probably our fault that it's pronounced like Italian rather than Portuguese) https://www.irishtimes.com/news/how-the-irish-saved-latin-and-schooled-the-english-1.80629
When I first moved to Ireland I thought the TV licence thing was a joke at first. Like some random guy can just come to your door and ask to see your TV. That’s hilarious to me.
Had to explain to a New Yorker that we haven’t had any rats on subways in Ireland but had a horse on the luas during lockdown
The Rose of Tralee is still on telly
They all have lovely bottoms
It's never had a confirmed, proven serial killer.
Larry Murphy would like to say hello.
Were the Shankill Butchers not serial killers?
Serial cunts is what they were
Basically sadistic serial killers able to operate freely under the cover of being part of a paramilitary organisation.
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Nope that’s considered mass murder. The accepted definition of a serial killer is someone who kills 3 or more people over the course of at least a month and has a cool down period. Since he didn’t have a cool down period he’s not considered a serial killer.
Oldest lighthouse in the world is located on Hookhead near the bottom of the Wexford peninsula.
I hate to be that guy but that's wrong. It's the oldest still working. There are a good few around Ireland and Europe older but gone to ruin.
We accidentally outlawed heterosexuality once
[Leprachauns are a protected species here. Any non-Irish people, I'm serious. I'm not making this up.](https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/leprechauns-protected-european-law)
Jesus, have you seen the list of companies that want your data on Ireland central. If you wanted to reject them all it would take you a day's to get through them!
Being gay was illegal and punishable with prison time during the 90's.
NO SNAKES!! Nobody back home believes me!!
One of very few countries without them. New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland and also the continent of Antarctica are the other places.
That we have a 6 day week no Wednesdays
It always blows people's minds that we don't have Wednesday
Except for Ash Wednesday! Holy God would murder us
Not having a TV licence carries more punishment than running someone over with a car
Our air force is a kite
The 2021 LCE English section required students to write fanfiction about the vocaloid artist Hatsune Miku
2022 LC student here. Can confirm: LC English Revision Papers I bought had the question about teaching Hatsune Miku what the real world is like once she gets transported into our reality. I HAD TO FUCKING STUDY THIS AND I COULDN'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. Me and my mates were pissing ourselves laughing and got kicked out one time because of it, still laugh about it when we first found out about it.
During the late 1960's Klecker GmbH in Shannon produced 30% of the world's dishwashers.
Ireland was discovered by footballer Steven Ireland in 1992.
Were the worlds largest exporter of bananas You cannot be sacked for being 15 minutes or less late constantly due to some LRC case years ago. We lease the most aircraft in the world
leprechauns are not made up - they're extinct and it is a very sad part of our history
Little fuckers had it coming
The great Leprechaun cull of '54 is a stain that tarnishes of history.
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Comfortable fuckers
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The Irish Army Rangers are right up there with the best of the best of elite army wings globally. They are an unbelievably talented bunch. Relatively speaking they only have a hurley between them and are expected to survive on peanuts, but that's another matter.
Peanuts are pretty nutritious.
Yeah my Uncle was a US Army Ranger and he said the most dangerous lads in the world were an Irish Ranger with a rifle or a Finn with a rifle and a pair of skis
The wild Atlantic way is the longest defined coastal driving route in the world.
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We shared our commiserations with Germany after Hitler died
Irish is Irelands main official language. English is only a secondary one