I spent a long weekend in Ireland, visiting a dive buddy. As ever, I have a few observations gleaned from my brief trip into the land of leprechauns, Guinness, and people with last names starting with “O.” The Irish (or the “Ish,” as my friend called them after getting the Irish and the Scottish mixed up, then deciding that they could be lumped together, only later realizing that there are many other Ish people: English, Flemish, Spanish, Finnish, Jewish…) are an interesting people.
True to stereotype, many of them have red hair, and they drink a lot. In the waiting area for my flight to Cork, I looked around and realized I had never been in a room with so many redheaded people at one time. As for the drinking, the Irish drink with their parents, they drink with their grandparents, they drink with their bosses, they drink on weeknights and for no reason other than that they can. The morning after a rough night out, they have breakfast with their parents and compare notes, commiserating over their hangovers. It’s a completely alien world.
Like their fellow Ish friends, the Brits, the Irish weigh themselves in stone, but are similarly unable to tell you what a stone is. Their bathroom scales are in stone, and thanks to Google, I found out that a stone is 14 pounds, which I find to be a pretty useless unit of weight. How often do you gain or lose weight in 14-pound blocks? Changes in weight are usually a pound or two at a time, and the difference between weighing 9 stone and 10 stone is really quite significant. The Ish mock us for hanging onto feet and Fahrenheit, and they still weight themselves in stone??
It’s always amusing to hear what kind of English is spoken by other native English speakers. Given the right combination of accent and slang, it can sometimes feel like a different language altogether. For instance, my Irish friend said that one of the local bars had “some good crack,” if we wanted to go there, and I sat there wondering if all of the Irish had such a nonchalant attitude towards one of the most addictive drugs in circulation. As it turns out, “crack” means “fun” or “good times” over in Ireland, and not “crack cocaine.” The Irish also prefer to say “amn’t I,” rather than “aren’t I,” as in “amn’t I taller than you?” Makes sense, since “am” goes with “I,” but it sounds so very foreign to my decidedly American ears. Another confusing one is the use of the word “score.” When an Irishman says that he went to the bar and “scored with a girl,” he means that he kissed her, and nothing more (or “nowt” more), whereas in American slang, well, scoring means so much more…
Two very Irish events occurred while I was there. One was a successful attempt to set a world record for the number of people simultaneously dancing a ceílí, a traditional Irish dance. There were multiple traditional bands playing combinations of fiddles, drums, spoons (yes, spoons), and other instruments, and thousands of people doing semi-coordinated imitations of Michael Flatley (but with shirts on). It was sort of like square dancing, with more Lord of the Dance-style bouncing and footwork.
The second very Irish event was the national hurling championship. Hurling is a very old Irish sport that is sort of like baseball, sort of like lacrosse, sort of like soccer, sort of like football, and sort of like running around whacking people with sticks. Basically, there are two teams, and each player has a curved wooden stick. There are goals at each end that also have goalposts on the top. The players have to balance the ball on their sticks, or bounce them or alternate between holding them and bouncing them. They can throw the ball using their sticks like lacrosse sticks, or they can hit them by using their sticks like baseball bats. In this manner, they pass it between players and try to score either in the goal or through the goalposts, while running around and hitting each other in the process. They break lots of bones, and inspire much drunken revelry amongst their fans. You sort of have to see it to understand.
Anyways, got a dive in while I was there, and got to play with a sand shark, a new dive computer, and an underwater MP3 housing, so I’d say that the weekend was a success. Heading off to London this weekend for more encounters with a different set of Ish people. Next update Tuesday, probably.
True to stereotype, many of them have red hair, and they drink a lot. In the waiting area for my flight to Cork, I looked around and realized I had never been in a room with so many redheaded people at one time. As for the drinking, the Irish drink with their parents, they drink with their grandparents, they drink with their bosses, they drink on weeknights and for no reason other than that they can. The morning after a rough night out, they have breakfast with their parents and compare notes, commiserating over their hangovers. It’s a completely alien world.
Like their fellow Ish friends, the Brits, the Irish weigh themselves in stone, but are similarly unable to tell you what a stone is. Their bathroom scales are in stone, and thanks to Google, I found out that a stone is 14 pounds, which I find to be a pretty useless unit of weight. How often do you gain or lose weight in 14-pound blocks? Changes in weight are usually a pound or two at a time, and the difference between weighing 9 stone and 10 stone is really quite significant. The Ish mock us for hanging onto feet and Fahrenheit, and they still weight themselves in stone??
It’s always amusing to hear what kind of English is spoken by other native English speakers. Given the right combination of accent and slang, it can sometimes feel like a different language altogether. For instance, my Irish friend said that one of the local bars had “some good crack,” if we wanted to go there, and I sat there wondering if all of the Irish had such a nonchalant attitude towards one of the most addictive drugs in circulation. As it turns out, “crack” means “fun” or “good times” over in Ireland, and not “crack cocaine.” The Irish also prefer to say “amn’t I,” rather than “aren’t I,” as in “amn’t I taller than you?” Makes sense, since “am” goes with “I,” but it sounds so very foreign to my decidedly American ears. Another confusing one is the use of the word “score.” When an Irishman says that he went to the bar and “scored with a girl,” he means that he kissed her, and nothing more (or “nowt” more), whereas in American slang, well, scoring means so much more…
Two very Irish events occurred while I was there. One was a successful attempt to set a world record for the number of people simultaneously dancing a ceílí, a traditional Irish dance. There were multiple traditional bands playing combinations of fiddles, drums, spoons (yes, spoons), and other instruments, and thousands of people doing semi-coordinated imitations of Michael Flatley (but with shirts on). It was sort of like square dancing, with more Lord of the Dance-style bouncing and footwork.
The second very Irish event was the national hurling championship. Hurling is a very old Irish sport that is sort of like baseball, sort of like lacrosse, sort of like soccer, sort of like football, and sort of like running around whacking people with sticks. Basically, there are two teams, and each player has a curved wooden stick. There are goals at each end that also have goalposts on the top. The players have to balance the ball on their sticks, or bounce them or alternate between holding them and bouncing them. They can throw the ball using their sticks like lacrosse sticks, or they can hit them by using their sticks like baseball bats. In this manner, they pass it between players and try to score either in the goal or through the goalposts, while running around and hitting each other in the process. They break lots of bones, and inspire much drunken revelry amongst their fans. You sort of have to see it to understand.
Anyways, got a dive in while I was there, and got to play with a sand shark, a new dive computer, and an underwater MP3 housing, so I’d say that the weekend was a success. Heading off to London this weekend for more encounters with a different set of Ish people. Next update Tuesday, probably.
1 comment:
Haha, stone! Yes, I also continue to be mystified by their inability to translate stones into pounds or kilos, given that they use either pounds or kilos for other measurements at the same time (at least according to my experiences in England) and how imprecise a stone is. The only nice thing is that it sort of deemphasizes the tiny daily or weekly weight gains and losses that tend to a focus of so many Americans' lives...
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