Irish in the UK - what are the things that it took you ages to realise people don't say here.

[ConflictedCheetah]

Inspired by the thread about Pancake Tuesday.

That thread has cracked me up because SO many posters are insisting no one EVER calls pancake Tuesday - it's Pancake Day - and sayu it's weird and wanky to call it that. And then all the Irish people on the thread are like ' wait, we've always called it that and never noticed that no one else did.

So what else you got?

For me, and I'm here 20 years, I only found out about a year ago that no one here calls a birth certificate a 'birth cert'. My English husband thought it was proper weird that I kept saying that. I had never picked up that it wasn't a thing! I think Irish people are so used to talking about the Leaving Cert or Junior Cert etc. that the Cert but feels natural. DH says no.

What other ways have I been unknowingly embarrassing myself for 20 years?

@honeyrider @Joolsin @TabbyM
thank you for responding! Do you notice any generational differences? There is some evidence in the Nordics that pulmonic ingressives are less used by under-30s.

Well...it might well have been named in honour of a Celtic legendary warrior......has your da ever lived it down?

Seconded. I went to HR and raised a complaint about this kind of thing in one of my English workplaces. It was from a man who was horrified to have had Irish grandparents and to be called something as betrayingly bog-Irish as Joe O’Toole (name changed slightly) when he’d like to have been Home Countries intelligentsia for centuries.

I suggested he work out his own internalised cultural cringe in therapy and not on his colleague.

@WitchWithoutChips, pulmonic ingressive going strong around here, but I suspect not in younger people — I must observe.

@WhatWouldJeevesDo, it’s more than that — an Irish person saying they’re ’after their dinner’ means they’ve already eaten it. An English person saying would suggest they were actively seeking to have it asap.

I agree.

There are still some older Brits who just don't get that this kind of thing is as offensive as any other cultural or racial stereotype. Or that the non-English nations of the British Isles have their own distinct cultures and history are not just English people with cute accents.

I see both sides because in England I'm seen as English (Anglo name, neutral accent). In Ireland I'm a hybrid (English ma, brought up and educated in Ireland) I get the odd bit of sledging due to sounding English but can generally dispose of it by saying "I grew up here"

I don't think I've ever heard anyone in England use the word "locality".

Or refer to someone as a "bad alcoholic"

‘Locality’ is an estate-agent word in England. ‘Many convenient amenities in the locality’.

Or that the non-English nations of the British Isles

Ah, we've arrived!

Whose going to blink first?😶

@januaryjan @StephanieSuperpowers hailing the Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Manx plus the Ulster subcultures. If you know you know.

Wha'

(As they say in Baile Atha Cliath)

It was the 'Ah! We've arrived' comment that threw me - not your post.

Sorry about the confusion.

Things off the top of my head.

I will in me hole!

Jocks for boys underwear and togs or bathers for swim suits.

Love this thread. My parents are Irish so I'm familiar with many of these sayings, but some not. Popular ones and our meanings include:
Run out = day out / kids out to play.
Will you take a drink = do you want a drink?
Will I bring a bottle = I'm bringing a bottle.
Notions = ideas above your station

Cop the fuck on / will ye cop on = get with it / cotton on
She's/ He's not able = not up to it/ not well
Eejit / Gobshite - said to people you love and don't love in equal measure
Long string of piss = tall person
Cheerio = bye
Will the weather cheer up = the weather is shit.

All our sentences are peppered with 'yer know' and 'like' but at the end, not in the American way.

My parents never said stuff like 'grand' or 'thanks a million' but I know many Irish that do. Guess it's regional, just like in the UK.

Au contraire, the name has now been adopted by the whole family

Yeah I think it's mostly older people though I'm getting near that now. One thing that's very noticable is how many children and young adults have a mid-Atlantic accent now probably from watching US tv shows and games.

@AngeloMysterioso l

My da was once introduced to a distinguished American called Mr Schlesinger and proceeded to ask if he was anything to the people who made tennis rackets.

Known in our house as "an attack of the Slazengers" ie making spurious connections.

Is grá liom mar hOisín duck

No worries @januaryjan we're grand. Offering a Kimberley/Mikado/coconut cream

it’s more than that — an Irish person saying they’re ’after their dinner’ means they’ve already eaten it.

Yes. I see that @OnOtherPlanets. The Irish person is after their dinner in the same way that coffee is after dinner, whereas the English person is after their dinner in the way that a lion pursuing an antelope is after their dinner.

An English woman I met a few years ago asked ' what is a gombeen man?'. Hard to define although every small town in Ireland has one. Often he will run a bar , a shop and a funeral service. Possibly an auctioneer and has a few houses for rent. Btw it is always 'auctioneer' in rural Ireland, never estate agent.

Apparently the word derives from Irish 'gamba' - a small portion of something and hence the interest on a loan. Often the Gombeen man would have small farmers on the hook for money and end up owning their land . Edit - gaimbín = exorbitant interest .

@Abhannmor my understanding was that the gombeen man was the fixer - maybe labour, a bit of this, a bit of that and definitely some forms of credit. In the first half of the 19th century very much the intermediary between the landowner and the tenants/labourers. Who wouldn't in many cases shared the same language.

So what you describe is the modern iteration and a fixture of small town.

While on usage:

Kip - as in "this place is a kip"
Brasser
Come back here ya bollix
He's a knacker
Ride (as in He promised me the ride of me life, turns out he meant a backer to the Luas stop)

Using the word "itinerant" as a polite way to describe the Irish Traveller community

Willing to bet very few people in England would have a clue what you were doing n about if you referred to "the Js"

@WhatWouldJeevesDo

It's very much, i have recently dined and have an elegant sufficiency. No pursuit.

I’ve had conversations with many of my friends about the word “poorly”. Never heard it used before moving to England. Such an odd word.

yeh poorly is a wet lettuce word. I feel the same about brolly. Imagine a hot English man saying ''take a brolly, you don't want to be poorly''. Argh. you'd go right off him. even if he was an 11 out of 10 ride.

I do use poorly. So I do!

My Dad went into a small shop in Cork to get a pack of mikado biscuits, but couldn't find them or think of the name. He asked the man working there, and described what he wanted. The man replied 'oh do you mean fanny biscuits? We are sold out'.