Poor SIL, apparently she has notions

[DurtBurd]

SIL has spent the last 18 months building a gorgeous mansion house on family land in the rural Midlands (of Ireland, for those who don't realise they've clicked on a Craicnet thread). She has decided she wants people to use her actual front door rather than coming round the back of the house and in through the utility room. It's like the barely healed civil war wounds have been hacked open. As a Dub without a back door fetish (get your mind out of the gutter), I fully support her front door notions. Dh is horrified. MIL is mortified and wondering what the neighbours will think. It's all great craic.

Single finger lifted off the steering wheel for anyone you don't know, double for those you do.

Ha ha, my dd and I, as well as all the family my side go to my front door. My dh, ds and all of his family go to our side door. No one EVER goes to the front door at mil's home except for Very Special Guests (think Parish Priest and elderly aunts from out of town calibre).

So, what am I saying when I lift all four fingers and leave my thumb hooked around the steering wheel? (aka the Dublin wave, used when someone lets you cut in from a side road). Am I swearing true love, or just letting them know that I'm from Dublin?

I fucking hate people coming in my back door. It leads straight into my absolutely chaotic utility room. Mil still insists on trying even though it's always locked, the sneaky bitch. I hear her crashing about outside and rattling the handle but just ignore it until she comes back to the front and rings the bell like the Tesco man( oh the shame!!!)

Wave both hands frantically, smile, and flash the lights. They won't know whether they know you, there's a cow on the road, a speed van up ahead. Or all of the above.

IMO, to say thank you, you have to lift your whole hand off the steering wheel. A 4 finger lift is just the same as a two finger (maybe varies by area).

What I don't get is the back of the hand flat out one, used for good friends.

If, God forbid, we ever used the site ear marked for dh, I would have strategic deafness and a well defended back door.

I use the back door (straight into the utility) in my mansion, but visitors usually come in through the main sunroom doors that are on the side of the house and nearest the driveway.

We do have one particular set of friends who insist on parking in front of the front doors so then we have to scrabble around to find the key to open them as they're usually locked. 🤔🤣

This has just blown my mind.

whispers I’m English and showed a visitor out ‘the same way you came in’ last week. She said to me that she’s never heard of that before but went along with it.

It’s not the first time I’ve been looked at like I’m crazy for insisting that I better leave the way I came in. The amount of raised eyebrows I get but always presume they’re not superstitious.

My maternal Granny is Irish. Guess that’s why mum raised me that way. I’ve just googled it. It’s an Irish thing not just a thing that superstitious people do. Just mentioned it to DH he just said

’people have to leave the way they come in? That’s absolute nonsense… you lot wouldn’t have this problem if you all just used the front door like normal people. Never met anyone until I met you lot who used the back door… absolutely mental’.

Can I claim my Irish citizenship now please? 😅

I think going out the door you entered by might be a Scottish thing too.

Our front door is most convenient from our drive, so everyone uses that. It would be more of a faff to go round the back and open the gate to go in the back door, so nobody does. Same in our last house.

In my late mum and dad's house, family, friends and neighbours used the back door. We could just walk around the side of the house to the back unhindered. But guests, seldom-seen relatives and the clergy used the front door.

I don't want anyone coming in the back now because they'd have to negotiate a cat tree and a litter tray on the way in.

Please clarify. So, in Ireland, you're supposed to go to the back door? I'd naturally have gone for the front door.

Everyone comes to my front door but getting to the back door involves two solid gates and it would be weird to suddenly have someone in the back garden.

Pure out and out notions. She will be requesting all sorts of nonsense next. Probably the Dub rubbing off on her.

Well pure notions. 'Twas far from front doors she was reared

Front door for priest/bishop visiting pope. Otherwise back door or you have notions

😆

Or a coffin.

The first night in our new (to us) home in semi-rural Ireland, the people we bought it from turned up at the back door and knocked the window. In the dark. Frightened the life out of us. They had to open a side gate and walk all the way around the back - it’s a bungalow - to do this.
I can understand this if you park around the back or even the side. But I don’t get why if you have to park right outside the front door, you would then walk all the way around to the back of the house (basically opposite to the front door), going through a gate etc.

Reading this thread, it seems it's one of those cultural norms that locals just know and those who aren't locals might inadvertently get wrong. Lucky I didn't visit anyone in their home when I was in Ireland.

Ha ha. Similar to the country wave in Australia. Starts with two and as hand rotates forward ends with one. It's like a little flick forward with the hand.

My family are from the English Midlands and if my mum ever comes in my back door to drop something off, but then is heading straight out the front door, she sits down and counts to five before she carries on her way out. I've never heard of any one else doing it, but it must be the same as going out the way you came in.

My late dad, who was neither Catholic nor Irish, always took a different direction home from the mosque. So he'd go to the mosque in one direction and then take a different route home! Apparently it is a thing amongst some old school Muslims!

It's not just the Irish who have bonkers habits.

My dad’s a proper culchie (from a farming family) and since buying his current house has spent time and money building a new front porch but it’s been so many years since he’s opened that door I suspect has no longer has a key! Everyone enters through the back of his house like they’re sneaking in!

When my mam and him were married he always came in through their Utility room but her and her friends would always use the front door (probably why it ended in divorce). I did always think it was weird we’d park by his parents front door and then go traipsing through the gravel to go in the side of the house. I always thought it was cause my dad and his family work with animals so are often in wellies - I didn’t realise there was a whole world of back door enthusiasts lurking outside The Pale.

I visited distant family in rural Ireland and knocked on the front door. Good heavens the commotion it caused. They thought it was the bishop paying an unexpected visit. The whispers of who does she think she is knocking on a person's front door like that??? is that how they behave over there in England??? 😂
Apparently the front door is only for very very important people who are far too important to go to the back door and walk in through the kitchen. People who knock on the front door are taken in to the front sitting room and served tea in the good cups. Needless to say I was not served tea in the front room. I did peek in the window as I was leaving though and the door definitely hadn't been opened since the 1960s.

Love this thread. Wishing everyone used my back door now In Surrey it's just not going to happen, even with the best of friends