You know you're really Irish when...

[Gossipyfishwife]

...you tell the barman to put the change in the poor box.

Ha! at the trip to the cheese factory.

A few years ago now, my dc's class went to butlers chocolate factory where they were given hot chocolate, loads of free chocolates, then they decorated a chocolate bunny and got to take that home, not before a quick trip to the play ground in phoenix park. on the coach on the way home, one of the girls said to the teacher "i'm gunna ged sick miss" and the teacher opened her bag to get a plastic bag, but the child thought the teacher was holding up her bag as if to say 'here, get sick in this'. The teacher was traumatised when they got back to the school. Inearly offered to call the EMTs! The look on her face!

I live in the UK now, but tonight have had two aunties an uncle (all visiting from Dublin) and my Irish mum all laughing their heads off reminiscing in my front room.
Great story telling. No-one does it like the Irish. I was listening to them all and wishing I was recording them

Oh, and thanks for the link Onthebottom - I'll be emailing that to a few friends in Dublin!

You ever watched Wanderly Wagon.

Judge the dog, O'Brien, Fortycoats! The puppet theatre in Monkstown (saw both Judge & Bosco there 'live' a few years ago. Did u know Eugene Lambert's daughter does Bosco? (He did Judge).

On the bottom, when you say a few years ago do you mean 40 years ago? I met a guy once who was reared in Northern Ireland but got RTE reception. He asked me if I ever saw a show that had Judge, O'Brien and Fortycoats in it? When I told him I knew them well he was so relieved. He had never met a person who saw Wanderly Wagon and was convinced that he had dreamt it.

For the record I learned to drive in the Sandyford Industrial Estate. My mum took me regularly after my dad took me once and nearly had a nervous breakdown. Was your bus the 46A?

Haven't read all the posts (sorry)

Red lemonade.
Granny forcing you to take a piece in your hand (in case you get hungry walking the 20yards home).
Club orange.
Brennan's bread.
You take the hand out of people rather than taking the piss.
You take a redner when you're embarrassed & your friends console you with 'break for ye'.
Get the house reared up instead of tidied up.
Saying someone "be's" somewhere, he always be's in that pub.
Saying your dad is going to bring you to the airport rather than take you.
Potatoes are purdies.
Someone saying you're looking well means you're looking pretty/great rather than healthy.
When you say lemonade you are actually referring to any flavour fizzy drink.

Wee dote (someone being cute)
Wee critter (someone having bad luck)

....Any sort of family get together isn't complete until the accordions have come out.

... An engaged couple have a 'doing' before the wedding where they are driven around in a trailer hitched on a car & you tip beans/custard/tea bags/whatever over them...

when you're Irish friend spots someone packing a few extra pounds and nudges you confidentially with an elbow and whispers 'he/she wasn't bullied at the trough'

I wrote further up thread about spending our summer holidays in Mayo. In those days there were no motorways or bypasses so we chugged our way through all the towns heading West. My mum was a tea addict so we'd stop frequently for the tea.

I remember the last day when we'd be leaving "home" to come back here. It was the only time all year my dad would cry. I used to find it embarrassing as a child but now it makes me sad thinking about how sad it must have been for him.

On a lighter note we used to have these ridiculous "arguments" on the last day where various relatives would give us money. We'd go back and forth trying to refuse but always came back with some money. We usually spent it on the boat!

I love this thread- it's kept me going on these last few nights (nightshifts) and brought a few tears to my eyes!

Haha, the cousins in number 16 in Squoosh's buzzfeed link look like about one third of my cousin total.

My mum's generation of the family are all crazy dancers and they are not the only 70 and 80 year olds out doing the mashed potato at gatherings. Mum says 'that's just cat' and 'suffering catfish' (from Carlow)..

Preplanned exit strategy necessary for phone calls to mum.

'Get down off that wall or I'll break yer leg' -- spoken by a neighbour who is now dead and buried

'she et the face off her'
'tore rashers off him'
'Poor old has lost the run of herself'
'You'll never guess who died last Thursday' ('No, I won't')

Mart and Market
Dad used to say 'Whisht' fiercely.

Also 'Me old segotia'

Anyone remember blue packets of Calvita cheese or did I make it up in all its rubbery splendour?

And Larry Gogan and the 60 second quiz, so funny.

'Me old segotia'

My dad says that (and "Old stock of the west" but I don't know if he took that from a cowboy film).

And yes to Larry Gogan - "The questions didn't suit you".

Does anyone remember Corpus Christi processions? The whole parish wandering the roads behind a priest under canopy carrying the Host. Then arriving at some outdoor altar and getting stuck into another few decades of the Rosary.

All the houses along the route would have holy picturs and statues in there windows.

Mam would be like "Ooh Bridie's window's gorgreous, oooh look at Mary's window, that's a great idea with the white sheet draped behind Our Lady, ooh tis only beautiful"

mathanxiety my mam and dad were Carlow people! Whenever an English person asks you where in Ireland your parents were from and you say Carlow, you just get a blank stare. Then you say "its sort of between Dublin and Kilkenny" and they nod at you like they know where you mean.

I've just eaten the last packet of Tayto that me cousin brought over the other day. Food of the Gods.

bibliomania "No Larry, and would you believe I knew all the answers on the last call" paula much the same reaction when I say "Cavan". Last time I was home I heard two local fellas greeting each other with the legendary "Howaya horsebox!"

My mother brought over some CurlyWurlies (crucially they were made in Ringsend) at Christmas for my kids. Which I hid and ate.

My friend's gran used to ask her to "put on a wee poteen of tea there, just enough to sting me lips".

If you asked my gran how you looked when you were going out she'd say "you look well up the back where ye can't see yourself" and if some one had notions about themselves it was deemed "they wouldn't piss on a griddle" (ie. not on the street over a drain like that was something to be proud of!).

She was also brilliant at scaring the shite out of us (her v young GCs) with banshee/ghost tales which all happened to her, her brother, her mother, an aunt once removed etc, which my DH will not allow my family to tell our DC on account of the shite scaring. I think they're missing out misery loves company

U thank the bus driver!

A huge difference I notice between the UK and Ireland is radio. Everyone in Ireland seems to get their news from the radio, all the events of the day are debated on the radio. It seems so much more concentrated than in Britain.

And of course the aforementioned Larry Gogan, 75 and still on 2FM!

whitesugar I saw the TV show 40 years ago (in fact when my sis was little and we were driving by the RTE mast in Donnybrook we used to tease her that we could see Wanderly Wagon at the top of it, she always fell for it)

Eugene Lambert ran the puppet theatre in Monkstown for years with his family, and DDs friend had a birthday party there which I stayed at to help with the 20 overexcited 7 year olds. The adults nearly lost our collective reason when at the start of the show, Judge the dog popped up to welcome everyone. The kids hadn't a clue why all the mammies and daddies were so excited. Bosco made an appearance as well.

There was orange squash and chips and chicken nuggets in the party room upstairs (he brought us round the puppet museum first) and he was chatting to me during the party, he got trestle tables and benches from a company that makes them for Oktoberfest - because they were designed for beer, not meals, they were much narrower, which meant that the little kiddies could talk to each other easily across the tables during the party.

Oh, my bus was the 45 - close to the 46a but a little further out.

Does anyone call Stillorgan Mickey Marbh ?

wanderly wagon dvd anyone?

Wanderley Wagon was slightly before my time, I was more of a Fortycoats kinda gal.

Wasn't Fortycoats on Wanderly Wagon or am I now officially senile?!

Has anyone said Bosco? Or The Den with dustin, zig and zag and Ray?

Calvita cheese still exists mathanxiety! It is not cheese though . Some byproduct of cheese perhaps!?