Any morning I wake up Pat is a good one!
A scattered people with humour and talent
No doubt many of our readers, like tens of thousands of other Kiwis, have some Irish ancestry. In the 50 years following the Irish famine in the 19th century, over half the population of Ireland migrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. They took with them their talents, culture, religion and good humour, and subsequently made huge contributions to the development of their new homelands.
Today is St Patrick’s Day and in many shops, supermarkets, rest homes, bowling clubs and work places people have been wearing silly hats, costumes and even wigs of the colour green. This colour is closely associated with Eire, and the country is well known for its green countryside. However the national flag also has a strip of orange: a colour associated with Protestants and Northern Ireland.
“We’re looking for a Treasurer for the Xmas fund”, said Paddy.
“Didn’t you take on a new one last month?” said Murphy.
“That’s the one we’re looking for”, Paddy replied.
A rich culture develops despite a tumultuous history
Ireland has had a tragic history and the centuries are littered with battles, massacres, discrimination and bitter sectarian and nationalist conflicts such as English v Irish, Protestant v Catholic, RIC and the Black and Tans v the IRA, Republicans v Free Staters.
The English under Henry II took over Ireland back in the 12th century and this set in train antagonism that would last until the end of the 20th century. However, through it all the Irish developed a rich culture which was expressed in the Gaelic language, writing, poetry, drama, music and dance.
This is country of Jonathan Swift and W.B. Yeats, Riverdance and Enya, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce, Edna O’Brien and Colm Toibin, U2 and the Corrs, to name but a few of their many cultural stars through the ages.
An Irish priest was transferred to Texas and on his first morning he noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He promptly called the local police station.
The conversation went like this:
“Good morning. This is Sergeant Jones. How might I help you?”
“And the best of the day te yerself. This is Father O’Malley at St. Ann’s
Catholic Church. There’s a jackass lying dead in me front lawn and
would ye be so kind as to send a couple o’yer lads to take care of the
matter?”
Sergeant Jones, considering himself to be quite a wit and recognizing the foreign accent, thought he would have a little fun with the good Father, replied, “Well now Father, it was always my impression that you people took care of the last rites!”
There was dead silence on the line for a long moment ….
Father O’Malley then replied, “Aye, ’tis certainly true, but we are also
obliged to notify the next of kin first, which is the reason for me call.”
Good humour
The Irish were often the butt of bad English jokes where the Irishman was seen as a simpleton or the village idiot. However, in the modern era Irish humour is widely enjoyed and is often the sort that has people falling to the ground in gales of laughter.
There have also been some hilarious Irish films in recent years such as Waking Ned Devine. Many of you will have seen this one, based around a small village which has the winning ticket in the Irish Lottery. The only problem is that Ned, the ticketholder, is dead!
Colleen dropped a Euro coin, intending it to fall into the blind man’s hat on the pavement, but missed. As quick as a flash, he scooped it up and put it in the hat. “You’re not blind” she said. “No I’m not” said Paddy, “It’s Murphy whose blind. I’m just filling in for him while he’s gone to the pictures”.
“Didn’t you take on a new one last month?” said Murphy.
“That’s the one we’re looking for”, Paddy replied.
A rich culture develops despite a tumultuous history
Ireland has had a tragic history and the centuries are littered with battles, massacres, discrimination and bitter sectarian and nationalist conflicts such as English v Irish, Protestant v Catholic, RIC and the Black and Tans v the IRA, Republicans v Free Staters.
The English under Henry II took over Ireland back in the 12th century and this set in train antagonism that would last until the end of the 20th century. However, through it all the Irish developed a rich culture which was expressed in the Gaelic language, writing, poetry, drama, music and dance.
This is country of Jonathan Swift and W.B. Yeats, Riverdance and Enya, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce, Edna O’Brien and Colm Toibin, U2 and the Corrs, to name but a few of their many cultural stars through the ages.
An Irish priest was transferred to Texas and on his first morning he noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He promptly called the local police station.
The conversation went like this:
“Good morning. This is Sergeant Jones. How might I help you?”
“And the best of the day te yerself. This is Father O’Malley at St. Ann’s
Catholic Church. There’s a jackass lying dead in me front lawn and
would ye be so kind as to send a couple o’yer lads to take care of the
matter?”
Sergeant Jones, considering himself to be quite a wit and recognizing the foreign accent, thought he would have a little fun with the good Father, replied, “Well now Father, it was always my impression that you people took care of the last rites!”
There was dead silence on the line for a long moment ….
Father O’Malley then replied, “Aye, ’tis certainly true, but we are also
obliged to notify the next of kin first, which is the reason for me call.”
Good humour
The Irish were often the butt of bad English jokes where the Irishman was seen as a simpleton or the village idiot. However, in the modern era Irish humour is widely enjoyed and is often the sort that has people falling to the ground in gales of laughter.
There have also been some hilarious Irish films in recent years such as Waking Ned Devine. Many of you will have seen this one, based around a small village which has the winning ticket in the Irish Lottery. The only problem is that Ned, the ticketholder, is dead!
Colleen dropped a Euro coin, intending it to fall into the blind man’s hat on the pavement, but missed. As quick as a flash, he scooped it up and put it in the hat. “You’re not blind” she said. “No I’m not” said Paddy, “It’s Murphy whose blind. I’m just filling in for him while he’s gone to the pictures”.
You be havin’ a good day now!
Roger Childs is a writer and freelance journalist. He is a former history and geography teacher, who wrote or co-authored 10 school textbooks. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
I thought Ned Devine was a marvellous film. it and Gone With the Wind. but it was not made by one of the big studios so did not feature in Awards and received little aclaim. Sadly being not always strictly PC, humour has been and is being crushed out of those western cultures which were blessed with it. Life is not improved. Imagine if the priest had tried that gag on an a neg.. er afro american, maori etc.
Song of the Bay /The tears of Ellen Butler 1866
My boys, my boys, the steamer’s passing now,
It’s past Fair Head and into Murlough Bay
And so the oars must now take you away
Unto the steamer moored in Murlough Bay
My boys are young, indeed they’re barely men,
My youngest aged just five and ten
And so they make their way to sea
Forever leaving home and leaving me.
Your lives you’ll live anew a world away,
Full and loved and well I pray
But as I hug you close - your scent upon the air
The pain of loss is deeply hard to bear
So as you go I give to you to hold
A taste of home and of the love I hold
Thick cakes of oats well grown upon the farm
Baked with the tender touch of mother’s balm
The butter wrapped inside a cabbage leaf
Is salted from the tears of mother’s grief
And Coolalough will bid you both a fond goodbye
So too the fields and so the mauve-hued sky
And so my boys, my boys, the steamer’s passing now
It’s past Fair Head and into Murlough Bay
And so farewell - the oars pull you away
Unto the steamer moored in Murlough Bay.
* * * *
This song is to be sung to “Londonderry Air”. It commemorates the departure for New Zealand in 1866 of James Butler, and his young brother, Hugh, just fifteen years old, from their home at Coolalough, Antrim, Ireland. The “Glasgow Packet” which ran between Glasgow and Liverpool via the North Channel, would divert into Murlough Bay between Fair Head and Torr Head (the nearest point in Ireland to Scotland) to embark or disembark passengers via a boat pulled from the shore.
The details it commemorates were related by the extraordinary Bishop Donal Lamont, grandson of the brothers’ sister, Mary Butler who married John Lamont. Bishop Donal himself had heard the story from Daniel Butler, another brother, As the brothers were about to depart, their Mother, Ellen, née Duncan, baked them some griddle cakes and wrapped some butter in a cabbage leaf. As the story goes, the salt from her tears for the sons she would never see again would have kept the butter fresh all the way to New Zealand.
Are these people really nasty colonials?
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