tips + info for transirish beings!! :3
idk i was bored🎀 I'LL ADD MORE STUFF WHEN I THINK OF IT, AND FEEL FREE TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS! :3
(comparing a lot of stuff to usamerica since that's what everyone would be kinda familiar with)
food!!! :D
we don't have much in terms of culinary tradition, but here's some stuff i associate with ireland sndndndnd
try the classic foods of a spice bag and a plain chicken fillet roll. They're practically national staples, trust. They're typically take aways, but you can definitely find recipes for making them at home irish style!! (pspsps- this means you can also make them plant based :D)
also I'm pretty sure garlic cheese chips don't exist outside of ireland so I'm gonna use this as an excuse to advertise them ehehee >:3 just chips (fries) with garlic mayo and cheese melted on them!!
all the delicious potato stuff. hashbrowns (I'm pretty sure they might be different in usamerica?). boxtys. potato waffles. chips with salt and vinegar (ok they're gross but they're still a staple). the beautiful mashed potatoes.
for christmas season, christmas cake, christmas pudding, mince pies, flavourless brussel sprouts boiled for far too long. Pretty sure these are also UK stuff!!
for Halloween, the barn braic!! it's basically a fruit cake with a ring inside of it, whoever gets the ring in their slice is the first to get married (if you're too woke for this, I've also heard of older ones with a twig for the first person to die, and something for a person to become part of the clergy XD so feel free to give whatever meaning you want!) (if you don't wanna put in a lot of effort cooking, just stick a ring into the underside of a precooked fruit cake or something :P)
TEA -- omg everyone thinks the British drink a lot of tea, but Irish people beat them. Strong black tea with milk is the classic (i personally don't like black tea though, all of these things are just generalisations!!)
irish media!
you can look at rte or tg4 player online for access to what's on irish tv!! i personally love tg4 bc it has stuff in the irish language, especially interesting documentaries, and you can put on english subtitles :3
on the topic of RTE, I'd recommend tuning in for the late late toyshow in november! it's like a couple hours in the evening, basically a glorified toy advertisement but it's important here, and a lot of irish diaspora would also watch it! it's especially a big deal for kids who'd be allowed to stay up late to watch it, so if you wanna also immerse yourself in a child or parent ID, it's two for the price of one!!! and there's cute kids talking about their lives, and some performances and stuff :3
Father Ted is a classic sitcom about priests off the coast of Ireland. IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY FUNNY TRUST ("I hear yer a racist now Father" is a classic quote)
Derry girls is also a classic sitcom, about teenage girls in Derry during the troubles (lowkey war in Northern Ireland during the latter half of the 20th century). My inner voice IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE got a derry accent for a couple hours after binge watching it, so beware sjdjdnddn XD
cartoon saloon makes beautiful irish movies about our folklore and history, my favourite has got to be wolfwalkers!(also very popular among therians)
if you're interested in 2 queer witchy small irish town/village YA books pls ask and I'll try remember their names
The Leftist Cooks are a great youtube breadtube channel trust :3
holidays!!!! :33
New Year's -- pretty much the same as america afaik, just not usually AS huge a deal from what i see
St Brigid's Day -- 1st of February, traditionally the first day of spring, and crosses out of rushes or string are typically made!! (you can find tutorials online) You then hang the crosses up somewhere in your house for the year :3 (probably comes from an older pre Christian tradition, Christianity arrived in Ireland in a peaceful way that merged with earlier beliefs and traditions!)
St Patrick's Day -- there's local parades, (i know there's some in countries outside of Ireland too so yippee), traditionally you'd be able to drink despite Lent (ur supposed to cut down on some things in the lead up to Easter traditionally)
Easter -- chocolate eggs for kids but not really a big deal
Beltaine/Bealtaine -- 1st May, ye older tradition, coming of summer. Bonfires are a classic
Lúnasa -- 1st August, traditionally start of Autumn. I lowkey never celebrated this one
Halloween/Samhain -- similar stuff to usamerica but slightly less, also bairn brac mentioned above, games like apple bobbing (putting an apple in a tub of water and trying to get it out with your teeth), bonfires, 1st November is start of Winter
Christmas -- celebration on christmas day, pretty similar to usamerica but christmas pudding is a prominent thing, uhhh idk my christmases were always more polish ngl
regional memes
im not the mostttt familiar with these </3 but I'll share what i know
Everyone outside of dublin hates on dublin. They're the capital, they deserve it :P
Cavan (county) people are known for being cheapskates- they say a cavan person wouldn't give you the peel of their orange (i'm so transcavan /silly) (also cavan in cavan accent is pronounced cyaavan which is very fun to say)
People from county Kerry are known to be impossible to understand with their accent
County Leitrim doesn't exist (i have no clue if this is actually a widespread one)
The Sam Maguire Curse -- I'm not that into football so look this up for more information, but basically it is said that there's a curse on county Mayo so that they can never win the All Ireland Gaelic Football Championship (it's been going strong for over 50 years afaik)
hiberno-english tips!!
Hiberno English is just the English spoken in Ireland!! (Hibernia means Ireland in Latin, according to my primary school teacher it means the land of winter because the Romans came over to Ireland for 2 weeks wherein it was cold and cloudy and rainy the whole time that they just fucked off back to Britain XD)
Nowadays most people have very little difference from the standard american or british english, but here's a few fun vocab stuff i really enjoy! :D (this is completely based off my area!! different parts of Ireland might have some minor differences) (this also feels really stereotypical my apologies anfndjd, still accurate though)
"What's the story?" or, more stereotypically, "What's the craic?" as "what's up?"
"(I'm) grand", meaning "fine" as a response to "how are you?"
"Ah sure it'll be grand" - it'll be fine
honestly using "sure" a lot feels irish to me? like "ah sure it's only a tad bit of rain" "sure it's not as if _"
plural you -- this depends on area, but "yous" (pronounced: yooz) (allegedly certain parts of Dublin pronounce it like yiez) are what I'd use, and I know they use "ye" down in Cork
"I do be doing something" -- "do be" in irish is similar to just using "be" ("i be doing something") in AAVE I'm pretty sure, it implies a continous action! eg, "it does be like that" "i do be thinking..."
pronouncing "film" as "filum". The tiny extra u there to break up the consonant cluster x3
"feck" "shite" "eejit" (idiot) and "jaysus" (jesus) as swear words (shite is a great descriptor, eg "the movie was shite") (jesus is still spelled jesus typically, just pronounced like that)
"chips" = fries (i have a bad habit of saying chips instead of crisps bc influences from polish language, which my friends tease me for sbdndjdn)
"fizzy drink" -- "soda" just sounds like bread soda or baking soda. soft drink is acceptable, but yah don't call it soda TwT
"ma", "mam" or "mammy" for mother (if you use "ma" you're also likely to use "da" instead of dad)
"culchie" is someone from the countryside, "townie" is urban (both can be used quite derogatorily XD)
info abt political shite bc why not :3
Michael Di Higgins, the soon to be replaced president, is beloved by all and has an album on spotify (my classmate's reactions to him during politics and society class were all very endearing and "awwww he's so cute" and everyone i know loves him XD) (the president in Ireland has like basically no power hence he's easy to like, but according to my teacher he's somewhat controversial for actually voicing his opinions about political and social justice stuff?)
Northern Ireland is a landmine. Not explaining it here but yeah the history is still very relevant
The town of Derry in Northern Ireland- NEVER call it "Londonderry", or you'll be assumed to be pro UK yk. Recommend looking into the history of Northern Ireland yah
Finne Fáil and Finne Gael, the two main political parties, are literally the same politically but hate each other ever since they split up over this one treaty a hundred years ago. They're both centrist yk. It was a MASSIVE deal when they did a coalition in government a couple years ago
leftism is quite connected to nationalism in Ireland, so in an Irish context a nationalist isn't necessarily right wing or racist or whatever!
Most people in Ireland are pro Palestine, yippee!!
the Irish state is a neoliberal bootlicker i mean what-- (we're a tax haven for big corpos
miscellaneous
contrary to stereotype, the typical irish girl actually has badly bleached hair and orange fake tan (since a lot of irish people burn instead of tanning, and we get minimum sunshine) (im saying in a derogatory way but omg i genuinely <3 all the normie girls who do that like you go girlie /gen)
most irish people don't know the irish language, but it's always nice to at least learn cúpla focal! (a couple words) (however if you do wanna learn irish PLEASE DO it's such a good language and like I'm a huge huge advocate for it)
Generally Irish people tend to be very... chill?? likee being late is normal enough, people are comfortable with bending the rules, the bureaucracy is very lenient
Irish people tend to often be very polite to people's faces but then talk shit behind their backs. Irish people are basically like girls. This sometimes kinda sucks when taken to extremes, but in terms of transition you can just be polite. Be realistic-- if you're in a context where directness is assumed to be the norm, excessive indirect politeness will just get you walked over and that sucks
Catholicism is quite relevant to Irish Culture, and many non religious people I know still describe themselves as cultural Catholics, especially out of likee wanting to honour how Protestant England tried to eliminate Catholicism when colonising Ireland, so educating yourself on catholicism in ireland can be relevant! HOWEVER there's also plenty of people who don't care, or want nothing to do with Catholicism, and I know a fair bit of people into all the celtic pagan stuff
ireland also has like really cool mythology and stuff which i will yap abt if asked :3
