On Irishisms

Now as a bonefide Irishman (yeah, right), I can now make reference to Irishisms. Things that the Irish do without realising it.

• That great Irish pastime, the 'craic' (pronounced crack). There is good craic, or no craic, but never bad craic. Ask someone what good craic is, and it'll involve copious amounts of alcohol, probably the pub, possibly live music, and a failure to recollect the whole evening the following day.
• "Whisht." This means "shut the fuck up." It will follow on from "shhh," "Quiet," and "shut the fuck up."
• "I'm my mother's daughter"/"I'm my father's son." No shit. It basically means you do the same as your equivalent gender parent. In my case this means I'll have to start to like Volvos (oh.), I'll complain about Microsoft (erm...), and I'll have no money (oops).
• "My bladder's close to my eye." This means you can take a piss without getting up, and blame it on a sad storyline in Eastenders, Coronation Street or Panorama.
• "Truth for me." Jedi knight you are. Reverse talking you do. What you get is what you say.
• "How are ye?" Hello. It doesn't mean "How are you?" so shouldn't be responded to with "I'm fine" or a list of ailments. In fact, the best way of responding to this to say "How are you" back.
• "Where in England are you from?" is to be promptly replied to with "Wales/Scotland." If they then say "it's still England," I find a nice response is to say that "Ireland is British." Guaranteed to prove a point.

I'm sure TDT can add more, watch this space.