Happy St Patrick's day from Fiverr's proudest Irishman!

[eoinfinnegan]

It’s the day that everyone loves and more specifically, that everyone loves Ireland!

This tiny island on the west of Europe gets celebrated across the world today in a way that no other country does! A day where the world’s landmarks, rivers, drinks, milkshakes and even Fiverr’s logo (?) are coloured green for a day. A day where Irish people celebrate their reputation as the world’s heaviest drinkers (even though in the latest OECD poll we came a disappointing fifth…) by inviting the world to join us for a day of drinking.
Here’s a few things to remember about Irish people to help you in those extremely intellectual conversations that go on after consuming 10 pints.

1. It’s Paddy’s day, not Patty’s day.
2. The little Irish drum is called a bodhrán (pronounced b-ow-rawn)
3. Leprechauns (Lep-rek-awns) are actually unfriendly grinch-like creatures
4. Guinness contains some iron and was advertised in Ireland as a healthy “good for you” drink up to relatively recently.
5. Irish people cannot take compliments
6. With all our great literary, musical, comedic and arts figures of the past and more recent times, we are most proud of the TV series “Father Ted” - if you haven’t seen it, go to youtube now.
7. In the “Great Famine” 1 million people died and 1 million left as refugees (worth remembering these days) out of a population of roughly 8 million. Population today is around 4 million.
8. Dublin, the capital city, is home to more than a quarter of the population and the name comes from an anglicized version of the Irish “Dubh Linn” meaning Black Pool.
9. Irish people are generally “begrudgers” - people who hate to see others doing better than them. This is best illustrated by Irish people’s almost universal hatred of Bono.
10. The phrase “It’ll be grand” is used any time something is likely to go wrong.

Here’s a few more Irish phrases for you to use ad hoc throughout the day.

Póg mo thóin (poge mu ho-in) - Kiss my are (not as)
Céad míle fáilte (cade mee-le fault-eh) - one hundred thousand welcomes
Ceart go leor (k-yart guh lore) - OK
Go raibh maith agat (Guh rev maw agut) - Thanks
Cúpla focal (coop-la fuk-al) - a couple of words, usually referring to the use of a small amount of Irish (Gaeilge) that you learned in school.

Finally, here’s a traditional Gaelic blessing.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Eoin Finnegan

[emmaki]

Oooh, Father Ted. Everyone needs to YouTube this up now, it’s one of my favorite comedy series ever. TV.com has a pretty good overview: “Father Ted is an Irish comedy about 3 parish priests living on Craggy Island - a remote island, off the Irish west coast. The main four characters are Father Ted Crilly (Dermot Morgan), Father Dougal Maguire (Ardal O’Hanlan) and Father Jack Hackett (Frank Kelly) and their housekeeper (who just can’t stop making tea) Mrs. Doyle (Pauline McLynn). Ted was put on the island as a punishment for going on holiday to Las Vegas with money intended for a sick child - of course…“The money was just resting in his account”!”

Be sure to check out the racist episode. Or that one where they have a priest eurovision song contest ("my lovely horse). Or they go on a caravan holiday. Or the one with that bishop getting kicked up the arse. OR the one where Father Ted gets lost in the lingerie department. Or just every episode with Father Jack, who’s vocab consists of 3 words “feck”, “drink” and “gurls”.

If any of this sounds remotely amusing to you, you’re in for a treat. Sadly there are not too many seasons, as Dermot Morgan passed away not long after filming the last… a true loss for the world.

Happy St Patrick’s Day from a displaced Englander!

[writer99025]

Fiverr’s ONLY Irishman? 🙂 Enjoy the Holiday!

[writer99025]

My favorite Irishman - Roy Keane. They don’t make footballers like that anymore.

[writer99025]

And yeah,I like Eoin Morgan as well, he may be the captain of the English cricket team, but he is still Irish…

[zeus777]

Hahaha, love this post!!
But wait, Irish people can’t take compliments?? Really?
So what happens when a nice seller leaves you a nice review, do you cringe each time?

I’ve seen that stupid horror movie The Leprechaun, that movie made it clear that not
only are those little men in green tights are unfriendly, they are serial killers.
So Mr. Finnegan, IF I ever encounter a leprechaun, what is the best/safest thing to do?

[fitrigwrites4u]

I have a few Irish friends. They like partying, and so do I (errr or I used to, now not so much anymore - only when very good friends invite me). Based on how my Irish friends behave, it is true that most Irish people cannot take compliments (especially the women). But they are really fun to have party with.

[fitrigwrites4u]

@zeus777 I think Japanese people also cannot take compliments (well, from my own experience). Japanese people always say ˝no˝ (iie) everytime I give them a compliment 😛

[fitrigwrites4u]

PS: I travel a lot, thus I know many people (in person) from many countries.

[fitrigwrites4u]

@zeus777 please ignore my comment. I just remembered they only say ˝no˝ (iie) when I say thank you to them. Not when I compliment them. Somehow I got mixed between compliment and thank you. I can be absent minded sometimes.

[zeus777]

No need to worry, we do tend to say "OH no, I’m not!!"
when people tell us we are great/smart/awesome anyway!
I guess we are just trying to be humble…???
And yes, when we say いいえ after someone says thank you,
it simply means “No worries,” so no worries!

[fitrigwrites4u]

Yes, I hope you didn´t get me wrong. Indeed, I found Japanese people are very humble. I actually really like Japanese people for many reasons. Mostly because they are so discipline, humble and I can trust Japanese products.

[zeus777]

trust me, a lot of us ain’t humble and disciplined as we used to be! 😛

[zeus777]

OK, so aside from drinking ( and wearing green…?), what is the traditional/standard/typical way to celebrate St.Patrick’s day?
Back when I was in elementary school in the states, we were told to wear green, we made
shamrocks out of green paper and decorate the classroom…and I think we drew Leprechauns? I’m sure we did it all wrong though…it was more than 20 years ago BTW.

[fitrigwrites4u]

LOL. I reckon the older generation is more humble and discipline. I know like 2 Japanese people in person, one is 55 years old and the other one is 40 years old. They both taught Japanese in Australia (I worked in Australia for a bit some years ago). Oh and I noticed, Japanese walk super fast. I have a friend who works in Japan (but she is a Thai). I visited her once and actually I saw the younger generation in Japan they don´t wanna work in a factory or be a waiter in a restaurant (I could be wrong though as it was just my quick observation), that´s why Japan hire many foreign workers 🙂

[fitrigwrites4u]

By the way, I watched that Japanese series F4 (Hana Yori Dango). Well, I was much younger at that time and actually enjoyed the series. I liked Makino. As for the movie, since I love dogs, of course I love Hachiko 😛

[eoinfinnegan]

Perhaps, although I did have an Irish buyer once

[eoinfinnegan]

Yes, we don’t take compliments well but only in person, reviews are fine.
We don’t know how to respond so usually it will be a friendly “Feck off” - our default answer.

As for leprechauns, don’t bother asking for his gold. The chances of having some sunshine to create the necessary rainbow are actually more remote than finding a leprechaun. You could try giving him a compliment - see how that works out 🙂

[eoinfinnegan]

The typical way Irish people celebrate Patrick’s Day is by drinking, watching a parade and then complaining about how bad it was/how annoying the tourists who got all the great viewing points were.
Irish kids pretty much do the same today (not so much of the drinking but the wearing green and making green crafts) although Americans are generally more enthusiastic about it than we are so you probably did it “better”.