Irish blogs
Posted in Old blogger by Twenty Major on March 7th, 2005
There’s been some talk on some other Irish blogs about what exactly makes an Irish blog Irish. Is it Irish if it’s hosted in Ireland? What about if the blogger is Irish but the subject matter isn’t especially Irish? What if the blogger is not Irish but the subject matter is Irish related? Can we apply the ‘granny rule’ to Irish bloggers as we do to Irish footballers? Who is the Tony Cascarino of Irish blogs then? Who will the goalscoring John Aldridge and who will be the ‘Why did we bother with him anyway’ Bernie Slaven?
To end the confusion once and for all I have designed a set of easy to distinguish criteria which will make it easy for people to see if their blog is Irish or not.
Edit: To avoid debate about how many of these criteria need to be fulfilled to attain Irish blogger status I spent some time researching and analysing my post before choosing a number at random. Which is 3.
1 - It must be written in an Irish ‘voice’, if you will. By that I mean it should roll off the tongue like Sean O’Casey dialogue, there should be a hint of a Guinness fuelled Brendan Behan, sparkle with wit like Oscar Wilde and be full of authentic and not at all stereotyped, oh no, characters like any Roddy Doyle novel.
2 - The blog can be considered Irish if it’s immeasurably improved by reading aloud in the voice of Tom Cruise trying to do an Irish accent in Far and Away.
3 - If the author has ever considered murdering any of the following people then it can claim to be an Irish blog: Shay Healy, Dana, Christy Moore, Julian on Friday, Oliver Cromwell, former football manager Eoin Hand and behemoth Commitments star Andrew Strong.
4 - The writer must use some Irish colloquialisms such as ‘Bejaysus’, ‘begorrah’, ‘tooralooraloorlay’, geddusapint’ and ‘Feck off ya cunt.’
5 - Given a choice between an insipid European or American lager and a delicious pint of Dublin’s finest export the blogger must always choose Guinness if they are to be considered Irish.
6 - The type of food the blogger chooses to eat on the way home from the pub is a defining factor here. Anything other than a single of chips and a battered sausage or spice burger will immediately rule them out of the Irish category. Choosing curry for example would make them English, take away haggis would make them a Scottish blogger while roasting a wild boar in the forest with their enormously strong sidekick would make them a Gaul blogger.
7 - Obvious amount of green would immediately disqualify the blogger from being Irish in the same way that wearing an Aran jumper and taking pictures of the Molly Malone statue make ‘Irish-American’ tourists not Irish at all, at all.
8 - Owning any U2 album before The Joshua Tree came out is a qualifier. If the blogger has ever sung ‘Don’t forget your shovel’ by Christy Moore then they cannot be included for reasons of public safety and utter bollickery.
9 - Nothern Irish bloggers can be included if they do something good and interesting but if they are boring or offensive (in a bad way) then they must be considered UK bloggers. This is the ‘Reverse McGuigan ruling’ based on boxer Barry McGuigan who was considered ‘British’ by UK media when he was world champion but immediately became Irish when he lost his title.
10 - If the blogger is abroad but of Irish nationality he or she can only be considered if they talk publicly of Ireland’s verdant hills, whisper softly of the rainy days and speak fondly of the ‘craic’ and the wit of the people but privately moan about the weather, the immigrants, the traffic, the price of a pint and give out shite about the begrudgers and feckless thieves in government.
Using these criteria should now make it easy for anyone to classify their blog as Irish or not. This is the word of the Lord Twenty.
mickoc says:
personally, as a micker living in the antipodies for the past few years a few differences between a good irish blog and an antipodian one for me are:
{1} humour.
{2} less left wing crying and feeling the pain of selected minorities. {3) knowing who sean o’casey and brendan behan were and not afraid to say rodders doyle is a rubbish writer. [4} a distinctly non politically correct bent, rather suggesting the politically correct are bent.
{5} a liberal use of words and ideas guaranteed to wind people up.
March 7th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
ldl says:
you fogot the fucking swearing. i think.
“a liberal use of words and ideas guaranteed to wind people up” - that must make me irish, given the way gavin took my comments :)
March 7th, 2005 at 1:54 pm
1
Twenty Major says:
Swearing is not a necessity as many Irish people are good catholics and if they swear they’ll spend eternity burning in the fiery depths of hell. It would be wrong to encourage them to damn their own souls just to belong to a particular group.
*cough*
March 7th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
2
ldl says:
will ye away and shite. being able to eloquently use variations of the word fuck is the essence of irishness - you get top marks if you can manage to use all available variations in the one sentence and still not make your maiden aunt turn white with the shock :)
March 7th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
3
Twenty Major says:
There’s no doubt good fucking is good work but I’ve always liked to use cunt as noun, verb and adjective is what sets a good swearer apart.
e.g - That cunting cunt cunted the cunt right in the cunt.
March 7th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
4
johnny5 says:
Mix and match is the way forward, observe.
You fucking cunting fuck of cunting jaysus bastardin whore.
March 7th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
5
Twenty Major says:
Certainly mixing and matching has its benefits.
Any old shitbag can be a cocksucker but a piss-drinking, cuntfaced cocksucker is so much worse.
March 7th, 2005 at 3:04 pm
6
Tommy says:
Your Cunting daughter, do ya remember that in the exorcist, the Divil must be irish.
Cunt is the holy grail of swearing, although acceptable in blogs and such, when said in passing to a stranger it has a shock effect that no other word can come close to. Especially if you say it to a nun.
March 7th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
7
esmerelda says:
Ok Twenty, I am abroad, and Irish, and privately moan the weather, the immigrants, the traffic, the price of a pint, the price of fags, and there are begrudgers and feckless thieves in any government, my Da used to call them gurriers, so far I have never encountered a feminine of the word, so here goes, gurrieriene! Does that make me and my blog Irish?
Aine Livia [blog: The Midnight Court/ Cuirt an Mhean-Oice]
March 8th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
8
Anonymous says:
I assume that a desire to murder Brian McFadden is too much of an international phenomenon for him to be included in #3.
March 8th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
9
esmerelda says:
In response to Mickoc, “liberal use of words and ideas”???
Are you really describing Australians? or did I miss something??
March 14th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
10