I managed to get through almost all of yesterday without even realising it was St Patrick's Day.

[Berni]

It was only when I was eating dinner and my gf feigned surprise that we weren't eating potatoes in celebration that it even registered.

Her casual racism aside, I'm rather pleased to have evaded this ultimate festival of c*ntery for another year.

[Maravilloso Marvo]

[Berni]

something so minor as the fact that it's on a Monday, mm.

If someone ever wishes you a happy St Patrick's Day, it's a fair bet that they're a/ About as Irish as Osama Bin Laden and b/ A c*nt

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

The national broadcaster decided to do about half of last nights main news broadcast in Irish, then the events not related to the day itself were back in English.

Odd, and a complete waste of time as most people would not have understood what Sharon was talking about.

[Maravilloso Marvo]

Happy St Patricks day for yesterday :thumbup:

[Berni]

nonsense. Once upon a time, most Irish people you met would have a healthily contemptuous attitude to Irish language and its speakers - using it only to annoy the English occasionally and sing the Soldier's Song. These days, you get far too many people who seem to take the ridiculous business seriously.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Parents without any grasp of the Irish language and in very comfortable suburbs of Dublin give their children names which are nigh on impossible to pronounce, then send them off to the aforementioned Gaelscoil.

Of course the above flies in the face of the entire concept as there is no use of the language at home.

See my neighbours as an example, or indeed my brother though at very least his wife is fluent.

[Hillary]

To be fair, he doesn't fit the middle-class profile - he's more of a former-Welsh-mining-village sheep-botherer type.

He hates the English, which is a little awkward when we visit. The phrase "bloody English" doesn't tend to go down too well when the English rellies are in town.

[Berni]

The laugh being that they're all over here to work and presumably have to waste half their day spelling or explaining how to pronounce their idiotic names.

[Berni]

government that pays for such teaching (and all the signage, TV channels, etc) and thus allows them to indulge this sort of silliness.

[Hillary]

I just smile politely and take a shower the moment I'm the right side of the Severn Bridge.