The Rory's Stories Guide to Being Irish

Preface

So, after the success of my first book, The Rory’s Stories Guide to the GAA, I very quickly decided to go at it again with a second. I have to say that, as much as I enjoyed writing about the great organisation that is the GAA, I definitely enjoyed writing this one more. Why? you ask. Simply because it has a few more real-life Rory’s Stories in it!

When you read these stories you may think I made some of them up, but I can tell you here and now that what you’re about to read is all legit. These disaster stories are what made me decide that I had to simply call my brand Rory’s Stories. Also, because I was named after a high king of Ireland, was born on St Patrick’s Day and love the GAA, Guinness and Luke Kelly, I feel I’m the perfect person to sum up the antics of us crazy Irish.

You’ll find everything in this book, from an Irish wedding to an Irish wake, from your local nosy auld one to the bar-stool bullshitter in your local pub, and from your geek of a guard to your typical stag party. It’s all ahead of you!

One word of warning: choose wisely where and when you read these stories. Reading them with hot coffee in your mouth during your lunch break is not wise – unless you want to land half your latte onto one of your work buddies!

Enjoy, folks.

The Irish Family

Irish Father

The Irish ‘auld lad’ is unique. He’s as straight down the middle as you can get. My own father couldn’t be any more of an auld lad if he tried: he grew up on a farm in the midlands, where he knew nothing but bacon and cabbage, farm life and the GAA. He loves old ballads and hates loud music, and he wouldn’t watch a soccer match if ya paid him.

These auld lads always mean well, but they lose the rag easily. Whether it’s showing you how to ride a bike or cut the grass for the first time, their patience wouldn’t be great. Remember when they had to help you with your homework? What an ordeal! Your attention span was cat, your father trying to understand maths equations was worse, and it seemed to always end up in a row. It would often finish on a final line from your dad. ‘Wait till your mother comes home to finish the rest of that with you.’

These are some traits you’ll find in every Irish father:

They get thick very easily and are hilarious when angry.

If they come home from work to find that you got a bad note from school, you’re automatically going to be a binman when you grow up.

More than anything in life, they want you to play for the county.

They can’t sit still. Even if it’s a pointless job they’ll do it – anything to keep busy.

They hate nothing more than the soaps on the telly. ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Fair City’, ‘EastEnders’ – drives them nuts!

Auld lads will make their mind up very easily, and if they don’t like something they’ll let you know. How many times have you tried to show them something on the internet, whether it’s to point out a class footballer or to get them to watch a film? They’re so stubborn it’s unreal.

‘Here, Da, wait till you see this. It’s amazing.’

‘G’wan, show it to me, there. It better not be long.’

Forty-five seconds in, no matter how exciting it is . . .

‘Ah, that’s bullshite.’

‘Just watch it to the end.’

He will, and he won’t be impressed by it whatsoever. ‘Ah, sure that’s not real. Load of bollox!’

The old-school Irish father knows nothing but hard work, an oversized dinner every evening and a few pints at the weekend. They’re all great with their hands: no matter what’s broken they’ll fix it. You look at fathers these days (including myself), and we can barely change a tyre. I certainly wouldn’t be the most DIY man in the world, so nine times out of ten I’d ring my father for general advice round the house. I’d be a bit simple about the day-to-day stuff, so my father’s phone would be hopping a lot of the time, and he’d often be amazed at some of the things I’d ask him. I’ll tell you a story that sums this up.

Rory’s Story: Mousetrap

Most households in Ireland get visited by a mouse or two now and then. Well, only a year ago I was making a sup of tea in the kitchen when an unwanted guest sprinted across the floor and under the fridge. Now, ya know yourself that women wouldn’t be the biggest fans of mice, so there was no chance I was telling my wife about what I’d just witnessed, or she’d be up, bags packed, and gone.

So I rang the auld lad and asked him if he had any mousetraps. He had, and he told me that melted chocolate on the mousetrap is your only man: the mice love it, and you’ll have it caught overnight. Happy days.

So, that night, just after the wife went to bed, I melted the chocolate onto the trap and placed it beside the fridge. ‘Enjoy your first nibble, pal, because it’s lights out then.’ So off to bed I went, satisfied that I’d see a dead mouse the following day.

The next morning I made sure I was out of bed and downstairs before the rest of the family. I walked into the kitchen, where I found no mouse but every last bit of the chocolate gone. How is that possible! I must be dealing with a genius, I thought to myself.

That night I did the same again, and I put even more chocolate on the trap – a mountain of it – so that, even if the mouse was good at the nibbling, it would eventually get carried away, and snap!

But, again, there was no sign of it in the morning, just a clean trap. For fuck’s sake, I thought. This mouse is a wizard! So, like always, I rang my auld lad.

‘Here, Da, are you sure this trap is working? I’ve set it the last two nights, loads of chocolate on it, and twice the little cute huar has eaten it and got away.’

‘Take a photo of the trap and send it on to me.’ So I did, and straight away he rings me back and says, ‘Good man, Rory. Do me a favour there and stick your finger into the trap.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘G’wan, there. Nothing will happen.’

I dutifully put my finger in and pressed it against the chocolate, and guess what happened? Absolutely nothing. The genius that I am wasn’t setting the trap right, and the mouse was after putting on half a stone with all the chocolate I’d given it! I set it correctly then, and the little fella was brown bread the following morning.

Afterwards my father says to me, ‘You know they usually come in threes, Rory?’

‘You’re joking me!’ I say with a big, stupid, confused head on me. ‘So is that where the story of the Three Blind Mice comes from?’

‘I give up,’ says he.

Moral of the story is: no matter what the situation is, the first person you ring is your father. Of course, he brought up that story during his speech at my wedding. Can ya blame him!

Irish Mammy

I think we can all agree that there’s no better human being walking this planet than the Irish mammy. There’s nothing they can’t do or fix. An Irish mammy has many qualities; but, as you know, they can also be trying at times! My own mother couldn’t be more on the money if she tried. She has all the Irish mammy traits.

She’s a very keen woman to go to Mass.

She has her TV recordings bursting with programmes: ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Room to Improve’, ‘A Place in the Sun’, ‘Countdown’.

She gawks out the window for any chance she can get to hang the clothes out to dry.

She uses the same teabag for as many as three cups of tea, and she’s liable to put five baked beans and half a rasher back in the fridge after a big Sunday fry! Irish mothers simply don’t waste any food!

My mother didn’t care what I did as long as I went to school, got a good Leaving Cert, went to university and went on to become an accountant. (Well, that didn’t go according to plan!) She wanted this so that she could tell her friends about it, like every mother. ‘Oh, yes, he’s studying accountancy in UCD.’ Even if you were the wildest lad in the country, she’d always let on you’re as good as gold.

Of course, when it comes to the Irish mammy, there are positives and negatives.

Positives

No matter how old you are, she’ll still make you tea and toast if you’re under the weather.

Mammy’s dinners.

She has an around-the-clock open laundry.

Negatives:

She asks far too many questions.

She doesn’t get technology.

She has a great knack for embarrassing you without even realising it.

If there’s one thing Irish mothers are great at, it’s being there for you when you really need her. No matter what you’ve done, she’ll be there with the tea and toast. Here’s a story that proves you can always rely on an Irish mammy.

Rory’s Story: Too Many Cans

When I was about sixteen the music festival Witness (now called Oxegen) was on at the Fairyhouse Racecourse in Co. Meath. It was the place to be for a couple of days during the summer – pitch your tent, a bag of cans, your best mates and great music. Top-notch stuff. Being sixteen, I wasn’t going to get permission from my parents, but we decided we had to go anyway. So one Saturday morning myself and the lads said, ‘Fuck it, we’re going.’ We told our parents we were off at a GAA blitz for the day and wouldn’t be home till late that evening. We stood outside the shops for as long as it took for someone to go in and buy our cans for us.

Once that was sorted we were on our way. Ashbourne (where I’m from) to the Fairyhouse Racecourse is about six miles, so it wasn’t just a trot around the corner. We headed off through the fields, drinking cans and having the craic.

We eventually got there half cut and mad for the craic. None of us had a sniff of a ticket or a pass, so we had to jump over the fence. The adrenaline was pumping. We got Shane, the fastest lad in the gang, to jump over first, because once the security guards spotted him they’d chase him, and it’d open up for the slow lads like myself to make an entrance.

Off went Shane and, like that, all the security guards sprinted after him. Once they ran into the crowd we were over the fence, and in we went. I was the awkward lad in the gang, so I naturally twisted my ankle as I jumped down. But the few cans and the adrenaline weren’t long in getting me off the ground and into the crowd.

The relief when we all made it in – it was some buzz being in there at sixteen years of age. I met a few of my cousins there and had one hell of a night.

All I remember is waking up the next morning in a random tent, having lost my phone. It was only a Nokia 3210, so not as worrying as losing your phone nowadays! I had no runners on me (I still have no idea where they went or how I managed to lose them),