Why are you proud of Ireland?

Crotchety

The fact that you could roll on down to the Phoenix Park in Dublin for a smoke or two.

Trankton

Charlie Haughey for his ingenuity in completely fleecing us all, getting away with it even though everyone knew and still getting a state funeral as well as being revered throughout the country.

Graham Norton......ha ha ha.

walshb

I think the GAA is something we should all be proud of. I do believe it is the largest single amateur sporting organisation in the world with approximately 800,000 members. Amazing!

BraziliaNZ

Trankton wrote: »

Graham Norton......ha ha ha.

dont worry he's turned into a Brit now just like Terry Wogan

Trankton

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

dont worry he's turned into a Brit now just like Terry Wogan

At least Wogan is funny!!!

BraziliaNZ

a5y wrote: »

Irish writers. Irish poets. Irish musicians.

Thats (let me count) a few hundred reasons there.

And even though we do have so serious breakouts begrudgery and smallmindedness we don't take outselves too seriously

*cue theme tune from Father Ted*

Why do we have to use the word f*cking begrudgery in every f*cking discussion about Ireland and it's people .

Anyway Irish musicians? We have U2 and Thin Lizzy (had a few hits but not remembered outside of Ireland, it's a popular make up brand elsewhere!).

I think we overestimate the importance of our musical contributions.

Trankton

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Why do we have to use the word f*cking begrudgery in every f*cking discussion about Ireland and it's people .

Anyway Irish musicians? We have U2 and Thin Lizzy (had a few hits but not remembered outside of Ireland, it's a popular make up brand elsewhere!).

I think we overestimate the importance of our musical contributions.

Ah come on, we had Bewitched and Boyzone, they rocked the world!!!!

Saibh

Trankton wrote: »

Ah come on, we had Bewitched and Boyzone, they rocked the world!!!!

And don't forget we still have Daniel O'Donnell :eek:

mickydoomsux

♫ wrote: »

We can be proud we got away from the British.

We didn't really though. They're our main trading partner and if they stopped being that our country would end up back in the stone age.

Also, whenever the government introduces a new scheme, system or project it's usually just copied from a British model. If we were truly independent from them, as in had absolutely nothing to do with them, we'd still being using the horse and cart and most of the country would be without electricity.

walshb

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Why do we have to use the word f*cking begrudgery in every f*cking discussion about Ireland and it's people .

Anyway Irish musicians? We have U2 and Thin Lizzy (had a few hits but not remembered outside of Ireland, it's a popular make up brand elsewhere!).

I think we overestimate the importance of our musical contributions.

And U2 are clinging desperately to their past success and past decent tracks

Fink Goddie

And Bono is the biggest knobhead in the history of the world!!!

Whats the difference between God and Bono?
God doesnt walk around thinking he's Bono

thelordofcheese

neaideabh wrote: »

I don't give a f()ck whether I come across racist... I hate the way we are increasingly losing our traditional values, the foreigners, I am nearly glad to see the back of them romanians in Belfast! I console with there recent plight but have no time for them, but this brings me to my next point... Scumbags... Them social benefit scrouging, burberry cap wearing scum... I would love if the govt passed an act allowing civilians to shoot the bastards if they were deemed not to be positively contributing to society. I would love if the gardai went out one night and shot all them drug dealing c()nts who are killing each other and mistakingly killing innocent civilians and say that they simply killed each other. I am sure the public would not raise any questions.

I must congratulate you on taking ever terrible opinion that's ever been spewed onto AH and putting it all in one post.

It's like reading a car crash...

rossie1977

Fink Goddie wrote: »

And Bono is the biggest knobhead in the history of the world!!!

bono the only person in the world to be nominated for an oscar, grammy, golden globe, and for the nobel prize, good man bono :pac:

rossie1977

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Anyway Irish musicians? We have U2 and Thin Lizzy (had a few hits but not remembered outside of Ireland, it's a popular make up brand elsewhere!).

I think we overestimate the importance of our musical contributions.

irish musical contributions not just stuff you like

enya with approx 70 million album sales worldwide
the corrs with approx 60 million album sales worldwide
Chieftains, cranberries, Sinéad O'Connor, Clannad, rory gallagher, Van Morrison and something which i never heard of before called riverdance

Acacia

The fact that James Joyce came from here. Though he did work in exile for most of his life. I think that sums it up really.

D-Boy

rossie1977 wrote: »

bono the only person in the world to be nominated for an oscar, grammy, golden globe, and for the nobel prize, good man bono :pac:

Big +1
So proud to be irish cos of U2,ashamed to be Irish cos we are a nation of self hating begrudgers

Fink Goddie

rossie1977 wrote: »

bono the only person in the world to be nominated for an oscar, grammy, golden globe, and for the nobel prize, good man bono :pac:

He's still a knobhead though.

johnny_knoxvile

That we dont eat swans.

Crotchety

Trankton wrote: »

At least Wogan is funny!!!

Wogan is as dry as a piece of burnt wood. Norton would be funnier now.

Maeve Higgins make me ashamed to say I'm Irish. Dullest comedian ever.

BraziliaNZ

rossie1977 wrote: »

irish musical contributions not just stuff you like

enya with approx 70 million album sales worldwide
the corrs with approx 60 million album sales worldwide
Chieftains, cranberries, Sinéad O'Connor, Clannad, rory gallagher, Van Morrison and something which i never heard of before called riverdance

The Corrs, The Cranberries - they make you proud? Van Morrison is from the UK. Riverdance is a running joke against us for years.
Sinead O'Connor is a total muppet. Rory G, very talented but 99% of people outside of Ireland don't know who he is, most Irish people under 30 wouldn't have heard any of his stuff either. Riverdance though, Christ on a bike...

mickydoomsux

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Rory G, very talented but 99% of people outside of Ireland don't know who he is, most Irish people under 30 wouldn't have heard any of his stuff either.

I don't like Rory but his various albums have sold over 30 million copies combined. I'm pretty sure all of those sales weren't in Ireland.

rossie1977

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

The Corrs, The Cranberries - they make you proud?

i never said i was proud of any, i just mentioned musical contribution, like em or not those bands have sold millions of records so somebody likes their work. cranberries have had numerous top 10 hits in the states, you can count the number of bands on one hand from mainland europe that can say that

21 million have paid to watch riverdance all over the world since its inception, again like it or not its an irish institution at this stage, its been seen on broadway ffs

speedboatchase

rossie1977 wrote: »

i never said i was proud of any, i just mentioned musical contribution, like em or not those bands have sold millions of records so somebody likes their work. cranberries have had numerous top 10 hits in the states, you can count the number of bands on one hand from mainland europe that can say that

You're talking about Cranberries singles right? They had one top 10 hit in the U.S, Free to Decide. **** like this annoys me where people assume certain artists are bigger than they actually are, like that time Samantha Mumba was in a "Spielberg film", when in fact she was in a Dreamworks SKG production - the S standing for Spielberg.

mink_man

yaa!

twinytwo

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Not something to be proud about in the grand scheme of things. It's is just a game after all.

you do mean the worlds greatest game

Dazd_N_Confusd

Size=everything wrote: »

Irish rugby.

Despite being a small nation we are in the top 4 sides in the World and currently have one of the greatest players to ever play the game. No other sport have we excelled on the world stage like rugby.

But the world doesn't really give a **** about Rugby. If we crack the top 3 then that would be an achievement.

HalloweenJack

walshb wrote: »

I think the GAA is something we should all be proud of. I do believe it is the largest single amateur sporting organisation in the world with approximately 800,000 members. Amazing!

I love hurling, I don't really have a problem with Gaelic football but the GAA is a horrible association.

They try to kill off other sports (Tallaght stadium, the crap in Kerry) and they are scrounging off the Gov. They get a lot more money than any other sports organisation but, comparing it as a participant sport to others, the level of Gov funding they receive is disproportionate. Then there's the whole thing about getting their expenses paid, which goes against the idea of amateur sportsmanship.

ryanch09

i love the fact that we're not bothering to do anything about global warming and we're just welcoming the good hot weather!!:D:D:D:D

also proud that we created U2!! Greatest band ever!!!

dunnomede?

Fink Goddie wrote: »

He's still a knobhead though.

reminds me of the time was passing through raheny (howth road) with a few friends in a taxi and one of them says thats where bono got married. and i said thats not a roman catholic church. friend says "ya i know he's **********" i replied "no wonder he's a plick"

Tchaikovsky

mickydoomsux wrote: »

We didn't really though. They're our main trading partner and if they stopped being that our country would end up back in the stone age.

Also, whenever the government introduces a new scheme, system or project it's usually just copied from a British model. If we were truly independent from them, as in had absolutely nothing to do with them, we'd still being using the horse and cart and most of the country would be without electricity.

Of course they're our main trading partner, they're right beside us!

Orizio

HalloweenJack wrote: »

I love hurling, I don't really have a problem with Gaelic football but the GAA is a horrible association.

They try to kill off other sports (Tallaght stadium, the crap in Kerry) and they are scrounging off the Gov. They get a lot more money than any other sports organisation but, comparing it as a participant sport to others, the level of Gov funding they receive is disproportionate. Then there's the whole thing about getting their expenses paid, which goes against the idea of amateur sportsmanship.

How so? They have gotten less then the FAI have this year for example (if I remember correctly), even though the FAI is far less competent and far less fiscally responsible. As best as I can tell, the state gives out its grants depending upon popularity, so attacking the GAA because of its sucess is rather unfair. And every organisation in this country 'scrounges' from the government, nor should its players be out of pocket, compensation is not a wage and is not against the idea of amatuership.

walshb

ryanch09 wrote: »

also proud that we created U2!! Greatest band ever!!!

My arse they are.
Hey, good, decent and durable, but far from a naturally great and talented bunch.
They wore everyone out and eventually they came good with rather limited
musical ability and their present stuff and recent stuff is far
from innovative or inspiring. Past success is what U2 are living off!

Greatest band ever? Hmm, maybe bands like Queen, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin would be in that bracket. U2 are a notch or two below their caliber

And Bono I am not proud of, he is an actual
embarrassment to this country with his self righteous ego tripping
and lecturing!

Caoimhín

No.

TobyZiegler

Was proud of Ireland this year during the Volvo Ocean Race - the sailors/crew etc all agreed it was the best stop so far on this race and one of the best in many years of racing. (Suppose the weather helped a lot though - and cant really take credit for that!)

Also the first time Riverdance was done at the Eurovision that time was a good moment even if it has been done to death now.

walshb

The horse racing and breeding industry makes me very proud.
Just look at Cheltenham and how the Irish are so so
influential at it. We are a fantastic horse racing and breeding nation!

mickydoomsux

walshb wrote: »

The horse racing and breeding industry makes me very proud.

It should do, we paid enough for it.

BraziliaNZ

walshb wrote: »

The horse racing and breeding industry makes me very proud.
Just look at Cheltenham and how the Irish are so so
influential at it. We are a fantastic horse racing and breeding nation!

hmmm any relation to Ruby?

walshb

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

hmmm any relation to Ruby?

Brothers!

sofia11

This is the most best post on here, a good laugh, some great quips, give Tommy Tiernan a run for his money!

markopantelic

No. I do love it here though.

I mean I wouldn't understand being ashamed of Ireland either so why should I be proud?

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

markopantelic

Tell that to the masses who emmigrate to 'Oz'! They'll probably say the same thing but if its so great why leave?

Gavin "shels"

nuxxx wrote: »

1990 World Cup in Italy

This Vid is brilliant, get shivers everytime i see it and sometimes a tear in my eye

+1


Add in our greatest football fans in the world aswell!:rolleyes:

markopantelic

Ah Gav, thats too kind. We Bohs fans are pretty deadly fans but the best? Actually yeah maby

raah!

It has nice trees and fields and lichens and kerry slugs!

TheSpecialOne

1916

munchkin_utd

I am proud of how ireland can make a balls of anything that it once could have been proud of!

I'll explain with some examples......

You could have been proud of the people, but greed is a lot of peoples main motivation nowadays. And the helping neighbour. Does anyone know their neighbour nowadays?

You could have been proud of the lovely countryside but its plain ruined with houses. Drive from Donegal to Sligo town and you will see what I mean. Or the countryside in Cavan/ Leitrim/ Monaghan. Ruined.

You could have been proud of the church, helping all the hungry africans and that, but they made a hames of the country too.

You could have been proud of the Patriots that got us independence, but then the one that escaped exceution (dev) proceeded to launch an economic war against the british empire and establish the afore mentioned church as a second not to be questioned pillar of the state. We are only recovering from how he shaped Ireland in the past few years.

You could have been proud of the education system but now that nobody wants to be a teacher any more compared to the way it used to be, the whole system seems to be going to the dogs.

You could have been proud once of irelands miraculus economic boom.
But heck, as it turns out that was only us buying and selling houses to each other.

You could have been proud of ireland's technology sector 10 years ago, a time when engineering and science were desirable to do in college, but now nobody wants to do engineering in college any more (if you look at the points) and we turned into a nation of house builders/ traders than doing anything purposeful. Another thing down the swanny.

You could have been proud of the way Ireland lured multinationals to its shores. Now we are neither affordable nor are producing the masses of scientists and engineers that we used to. So we dont have that to be proud of either.

So in short, Ireland had a lot of things to be proud of over the years, but we have a fierce knack of then making a balls of it when we put our minds to it.

markopantelic

haha ye i was driving through the mountains with a few friends last week, absolutely sensational views but the litter everywhere was a disgrace and apparently Ireland is the most 'patriotic' country, more like conditioned to feel 'patriotic'

Eve_Dublin

I get the point that it's a matter of luck/misfortune/chance where you're born and to say "I'm proud to be Irish" makes as much sense as saying "I'm soooo proud to have knees!" but surely we CAN be proud/ashamed of our culture that most of contribute to in one way or another, be it in a negative or positive way.

I have to say, I'm ferociously proud to be Irish while also being fully aware that we're far from perfect and we've a shed load to be ashamed of as well, like all nations.

I'm proud of:

GAA...Gaelic football is the only sport I genuinely enjoy watching.

The fact that wherever I went on my travels, 99.9% of people I met heard of my country and generally in a positive light. The day I met 2 young fellas in an obscure little town in Chile and when I told them I was from Ireland, they proceeded to name every player on the Irish football team when I could only name about 4. It was just brilliant. This happened a few times. "Robbie Keane...Robbie Keane"

That the Irish managed to get themselves involved in the history of the most obscurest countries in the world...Bernardo O'Higgins in Chile, Che Guavara-Lynch in Argentina and Cuba, Barack Obama's great-great grandmother...eh...can't think of anymore...will get back to this one....

Irish trad music...you just can't beat the likes of Planxty and the Chieftans. Puts me in a good mood everytime I put it on.

Our absolutely WICKED, dark, ridiculous, stupid, silly, intelligent, self-depracating sense of humour (personal favourite...)

Our landscape...it's really, really beautiful...if you doubt that then you need to cancel your holliers to Spain and have a goo for yourself. Those who say it's getting destroyed by the property developers...a lot of it has been and that's a real shame but you'd be surprised how much of it is still untouched in contrast to other countries...and all the developing has come to a grinding halt now anyway and hopefully it'll stay that way.

Old man pubs and Smithwicks.

People with a bit of bite in us...fire in our bellies...we ALWAYS have something to say for ourselves, even if it's not always positive (and lets face it, it's not a lot of the time)...not all countries can say the same in my experience.

I don't care how cheesy it is but when Riverdance played on the Eurovision song contest...jaysus I don't think I've cried so much since. Stupid I know. I used to watch when I felt homesick living abroad...that an Tourism Ireland ads on Youtube..haha!

That The Cranberries still seem to be HUUUUUGE in South America...the fact that they'd only one US hit means f-all..the USA is not the world.

St Paddys Day...we act like gobsh*tes but I still feel nothing but pride on this day wherever I am.

Irish Stand-up comedy


Joyce, Wilde, Yeats, Kavanagh, Stoke, Boland, Heaney, Swift,

Everyone that contributed to our independence in 1922, including my grandad. We must be the only country in Europe NOT to acknowledge this occasion instead of feeling shame. Sad.

The fact that most people I meet in this country are lovely...moany and begrudging but lovely. Lived abroad for a few years and came home recently and was taken aback by how many people had no qualms about starting a conversation up with me. It took a while for me to adapt back into that mentality...I hope I never loose it again.

I could go on and on...you get the idea...this is not a "fiddle dee diddle dee doo" outlook on my country...I've come home in a time when it's particularly hard to love my country but I still do and it's genuine. I don't care how stupid it might seem to others. Goosebumpsarama. Sob sob...

PaulieD

markopantelic wrote: »

haha ye i was driving through the mountains with a few friends last week, absolutely sensational views but the litter everywhere was a disgrace and apparently Ireland is the most 'patriotic' country, more like conditioned to feel 'patriotic'

Id say the opposite. The media pour scorn on patriotism in this country.