10 things you probably never knew the Irish invented!

bnt

dmcronin wrote: »

It's not unique, it's called the 'tall poppy' syndrome in Australia.

OK, and where did so many of those Australians come from? Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you ...

Faolchu

research carried out in TCD was instrumental in the discovery of Penicillen. and anything that clears up a dose of the clap has to be a good invention.

Pherekydes

bnt wrote: »

Here's a geeky one: a useful statistical method, Student's t-test, was invented by a chemist working for Guinness. He published under a pseudonym, "Student", because Guinness didn't want competitors to know they were using statistical methods for quality control. It's useful for analysing small samples: standard methods only start working properly on populations of 30 or more (IIRC).

Gosset was an Englishman.

Spook_ie

the_syco wrote: »

It was first made in Leixlip in 1755.

Do you think that Arthur moved into James's Gate on a whim, and suddenly started to produce Guinness, as opposed to already having the drink perfected, and moving to a larger factory?

It was first made by accident by burning another drink.

So why is 17.59 such an important date/time in Guiness history? why isn't Guiness day celebrated at 17.55

It's hard to face up to losing an icon but AFAIK and according to Guiness.ie it was brewed in Dublin

Martyn1989

the_syco wrote: »

It was first made in Leixlip in 1755.

Do you think that Arthur moved into James's Gate on a whim, and suddenly started to produce Guinness, as opposed to already having the drink perfected, and moving to a larger factory?

It was first made by accident by burning another drink.

Roasted barley and black malt where being used to make porters/stouts by the English brewers long before Arthur started. Do you really think the Guinness you buy now resembles the beer they made years ago? For a start they only started serving it on the nitro gas systems in the mid 60s. They also made much darker, higher abv beers.

Gloomtastic!

Spook_ie wrote: »

So why is 17.59 such an important date/time in Guiness history? why isn't Guiness day celebrated at 17.55

It's hard to face up to losing an icon but AFAIK and according to Guiness.ie it was brewed in Dublin

That's the date he signed the lease at St James Gate. The rest, as they say, is marketing! :rolleyes:

Dravokivich

Martyn1989 wrote: »

Roasted barley and black malt where being used to make porters/stouts by the English brewers long before Arthur started. Do you really think the Guinness you buy now resembles the beer they made years ago? For a start they only started serving it on the nitro gas systems in the mid 60s. They also made much darker, higher abv beers.

A lot of know this, but feck all use it is not being able to drink the stuff now.

mikemac1

Guinness Foreign Extra is supposed to similar to the old stuff

Available in most off licenses

pic

It's 7.5%

Dravokivich

mikemac1 wrote: »

Guinness Foreign Extra is supposed to similar to the old stuff

Available in most off licenses

pic

It's 7.5%

Aye, but they use to have a range of other stuff as well though, which I think the other fella was referring to.

castletownman

Zhavey wrote: »

Nicholas Callan from Dundalk, and his work for the invention of the Induction coil. So, one of the most fundamental things for a car. :P

Was just going to mention him. A distant relation of mine actually :cool:

Nothingbetter2d

Co Down-born chemist Dr James Drumm invented the rechargeable nickel-zinc battery, which is today used in cordless tools and telephones, digital cameras, electric vehicles and loads of other places.

Drumm, born in 1897, was also involved in other scientific breakthroughs during a varied and colourful career: he produced an unusually fine soap and worked on an early version of food processing, as well as devising the battery which was used on Dublin trams for many years.

Stinicker

I'm pretty sure an Irish priest living in Manilla invented the brown envelope, it has been tried and trusted the world over and is especially popular with Fianna Fail and Sean Gallagher.

Spread

mikemac1 wrote: »

Guinness Foreign Extra is supposed to similar to the old stuff

Available in most off licenses

pic

It's 7.5%

Also known out here as Nigerian Guinness

patrickbrophy18

Not too sure if it has been mentioned yet in the thread. However, Boyle's Law was discovered in Ireland by the Irish physicist Michael Boyle. The part in bold is the definition Boyle's Law.

Boyle's Law: The volume of a fixed mass of gas is inversely proportional to it's pressure.

This is mostly applicable to deep sea divers such as those in the navy and oil rigs. If they make an emergency swim to the surface, they have to be placed into a decompression chamber to prevent a fatal attack of nitrogen narcosis or the bends. Boyle's Law also applies to those on high flying aircraft and astronauts. In fact, many deep sea divers are heavily advised to avoid journeys by airplane on the days following a swim to the surface and decompression therapy.

El Siglo

William Thomson (1824-1907) (Lord Kelvin). Born in Belfast, Professor of Natural Philosophy (Physics) at Glasgow University. Introduced the absolute scale of temperature – the Kelvin scale. His work on conversion of energy led to Second Law of Thermodynamics. Closely involved in laying first successful transatlantic telegraph cable under sea between Ireland and Newfoundland in 1866.

J.D. Bernal (1901-1971) born in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. Professor of Physics at Birbeck College, University of London. Developed the technique of modern X-ray crystallography and led a group that used the technique to work out the 3-D structure of proteins, nucleic acids (e.g. DNA) and viruses.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943-) was born in Lurgan, Co. Armagh and is Professor of Physics at The Open University. She discovered pulsars – rapidly rotating neutron stars – in 1967 when working as a research student at Cambridge.

So for a fairly small country with a fairly small population, we're not too bad at science.

bnt

Pherekydes wrote: »

Gosset was an Englishman.

Yeah, but he spent his working life surrounded by Guinness, what more do you want? I was at UCD, where the name of Cardinal Newman keeps coming up: first rector, literally wrote the book on what a university should be. He was English too, but he's considered Irish because he converted to Catholicism.

I see the name of Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) has come up a couple of times: he was about as Irish as Scotch Whisky. Born in Belfast to a Scots Irish (i.e. settler) family, did all his studies in Glasgow and Cambridge, spent all his working life in Glasgow, except when he was on ships laying transatlantic cables. But hey, the definition of "Irish" is flexible, if this thread is any guide.

Thargor

Andy Carroll wrote: »

An Irishman invented the penalty kick. We will all be toasting him tomorrow when the Italians beat England on penos.

Good call there Andy Carroll!

Burt Lancaster

Corruption and lying for starters

bwatson

El Siglo wrote: »

William Thomson (1824-1907) (Lord Kelvin). Born in Belfast, Professor of Natural Philosophy (Physics) at Glasgow University. Introduced the absolute scale of temperature – the Kelvin scale. His work on conversion of energy led to Second Law of Thermodynamics. Closely involved in laying first successful transatlantic telegraph cable under sea between Ireland and Newfoundland in 1866.

J.D. Bernal (1901-1971) born in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. Professor of Physics at Birbeck College, University of London. Developed the technique of modern X-ray crystallography and led a group that used the technique to work out the 3-D structure of proteins, nucleic acids (e.g. DNA) and viruses.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943-) was born in Lurgan, Co. Armagh and is Professor of Physics at The Open University. She discovered pulsars – rapidly rotating neutron stars – in 1967 when working as a research student at Cambridge.

So for a fairly small country with a fairly small population, we're not too bad at science.

Even in the context of this thread, its a bit of a stretch to try and claim the likes of Burnell and Kelvin and their discoveries/inventions as Irish.

Pottler

My neighbour invented using a vicegrip as a steering wheel. He also invented using baler twine as a gate hinge and using broken pallets as fencing. He is very inventive. Some call it rough, I call it inventive. His inventions have benefitted farming folk the length and breath of the country.

FanadMan

bnt wrote: »

I see the name of Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) has come up a couple of times: he was about as Irish as Scotch Whisky. Born in Belfast to a Scots Irish (i.e. settler) family, did all his studies in Glasgow and Cambridge, spent all his working life in Glasgow, except when he was on ships laying transatlantic cables. But hey, the definition of "Irish" is flexible, if this thread is any guide.

He was more irish than say, someone like Tony Cascarino - at least Lord Kelvin was born in the country! And is more famous too - don't think that people will remember Cass in 105 years like with Kelvin. Def wont be spoked and taught about in school either.

PS - don't get me wrong, Cass was a brilliant player and I loved watching him. And is still way better than most of the current Irish team

DingChavez

bnt wrote: »

I see the name of Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) has come up a couple of times: he was about as Irish as Scotch Whisky. Born in Belfast to a Scots Irish (i.e. settler) family, did all his studies in Glasgow and Cambridge, spent all his working life in Glasgow, except when he was on ships laying transatlantic cables. But hey, the definition of "Irish" is flexible, if this thread is any guide.

Ireland invented Scotland. So we can claim all their stuff too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_inventions_and_discoveries

Sindri

DingChavez wrote: »

Ireland invented Scotland. So we can claim all their stuff too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_inventions_and_discoveries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_inventions_and_discoveries#6th_century

DonQuay1

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

For a 'neutral' country we've invested a lot in warmongering.

Really - WHO???????

A warmonger is a pejorative term that is used to describe someone who is eager to encourage a people or nation to go to war.

Yep - WHO have we - the Irish people - been encouraging to go to war?


Are we all encouraging ourselves to make war .... on the EU maybe??
Maybe, we're encouraging 'the brits' to go to war with the Argentinians?


Did you pass your group cert without learning how to use a dictionary or thesaurus?

saiint

atomic bomb?
thats a joke right

swimming in a sea

Pushtrak wrote: »

Begrudgery?

Ha Ha when i first looked at this i thought you said Buggery

Thats what 13 years in a Catholic school does to you:eek:

Executive Steve

So we had tanks, nukes and submarines and we still couldn't get rid of the Brits.

Scarlet...

srsly78

saiint wrote: »

atomic bomb?
thats a joke right

The only nobel physics prize awarded to an Irishman (shared) was for splitting the atom. So yeah it's a small exaggeration but hey :pac:

It BeeMee

swimming in a sea wrote: »

Ha Ha when i first looked at this i thought you said Buggery

Thats what 13 years in a Catholic school does to you:eek:

Now that you mention it, the Christian Brothers were invented in Kilkenny...

CruelCoin

Funeral fetishism

Martyn1989

Dravokivich wrote: »

A lot of know this, but feck all use it is not being able to drink the stuff now.

True, infairness alot of the microbreweries are making beer that would come close.

mikemac1 wrote: »

Guinness Foreign Extra is supposed to similar to the old stuff

Available in most off licenses

pic

It's 7.5%

Its different though because they put more hops in it to try preserve when they originally started shipping it to Africa, funny that Guinness is really popular in Africa. Its a great beer aswell.

Theres also this one which is a bit different brewed for the Belgian market: http://www.drinkstore.ie/GUINNESS-SPECIAL-EXPORT-330ML-54004207/

Dravokivich wrote: »

Aye, but they use to have a range of other stuff as well though, which I think the other fella was referring to.

Exactly, I've been trying to find a list I saw ages ago of Guinness and different gravities and abvs they where brewing it too from year to year back before the science and consistency where so important. And even then the beer would taste different batch to batch.

No doubt they where always making great beer and had a great marketing team and some good business heads around to become so huge but the beer their making now is alot blander then even the beer they where making 20 years ago.

Mance Rayder

The Limerick (poetic Rhyming)


A flea and a fly in a flue,
Were trapped and knew not what to do,
'Let us flee', said the fly,
'Let us fly', said the flea,
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Burt Lancaster

CruelCoin wrote: »

Funeral fetishism

One of the best posts of the thread.

'funeralphilia' - love of funerals is an Irish obsession.

More correctly its a love of being SEEN at wakes or funerals of people you barely knew or gave a shyte about when they were alive, in order to fool the family into trusting you and seeing you as alright behind it all. Nasty underhand two faced stuff, that the Irish excel at.

Outside the family, IMO about 10% of 'mourners' at Irish wakes and funerals are genuine.

mikemac1

A TD at your funeral means you were well known and popular :cool:

Pottler

mikemac1 wrote: »

A TD at your funeral means you were well known and popular :cool:

or you had a big family, ie, future voters.

Brown Envelopes.

Capt'n Midnight

mature recollection

not being able to remember which thirty grand you got in a plastic bag

karaokeman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPJZz86Wdgk

portumnadaz

Adyx wrote: »

So? I don't have a native Irish name (it's Norman), does that mean I'm French?

Yes of course it does

Duggys Housemate

CruelCoin wrote: »

Funeral fetishism

because nobody else has ever had funerals?

Difference Engine

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

because nobody else has ever had funerals?

Shhh! The death notices are on.

UCDVet

List would be more impressive if it were a bit more factual....

No disrespect intended, but some of these are pretty far off.

Adyx

portumnadaz wrote: »

Yes of course it does

Ah that was 6 months ago. I've gotten an Irish passport since. Cheap too.

Sam Kade

Burt Lancaster wrote: »

One of the best posts of the thread.

'funeralphilia' - love of funerals is an Irish obsession.

More correctly its a love of being SEEN at wakes or funerals of people you barely knew or gave a shyte about when they were alive, in order to fool the family into trusting you and seeing you as alright behind it all. Nasty underhand two faced stuff, that the Irish excel at.

Outside the family, IMO about 10% of 'mourners' at Irish wakes and funerals are genuine.

A thread about how the Irish invented stuff and you come along and ruin it with your funeral rant :mad:

Duggys Housemate

I have no idea about what he is talking about, I have been to the funerals of two people, grandparents, in my entire life. And I am mid-30s. The people there were genuine. Where are these universal funeral goers?

refusetolose

i went to the same school as yer man who invented the submarine

Shane-KornSpace

Murphy's Law....

Hairy blankets that my granny uses??

WoollyRedHat

realies wrote: »

Banks that open on sunday ?

That must of been a mistake. Like, oh ****, we thought it was ****ing Monday!

nbar12

I presume some mad eejit has already said we invented the craic? we definitely invented the craic, no other nation is as much fun as other than the Fijians

pbowenroe

SUBMARINE