6 Reasons the Irish Aren't So Lucky
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Turns out the pot at the end of the rainbow is actually filled with turds. Ah "The Luck of the Irish." Has a crueler phrase ever been coined? The sad truth is, the Irish are about as unlucky as a race can be while, you know, still being white. While we may all be a little Irish on Saint Patrick's day, after this little history lesson you'll be grateful you no longer have to be Irish once your liver has filtered the green food dye out of your system (and if you actually are Irish, well, we're sorry). #6.
The Damned Vikings
Historically the best protection a civilization can have against invasion is to be located on an island. Just look at Japan. Until being occupied by America following World War II (USA! USA!) it had never been successfully invaded (although you could argue the high density of ninjas in the country had something to do with it). At any rate Ireland is an island, they should have had it made, right? But what if around the 8th century a civilization living not far from Ireland were to develop a culture based on seafaring warfare, piracy and sporty horned helmets? Oh shit ...
The Vikings' modus operandi was to attack exclusively from the sea, pillage, rape and burn then sail off while trading hearty high fives and congratulatory butt slaps. In other words Ireland being an island nation, something traditionally of great advantage, ended up being a first-night-sober-after-an-alcoholic-binge sized nightmare. Today we have a fairly harmless image of Vikings (due to the poor research that goes into Hagar the Horrible) but trust us when we tell you that the real Vikings were grade-A dicks. They were basically the bullies of the middle ages, and like that poor red-headed kid that spent most of middle school stuffed in his locker, the Irish were the Vikings' favorite targets and spent over 200 years being metaphorically swirlied. #5.
The Ginger Problem
Speaking of red hair ... In the Middle Ages, red hair was thought to mean you were a witch, werewolf or a vampire, so apparently there was a time in history other than our own where the sight of David Caruso would have been considered the ultimate horror. For other stretches in history, red hair was believed to mean one was surely a whore or had a wicked awful temper (later research has shown only around 60% of redheads are angry whores).
And if Al Gore knows what he's talking about at all, most of the world's redheads should be constructing a vast underground bunker for themselves as we speak, if they know what's good for them. Of course this would only sort of suck if these creatures, most vulnerable to the rays of our otherwise life-giving sun, weren't also the most sensitive to pain. Seriously. By the way, which country has the world's highest concentration of redheads? Oh right, Ireland. We suppose it has a better ring to it than "God hates Irish people" but as far as appropriate national slogans go, "The luck of the Irish" isn't far behind "The easy and high paying jobs of the Mexicans." #4.
The Damned Tudors
Folks really seem to love the Tudors, the English dynasty that ruled England from 1485 to 1603 and included monarchs like King Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. You seemingly can't swing Anne Boleyn's decapitated head without hitting a new TV show or movie starring either Henry VIII or Elizabeth, most of which focus on what Henry's penis happened to be doing while he was king or how Elizabeth made it in a man's world baby. But what was arguably the Tudor's favorite pastime is almost always overlooked. What was that you ask? Why brutally suppressing Ireland and trying to wipe out Irish culture of course! Yes, once again Lady Luck had pissed in the Irish's stew. The Tudor line came to power when Henry VII defeated Richard III in the War of the Roses (a war that was a lot longer, more bitter and bloody than it's fruity name implies) and true to form the Irish had supported the losing side. Whoops. From that point on the Tudors saw Ireland as a possible threat and a geographically vulnerable location. So they spent the next 100-years or so violently beating on the Irish like Moe on Curly.
She also set up plantations across Ireland populated with Protestant English settlers, the idea being that these would be the seeds from which English Protestantism would spring forth and overtake traditional Irish Catholic culture. What could go wrong with that? |
And even if you didn't fall victim to the superstitious associations with the world's rarest hair color, you certainly wouldn't enjoy some of the crappier consequences of having low levels of dark pigmentation. Like burning to a blistered, bubbly crisp when spending 15 minutes in the sun. Or ending a day at the beach with ungodly spots all over your face and ears and back and shoulders.
Elizabeth in particular, contrary to the heroic soft-lit portrayal of her you see in the two "Elizabeth" movies, was one supreme bitch when it came to Irish. While trying to subdue Ireland, Elizabeth ordered the English to use scorched-earth tactics, burning the land and slaughtering man, woman and child. This caused widespead famine and countless thousands died from starvation alone. 
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It's much worse than the blight being imported from America. Originally Ireland had over 200 species of potatoes. The British didn't like this because they were different colors, textures, flavors and required different cooking times etc. All potato breeds were wiped out but one, and this is why the blight killed most of the potatoes instead of just affecting a dozen or so susceptible breeds. In the same spirit we have corn that is all the same color and size and needs all kinds of chemicals to grow.
this was hilarious, you are fully forgiven for making fun of my people! my grandfather always used to say the same thing anyway. oh, and EnemyBelow? you need to start reading books deary. i know that sounds a bit out-there, but you'll find that A) not every word in a sentence has to be capitalised, and B) your facts are not so much facts as, i dunno...bullshit. adieu!
The thing abouy the 191 rising was that it was originally meant to be a country wide rebellion but the I rish volunteers pulled out after a document that said the British were planning to disarm them was infact a forgery by the irb(the crowd who were fighting in Dublin later became the IRA)to bring them into the rising then the Irish luck struck when a ship carrying weapons from Germany so the Irb decided to go ahead anyway despite knowing they had no hope of success outnumbered and outgunned they still fought the leaders of the rising were execcuted causing the whole country to rise up behinfd Micheal Collins eventually resulting in the Republic of Ireland
TheEnemyBelow, stop f*****g capitalizing the first letter of every word in your stupid rant. It makes you look retarded. I'm Scot-Irish and I don't make myself look like an idiot by ignoring what I was taught in second grade. Seriously.
what you don't understand is that when things are going badly for us we are secretly happy. now that we are in the middle of a recession we are happier than we ever were when we were rich
@CorruptUser
Yes it is, it's just part of the United Kingdom. It's just as much of a country as England, Wales, and Northern Ireland
Actually the way that readheads originated is from the Vikings, they were the only original redheads and spread the gene around Ireland and the rest of Britian by raping so many women on their voilent rampages. So maybe that's where all the whore/bad temper rumors came from, because they were descendants of the much-hated Vikings?
I for one have nothing against the fantapants population.
Actually,the British Kicked Poor Lowland Scots Off Their Land and Sent Em'To Ireland To Kick The Catholic Irish Off Their Land!!
Then,England Kicked The Protestant Scots Off Their Land in Ireland
and Sent Em'To America!!!
Gues What Though??The Ulster Scots Called Themselves Scots-Irish and Went Up Into The Hills and Fought The British In Hit and Run Style Assaults!!!
Well Of course,The French;Spanish and Dutch Helped With Troops and Money!!
But Still,The Scots-Irish in The Mountains Of The Carolinas;Georgia;Virginia;Tennessee and Kentucky Certainly Helped!!!
It Pissed The British Off so Much,They Referred To Us as"Hillbillies"!!!
And Quite a Number Of Americans Are(Or Were)Scots-Irish Like Daniel Boone;
Davy Crockett;Sam Houston;Thomas Johnathon"Stonewall"Jackson;Teddy Roosevelt(On His Mom's Side);John McCain;Audie Murphy and Senator James Webb!!|
Not to mention George"Ol'Blood&Guts"Patton;Reba McEntire;Loretta Lynn;
John Wayne;Jimmy Stewart;Johnny Cash and Robert Mitchum!(
(Plus Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus,Although We Really Don't Care To Admit It!!).
"If All Else Fails,I Will Go To The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
There,In The Shannandoah Valley With The Help Of The Scots-Irish,There I Will Make My Final Stand."-George Washington.
FYI:Sean Hannity AND Bill O'Reilly, The Scots-Irish Protestants Can Kick Your Scrawny Little Irish Catholics Asses Eight Ways To Sunday!!!
So Just Keep Sucking Rupert Murdoch's Aussie Scottish c**k and Be Quiet!!!
Did anyone else notice the irony that the last paragraph mentioned how well the Irish economy was doing, but that it would later f**k up?
Ireland has been hit the worst out of any of the countries of Europe from the recession. f*****g snap!
this article sums up why we irish drink so much!very funny.
not to put a downer on it, but id like to point out that the 1916 rising was never planned to succeed.
all of the leaders knew theyd be killed, but since there was revolution in every generation before them, they decided to stage the rising to gain support for independance.among ordinary irish people as much as internationally.
thats why today, the easter rising is held in higher regard historically than the actual war of independence in the 1920s that finally got britain out of ireland (almost)
still go raibh mile maith agat for the article, ta se go h-aontach! :-)
Good article, had me laughing AND it was informative, kinda 4got about the whole troubles era tho, but I suppose a section on it would be a bit too risky as it hasn't really ended yet, and trolls would start breeding so fast in the comments it'd look like Middle Earth.
As the mother of a lovely redheaded child, I can say that it is MY LUCK to have such a great kid. From the strangers that rubbed his cute little redhead for luck to our family members that take pride in pointing him out in a crowd, my boy is definately unique.
Yes, I do call him my special little 'Ginger Child' and thanx to South Park, he find this amusing... but being different and singled out has made him a stronger person & he has a great sense of humor about his luck. He says that everygirl that touches his head is LUCKY (as a Mom, I find this embarrasing but....) I love redhair, and our Irish heritage, and I can't wait to see my redheaded grandbabies.... I'm glad to have given him that rarely inherited gene that just keeps on rearing it 'ugly', stubborn, humourous, industrious, worldwide-valuable redhead! Someday, we'll be as rare as proper English grammar... ;o}
A friend of mine was once in Thailand rooming with a Scotsman and an Irishman and they always gave him s**t about being a Yankee heathen. One night while drinking, he shot back to the Scotsman, 'Yeah, well at least we had the sense to kick the Brits out of our country,' and this set the Irish guy rolling. My buddy turned to the Irishman and said, 'Oh, you think that's funny? What I meant to say was we kicked them -all the way- out.'
Err...Scotland has more redheads than Ireland.
But then again, Scotland isn't a country. Technically.
Wolfe Tone actually took about a week to die from the cut throat. Wiki:
On 10 November 1798, he was found guilty and was sentenced to be hanged on 12 November. Before this sentence was carried out, he attempted suicide by slitting his throat. The story goes that he was initially saved when the wound was sealed with a bandage, and he was told if he tried to talk the wound would open and he'd bleed to death. He responded with the statement 'so be it'. He died on 19 November 1798
Wow. What a great idea for an article (if only John Belushi hadn't done it - and done it better - on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update over thirty years ago).
When Wolfe Tone cut his throat he bled to death over some insane amount of time.
9-10 hours or something seriously fucked up like that.
Where is that Boydo? f**k I've never heard of the place!!
And Yarp you said it in one boy!! At least you know the craic with the english (doesn't even deserve a capital E)!!
brain boru knocked the s**t out of the vikings at clontarf, and we got our revenge on the English in the 20's, but when Collin's spauds killed alot of british spies,they shot alot of civilains in croke park and when we ambushed their black and tans, they burned down Cork, so you can see the crowd the irish have to deal with
but hey let bygones be bygones if you don't have bad blood with your neighbours who are yeh... canada! ah ha ha ha
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I just wanted to defend my people (and i mean I'm sitting in Dublin right now and am from here!) about the many different risings we had, now yourselves in America did a great job, you beat back the union jack with some serious bad-assery but still you had the French and the entire Atlantic ocean on your side, with more men and no means of immediate reinforcement you were bound to beat the British but we had, like in 1916, 1200 men and a sea the size of Bill Murray's pool separating us, so of course it would take a few go's. Not to mention in the end we used political means rather than physically attacking them to get our freedom.