It’s International Day of Happiness today so with that in mind, we decided to look at what makes the Irish happy.
1. Ireland excelling at sport
We all witnessed the scenes of elation last weekend when Ireland won the Six Nations in Paris. The whole country celebrated wildly and we love nothing more than being on the international stage and doing well. Katie Taylor brought the country to a standstill when she won her gold medal at the London Olympics. Our national football team has often been credited with the Celtic Tiger. The World Cup campaigns of 1990 and 1994 heralded a new dawn for Ireland both sportingly and economically.
Basically, if Ireland are involved in a sport, no matter what, we will support them. Look at our cricket team. They are seen as plucky underdogs on the world cricketing scene, yet, when we beat old foes England in the 2011 World Cup (pic below), we became a nation of cricket enthusiasts. Everyone was talking LBWs, stumps and maidens. Nobody knew what they were talking about, but we were happy. When it comes to sport, we are a patriotic bunch.
2. Warm sunny weather
We are weather obsessed in this country. It dominates conversations everywhere. When the sun is shining and we feel actual warmth, there is no happier place to be. The sun is beaming down, everyone has a spring in their step and people are having barbecues non-stop. Last summer was a particularly good summer with not one, but two extended heatwaves. We went to work in our shorts and t-shirts, we went to the parks and beaches, we had barbecues, we became very European with our propensity to sit in our droves outside pubs and restaurants. If you weren’t eating al fresco, you were doing it wrong. The sun is a very powerful force in this country, let’s hope this summer makes us just as happy as last year.
3. Celebrities telling us that we are their favourite
We go bonkers when a big A-list celebrity visits our little island. Beyonce was here recently and every picture of her walking around Dublin, be it the zoo or anywhere else, was shared with great passion on social media. Every time a world famous celebrity appears on a chat show here, one of the first questions they are asked is usually along the lines of ‘So, do you love Ireland more than anywhere else? Like, aren’t we just a great bunch altogether? Do you like a pint of the black stuff? Tell me, what is it exactly that you love most about us Irish?’ We took great pride in telling the world that President Obama (pic below) had Irish ancestry. If any celebrity worth their salt says something positive about Ireland, there is almost a clamour for them to be given the freedom of the country!
4. Cup of tea
The simple cup of tea. Never underestimate the magical powers of this hot beverage. It’s used as a cure for many things. It will cure what ails you. You’re feeling a bit down, someone offers you a cup of tea and suddenly things aren’t looking too bad at all. Your wife has just left you to run off with the milkman (you still need him onside for the tea), no matter, stick on the kettle, make yourself a cup of tea and lo and behold, the positivity starts to flood back. It’s happy juice for the Irish. There’s an argument to be made to have Putin and the Ukrainian leaders sit down for a chat with a nice cup of tea. We reckon the crisis would be averted and everything would come up smelling rosy.
5. Begrudgery
We don’t like people getting ahead of themselves in this country. It’s part of our heritage to begrudge those doing a little better than ourselves. It doesn’t matter if they have earned it, it doesn’t matter if they are entitled to it, what matters to us is that they fail sometime in the future. When that happens, we love to say ‘Told you so’ and our bellies are filled with contentment and smugness.
The biggest example of this was when we had the economic crash. When the crash occurred there were lots of people who just couldn’t wait to tell anyone who would listen that ‘I knew that was going to happen, been saying it for years.’
6. Free Stuff
The Irish people love nothing more than getting stuff for free. It doesn’t matter about the quality or who you had to stamp on to get it, the fact remains that you got it for free and that is a feeling like no other. The free samples of food given out in supermarkets usually has a queue as long as any at any one of their checkouts. Our neighbours will call in to say that their new satellite dish picks up every single TV channel on the planet, but the best thing is…..it’s FREE!!!!It’s no wonder the Irish have emigrated to the US in their millions over the years, it’s the self-proclaimed Land of the Free!
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
