Top ten myths about the Irish

Larger Text

Print

E-mail

28 Comments

Not all Irish women are tempestuous redheads

Tweet

9. The Irish are great storytellers
Well yes, and no. Whilst it’s true there are Irish people who can tell tales to delight or terrify you, they’re not all born with the gift. In fact the Irish have produced the woman that literary experts agree is the worst novelist who ever lived. Amanda McKittrick Ros was born in Ballynahinch, County Down in 1860 and according to The Oxford Companion to English Literature is “the greatest bad writer who ever lived.”

Amanda self-published her own series of novels in the late 1890’s and instantly won a devoted following, but the critics savaged her. McKittrick Ros faith in her own talent was undiminished however, and she replied by calling them variously: “bastard donkey-headed mites, clay-crabs of corruption, denunciating Arabs, evil-minded snapshots of spleen, talent-wipers of a wormy order.” Her revenge is that today we quote her, and not her detractors.

10. The Irish never forget
Not true. Ask Thierry Henry. After his handball at the qualifying France versus Ireland World Cup match, there are literally millions of Irish people desperately willing themselves to forget what he did. Their attempts to do so may be as insincere or short lived as Thierry’s apology, but give them some props for the effort.

Print

E-mail

Tweet