Tag Archives: Irish

“May Your Giving Hand Never Fail”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Illinois
Performance Date: April 19, 2015
Primary Language: English

(in an Irish accent, imitating her Papa’s voice) “May your giving hand never fail.”

My Papa said this all the time and people didn’t really know what to do with it. I think he just said it to anyone who was generous, but like waitresses especially. So, they weren’t really being generous, they were just…doing their job.

I guess there was this one waitress, I wasn’t there this time, but she was like, “What’d you say?” and uh, my dad had to explain and she was like “I like that, I’m gonna start using it!”

I don’t know where he got it from, but he said it whenever he told me this story about this woman, and he describes her as a woman with a “good giving hand”.

So Papa, he was a Pace bus driver, so you know how they kind of have to stick to a schedule? Well this one day, it was the dead of winter, he saw this nun running after the bus and he just decided to wait for her. And she was flabbergasted he waited for her. And (in Irish accent again) he said, “Aw yeah, it’s too cold to be waitin’ for another bus” and she was so so thankful for him doing that that she ended up telling the hospital she worked at to let him have breakfast there everyday. He dropped her off and she said wait right here and ran in and I guess asked them and came out and told him to come for breakfast before his shift…  and so he did. For years, he just started his morning there everyday with free breakfast (laughs). She probably didn’t think he would actually take her up on it.

And every time he told it to me he would say “oh yes, she had a good giving hand”.

context of the performance:

The informant described this proverb and the following story in a one on one conversation, when asked if she had any family proverbs. She always does a very good Irish accent impression for her grandfather, who came to the United States from Ireland as an adult. He passed away a few months before this collection, so it was definitely a little nostalgic, as well.

thoughts on the performance:

It is always interesting how strangers respond to older people and their sayings, especially those with accents. It was hard to capture in writing, but when the informant described the waitresses reaction, she was sort of wary of her grandpa and almost rude in her response, until her dad clarified it for him. Especially the way the informant says it, in the vernacular of her grandfather, this proverb definitely sounds like a number of similar Irish blessings I have heard before.

Christmas Casserole

Nationality: Irish/American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Las Vegas
Performance Date: 04/24/15
Primary Language: English
Language: none

The informant is an 18-year old college freshman at USC majoring in environmental studies and geology. She is of Irish and English descent, and when she is not at USC lives in Las Vegas with her parents and two siblings. I asked her about what her family does to celebrate Christmas. She said although her family is “not very religious,” they do have a Christmas ritual they do each year.

 

Informant: “I can tell you what I do for Christmas, I guess. So, we always, in the morning…Well, the night before we have to make a casserole. I know it sounds disgusting.

Interviewer: “What’s in the casserole?”

Informant: “I can ask my mom for the recipe.” [Recipe provided beneath interview.]

Interviewer: “Did she learn it from anyone, or was it a recipe from a book?”

Informant: “Both my parents learned it from their parents. We have to make the casserole the night before. And so then in the morning, we’ll wake up…so all the kids have to stay upstairs and we have this landing you can look over, but we aren’t allowed to look over it or go downstairs until my dad has his video camera and then he records us all coming down the stairs together. We go in a circle after our presents are sorted and one person opens and then the next, etc. We go through the whole thing until everyone is done, and one of my parents will put the egg casserole in. Once it’s ready, we eat that, and we just go and play with our presents. It’s so good, it’s like breakfast food, called egg casserole. It’s so good.”

 

 

“Recipe:

6 eggs

2 pieces of bread (need to rip apart in small bite sized pieces)

1 pound of hot sausage

1 cup of mile

2 pinches of salt

2 pinches of pepper

Dry mustard (No exact amount, but around the same amount as the salt and pepper)

 

Brown the sausage. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

 

Place in baking dish over night.

 

Next morning—preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook for 45 minutes. It might need an extra 15 mins. Closer to one hour.”

 

Thoughts:

My informant told me that it was a casserole passed down to her mom, as opposed to some other treat, because in Ireland—where her family is from (my informant described herself as “very Irish”)—they were very poor and as there was a lack of food, casseroles were something that could be thrown together using whatever they had. I thought it was super interesting that my informant perked up when she talked about he casserole and said multiple times how good it was. Food is fuel, but it is much more to people. There are emotional connections to food—memories of specific times or holidays or family members associated with certain foods—and that is passed down through families from one generation to the next is one example of this importance.

Irish Proverb

Nationality: U.S. American, Italian and Irish Heritage
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Massachusetts
Performance Date: 3/18/15
Primary Language: English

Context:

The informant and I were having a conversation in my apartment, and the topic of our families was brought up. I asked him if his parents or relatives had shared any interesting stories or sayings with him, and he shared this proverb with me.

Interview Transcript:

Informant: I mean, this is just… uh, like a saying, so it’s quite short. Um, but one Irish uh… okay, one Irish saying that I really like is: “The mouth often is what breaks the nose.” Should I maybe explain some of it?

Collector: Yes.

Informant: The idea is that, uh, the reason why someone might get into a fight and then have their nose broken is because of running their mouth. Um, actually, it’s kind of interesting that a lot of Irish proverbs have to do with this kind of loose speaking, like, maybe from drinking. Uh… being careful about that.

Me: So who did you hear this from?

Informant: I think from my… Well… My mother is less aware of these things than my grandmother. Yeah, um… She often… Um… We’d see her during different holidays. Things like that. She would also have like, you know, writing cards for us and write some poetry, and she would have like a little thing that she would say. And it would be just a little funny thing.

Analysis:

This proverb espouses the idea that one should think carefully before speaking, so as to avoid saying something regrettable or angering somebody. The informant’s explanation of the proverb’s meaning plays off of the stereotype that Irish people drink a lot of alcohol and therefore need to be cautioned against behaving recklessly while drunk.

An Irishman Walks Into a Bar

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/24/14
Primary Language: English

This informant grew up in San Diego, CA.  He is a freshman business student at USC.  I asked him to tell me his best folk joke he had and this is the first one he thought of.

One day an Irishman walks into a bar and orders two pints of Guinness.  The bartender denies the man, explaining that he only serves one drink per person at a time. 

The Irishman replies, “The second drink isn’t for me, it’s for my brother.  See, we both grew up on our family farm in Ireland and every day we used to hit the local pub after work and get a pint together.  One day my father passed away and left us the farm, but eventually the farm could no longer support the both of us.  Being the younger son, I decided to move to America to try my hand at fame and riches.  But before I left we both promised each other to always continue drinking two pints at the local pub after work.” 

The bartender sympathizes with the Irishman’s story and pours him his two Guinness’s.  This goes on for a few weeks, until one day the Irishman comes in and only orders one drink. 

The barman says, “I don’t mean to intrude, but is your brother alright?” 

To which the Irishman replied, “O ya, he’s fine.  I just quit drinking.”

This joke is a variation of the ever popular “…walked into a bar” jokes.  It plays on the stereotype that Irish people love to drink.

Mound Parties

Nationality: Peruvian
Age: 22
Occupation: student
Residence: Lima, Peru
Performance Date: February 15, 2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

This is another story told to Marisol by a nanny who was from the Andean province of Ayacucho. The nanny told her that as a child, her relatives always warned her not to get close to parties or gatherings of people in the middle of the fields or on top of hills because these were there to take away wayward children, drunks and gluttons. She warned her that if she was out playing the hills and heard laughter and voices, she was to run away immediately and not get close to the table, no matter how delicious and abundant the meal or how inviting the people because if you ate any of the food or touched the guests, they would take you to the afterlife and the party would disappear and all that your family would find on the hill would be a rock.

This story serves to keep kids in line and keep them away from strangers and unknown places. It is a lot like the Irish tales of fairies. There is also the presence of a magical mound which can be found, most famously, in Irish fairy folklore.