With St Patrick’s Day around the corner, we ask comedian Janice Phayre what being Irish means to her...
“To me being Irish sometimes means you feel like you are wearing a mask, you look the same as everyone else but there are some fundamental differences.
"Linguistically — being ‘bold’ doesn’t mean being brave and ‘grand’ is just alright and not grand like it sounds like it should be.
"Going flahoolock is a great thing but it can be regretted and generally all the words that you would consider cursing, we consider punctuation.
"Culturally, we don’t expect to be thrown out of a pub at 11.30, we especially don’t like being asked to drink-up at 11.05 when you have ‘just sold us this pint and chaser!’
"We think it’s fine to do anything at all as long as you were drunk while you did it, and expect you to find it funny and amusing.
"But we will always say thank you if you open the door for us and we will wave if you let us through in the car and we will always stand up for an old person on a bus even if we have been very bold and had a grand night going flahoolock and it takes us a half an hour to do so.
"So Happy St Patrick’s Day, I hope it’s grand, bold and flahoolock!”
