My Ireland

[gothwalk]

Alright. There are a bunch of posts wandering around containing "common knowledge" questions about various countries. These appear to have originated somewhere in the black morass that is fanfic-meta-fandom. A lot of people appear to be missing the point. The point goes like this: each person's experience of any place is subjective. I've read some of the ones about Ireland, and I'm amused, though not surprised, that they don't describe the Ireland I know, or knew growing up. Nor, in many cases, could I answer the questions being asked.

I don't live in Ireland anymore; I happen to reside in Dublin, which isn't the Ireland I grew up in, and further, I live in a world of my own creation and commute to work on a global network of computers. Here, however, is my set of "common knowledge" questions, from where I was brought up, Protestant in north Wexford in the 80s and 90s.


1) How far up is the River Slaney tidal?

2) What's the best place to stand outside Bunclody to get a lift headed northwards?

3) What is St. Enda's, and why would anyone tell you to go there?

4) Ib dug sluggin', aw? What did I just ask you?

5) If someone wants to scon you, what precisely do they want?

6) Nirvana, or Pearl Jam?

7) What wood is a camán made from?

8) Kris Kros'll make you... ?

9) Have you got a spandex hyperwiper?

10) What were/are the On Yoke and the Hydro (spelling optional on the former, I never saw it written down)?

11) Name the song: Yo no soy marinero, Soy capitan

12) What is the theme song of the Boys Brigade? (hint; Presbyterian hymn)


Many of those are questions to which not knowing the answer would have been embarrassing. In some cases, mortifying.

Comments

[bookgirlwa.livejournal.com]

5) If someone wants to scon you, what precisely do they want?

To head butt you

8) Kris Kros'll make you... ?

Jump! Jump!
(I cannot *believe* I know that - there is some very useless information cluttering up my brain...)

[spod.livejournal.com]

"5) If someone wants to scon you, what precisely do they want?"

To head butt you

Really?? In my part of the sticks, not that far from Drews, it meant something quite different...

[betsvc.livejournal.com]

Sconing was shifting/getting off/French kissing in the Kilkenny area.
It has made for a difficult life pronouncing the word 'scone', as in the afternoon tea staple.
Embarrassingly I only know (or think I know) the answer to about 4. I didn't grow up that far from Bunclody...

[sshi.livejournal.com]

Ha, without resorting to google or a time machine, I can tell you the answer to 8 and 11, or at least sing the rest of La Bamba at you in a raucous and out-of-tune fashion, although without the accompaniment of wooden desk-tops being rhythmically bashed down :>

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Dude. I refer to gaming, MMOs in particular, as a black morass on an ongoing basis, and that's my major hobby. It's shorthand for "impenetrable to outsiders and complex even for insiders". There's nothing negative in it at all. Hell, I refer to my own game notes as a black morass, and you've heard that in conversation. And believe me, I do not think bad things about my game notes.

You have to admit that a discussion stemming from a discussion stemming from a comment that someone made about a particular event being arranged inconveniently for people of their particular religion and/or culture is... well into obscure.

My point on the latter is that pointing out that one group's common knowledge is not another is kind of pointless unless you also take into account the fact that one person's common knowledge is not the same as another's. As, I think, is amply illustrated by your taking my "black morass" term as a negative, or my inability to identify what was meant by "black 47" without resorting to Google.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

The difference is that as far as fanfic is concerned, you're an outsider.

Really? I've read it, written it, participated in the X-files ship/non-ship discussions way back when the Foundation was a CC list, proofread, criticised, defended writers from unjustified criticism, and so on. I started to stay quiet about it long before I started blogging, because the clannishness was getting to me, but I wouldn't describe myself as an outsider. The HP fanfic often made me wish I was. Maybe I am by now, I don't know.

I do expect you not to mock and belittle it. You don't understand it well enough to make that kind of joke without hurting me.

I am not mocking it, nor belittling it; I use the phrase which you are seeing as that as a neutral adjective. Since you've voiced your objection to it, I won't use it any more - that's a basic courtesy, I think.

metalrabbit had a T-shirt years ago, in connection with a long-defunct UK gaming magazine, which said "Arcane" on the front, and "Obscure and difficult to understand" on the back. That's the quality I'm referring to there, and I apply it to almost anything non-simple-and-obvious up to and including the Dublin Bus timetables.

Common knowledge is common by definition.

Sure. But the groups to which it is common are much smaller than nations, and much smaller than even the rural/Dublin, Protestant/Catholic divide, which is what I'm trying to point out. Your Ireland was Ranelagh with a side order of Historian. Mine was Bunclody with a side order of Convent School. Someone raised Protestant in Co. Sligo will have almost no overlap with my list. I'm saying that the absolute most anyone can provide as common knowledge is "here is what I think is obvious, and what the people I grew up probably think is obvious".

I think trying to represent anything like that on a national, even a cultural or local scale, is going to result in misrepresentation every bit as bad and jarring as having Rose Tyler say "out of the ballpark", or having Krycek refer to a Rangers/Celtic rivalry.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. Sometimes they're larger

Fair point, of course; the Coca Cola logo is more widely known than the Christian cross, according to at least one article in Salon or the like.

Will I be kicked for being really pedantic if I say I thought the "one for everyone in the audience" thing was a Sprucemoose thing, because I've only ever heard it from olethros? Now that you mention it's a Late Late Show phrase, something is swimming up from the back of my mind, but it would never have occurred to me that that was an Irish thing.

Peig Sayers is not Ranelagh-specific, but it's not as global (heh) as it's thought to be; I didn't encounter it until a mature student I knew in TCD bemoaned it, and was stunned that neither I nor about 70% of his classmates had heard of it.

And I wasn't aware of Black-47-the-band until Googling, but will be looking into them. Are they musical relatives of Flogging Molly?

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

No, I assumed the "one for everyone..." reference was much smaller, rather than bigger, and confined to olethros' and other Sprucemoose folks.

I'll give you back that Pirate CD next... Friday, isn't it?

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

However, that said, if you find the term offensive, I'll obviously do my best not to use it to you.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

You're aware that cartographer thinks gamers are freaks, right? She'll profess it to anyone who asks. Except she continues to hang out with a whole bunch of gamers, and I'm pretty sure none of us believe her. This is not an inside/outside thing; she's not, and at this stage likely never will be a gamer.

A guy here in work is into hip-hop. We try to be kind to him, because, y'know, there's clearly something not quite working there (the rest of us listen to varying sub-genres of rock and metal).

You can take up yodelling, if you want, get heavily into crochet, dye your hair black and start to call yourself Perdita, insist that they are listening to your thoughts by radio, or whatever, and we will not respect you or like you one iota less. It's you we like, not your interests.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Woah, hang on. I cannot keep track of all the interests of all my friends in order to not say things about their hobbies that might hurt their feelings; I have to depend on their knowledge of me to understand that I am not running them down, and that in most cases, I am not running their hobbies down.

Further, I can say to someone we both know (not naming names, for obvious reasons), "but you wear dresses!" and he will take that in exactly the spirit in which I intend it. That is exactly the same as someone saying "but you write slash!" to you, or someone else saying "but you play fecky little men!" to me - except that it's a considerably more integral and important thing to him than slash or RPGs could ever be to either of us. I don't take offence, neither does he, and nobody would ever think that you would either.

This isn't insensitivity, it's the normal give and take of a conversation between two or more people who are confident in their friendship.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I can make that adjustment easily, and have done so in other contexts and for other people. Point me at the bits you need changed, and I'll change them.

But a lot of people are going to be very confused - and possibly hurt themselves - by it, so be cautious who you do tell off in that manner. You're going to be contravening a number of the unwritten rules of (fairly broad, I think) Irish conversational convention, particularly the area that leads to "Ye filthy bollix!" as an affectionate greeting.

[cartographer.livejournal.com]

You're a -gamer-? Fuuuuck. Hey did you guys know he w.. you're gamers too? Hang on, what? You're all gamers? All of you? NOOO! NO, CHRIST, NO! IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!!

*flees*

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

I had a moment of that today, my experience of listening to the Saw Doctors is different to a lot of other people. The sound of familiar accents made me think fondly of Galway and how much I miss it. The same with listening to Whole of the Moon by Waterboys. For me it's an Inter Cert experience - 1985. Other people have a different knowledge of that song.

My experience of Ireland and the Irish is sometimes so completely different to other people that I find it sometimes a bit scary. I came from a rural background where it was assumed that if you didn't go to college you had another plan for further education, where the leaving cert was the norm. It was so strange to meet the attitude in Adamstown that I was being strange by getting a college degree (me being female and all).

I know 7, 8 & 11.

[brucius.livejournal.com]

I reckon I know about half of them.

Not sure about St. Enda's or the spandex hyperwire and though I was in the boys brigade I haven't the foggiest about the theme song.