An Irishman’s Diary – A history of Ireland in 100 whinges and whingers

1. Ochón agus ochón ó.

2. The poor mouth.

3. Will the rain ever stop?

4. Mayo God Help Us.

5. Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

6. The Liveline is open.

7. Most oppressed people ever.

8. Perfidious Albion.

9. Giraldus Cambrensis.

10. "This people is, then, a barbarous people, literally barbarous". (Cambrensis: Topographica Hibernica, 1188)

11. "Judged according to modern ideas, they are uncultivated, not only in […] dress, but also in their flowing hair and beards". (ibid)

12. “All their habits are the habits of barbarians”. (ditto)

13. “Since conventions are formed from living together in society, and since they are so removed in these distant parts from […] well-behaved and law-abiding people, they know only of the barbarous habits in which they were born”.

14. “Their natural qualities are excellent.  But almost everything acquired is deplorable.” (Still Cambrensis)

15. Oh Paddy dear and did you hear/The news that’s goin’ round?

16. The Shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground.

17. She’s the most distressful country that every yet was seen.

18. For they’re hanging men and women for the wearin’ of the green.

19. “A fit house for an outlaw” (Edmund Spenser, on “The Irish Mantle”, 1596)

20. “A meet bed for a rebel”. (ibid)

21. “An apt cloak for a thief”. (ditto)

22. “[He] under it covereth himself from the wrath of heaven”. (ditto)

23. “Under it he can cleanly convey any fit pillage that cometh handsomely in his way.” (ditto)

24. “Disposed to mischief and villainy [he may] go privily, armed without suspicion”. (ditto)

25. Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone/It’s with O’Leary, etc

26. The old sow that eats her farrow.

27. You have disgraced yourselves again.

28. I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave.

29. “And surely for a bad housewife it is no less convenient”. (Spenser again, still on the mantle)

30. “For some of them […] it is half a wardrobe”. (ibid)

31. “Her cloak and safeguard, and also a coverlet for her lewd exercise”. (ditto)

32. “Yea, and when her bastard is born it serves instead of all her swaddling clothes”. (ditto again)

33. Behold me now/And my face to the wall/Playing Music/Unto empty pockets.

34. What have I now, said the fine old woman?

35. Churchill on Irish neutrality.

36. Dev in reply.

37. “Among the countless blessings I thank God for, my failure to find a house in Ireland comes first”. (Evelyn Waugh, 1952)

38. “Unless one is mad or fox-hunting there is nothing to draw one”. (ditto)

39. “The houses […] are very shoddy in building and they none of them have servants’ bedrooms”. (ditto)

40. “The peasants are malevolent”. (Waugh, contd)

41. “All their smiles are false as hell”.

42. “Their priests are very suitable for them”.

43. “No coal at all”. (Still Waugh)

44. “Awful incompetence everywhere”.

45. “No native capable of doing the simplest job properly”. (That’s enough Waugh - Ed)

46. O Stony grey soil of Monaghan (cont’d)

47. “In 1939 I came to Dublin. It was the biggest mistake of my life.” (Patrick Kavanagh)

48. “Ye can have Boland, but ye can’t have Fianna Fail.”

49. “If you had the luck of the Irish/You’d be sorry and wish you were dead”. (John Lennon)

50. “You should have the luck of the Irish/And you’d wish you was English instead”. (ditto).

51. A thundering disgrace.

52. These people are blow-ins.  As far as I’m concerned they can blow out or blow up.

53. Certain sections of the Dublin media.

54. My heart is low.

55. My heart is so low.

56. As only a woman’s heart can be.

57. The Irish are the blacks of Europe. (Jimmy Rabbite jnr)

58. Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. (ditto)

59. Northsiders are the blacks of Dublin. (ditto)

60. So say it once, say it loud – I’m black and I’m proud.

61. Wife-swopping sodomites.

62. Hello divorce, goodbye Daddy.

63. Give the ref a jersey.

64. Are you blind, umpire?

65. Take it yerself, linesman.

66. There’s two c**ts on that pitch, and the referee is both of them.

67. Páidí on Kerry supporters.

68. “The roughest kind of fucking animals you could ever deal with”.

69. Geldof’s “Banana Republic”.

70. Morrissey: the collected works.

71. He was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows he’s miserable now.

72. You try running three houses on my salary and see how you get on.

73. “Fuck the peace process”.

74. Drumcree.

75. Rip-off Ireland.

76. “You’re a waffler”.

77. Cribbin’ and moanin’.

78. Creepin’ Jesuses.

79. I don’t know why they don’t all go and commit suicide.

80. Stupid oul’ pencils.

81. Trying to get answers out of the Taoiseach is like playing handball against a haystack.

82. The Fields of Athenry.

83. The pitch was like a carpark.

84. We had no balls for the five-a-side.

85. I love playing for my country but my sanity is more important.

86. Denis O’Brien and the tribunal.

87. Talk to Joe.

88. “Constant Markievicz gave up his life to enable us to eradicate suppression”. (cont’d)

89. Blaming Nigerians.

90. “Puke football”.

91. The Thierry Henry incident.

92. “I’ve never understood why Labour get 19 per cent of the vote but 90 per cent of the blame.”

93. It’s just a bog-standard house.

94. “People went mad borrowing”.

95. Seagulls losing the run of themselves.

96. The Web Summit’s farewell to Dublin.

97. Enda in Mayo.

98. The man with the clapped-out Merc.

99. Sinn Féin’s response to the man with the clapped-out Merc.

100. “The most boring election campaign ever.”