My experience of a goodbye in Ireland involves announcing you are leaving, then proceed to have another conversation in the doorway for a further hour.
Y'know yer one who lives around the corner from the shop? The one whose mam worked in the school where yer cousins went? He worked for yer uncle for a month or so?
....
It's always a flat "(s)he's dead", never anything else. "Ohhh you know your auntie Maureen, always dancing at parties? She's dead. Yep, heart attack out of nowhere."
Watching my mother meet up with her family is always good.
YES. Just matter of fact, like. Usually followed by an "ah, pity".
My BF is Canadian (I'm first gen Canadian with Irish parents), and bringing him over to Ireland, or to any family events in Canada, is weird for him. He can't get over how much we talk about death. The bereavement notices on the radio really disturbed him.
My mom likes to give me the "highlight reel" as she calls it. She just lists off the people I might know who died in the past 2 weeks, and then talks about who's not well for a while so I have an idea of what next weeks' highlight reel might look like.
I feel like the Irish trade mass cards like it's a game. Like Magic: the Gathering, but Irish: the Wakening.
Ohh, you literally do get tiny little death cards, slightly smaller than a debit card. You typically have a picture of the deceased, a little poem or prayer and generally a picture of Mary, Jesus or similar. They are sent out to family members and such upon death. It's kinda morbidly funny. Could be a bit archaic now though, I live in the UK and I feel like I am cheating when I claim to be Irish as I am only half!
I currently have one of my mam in my phone. My granny has a row of them of the people who have passed that she was close to all lined up at the bottom of her mirror.
Ahhh all my family does this. People thought I was so weird at college for having mass cards on my mirror lol. (I'm 2nd generation American but my family has clung to all their little Irishisms.)
I don't think it ever goes away. I'm like 4th/5th gen, and we do the cards at funerals, I usually tuck them into a picture frame. I've got 5 already this year (not a great year, unfortunately). I'm really only Catholic for weddings and funerals, but it's one of my favorite traditions - it's a lovely little reminder of the people you cared about. Do Protestants not do this?
I also get the rundown on everyone I might ever have heard of who died, not just from my mom but from all the aunts as well. It's not a family party until 6 old women have told you that Kelly, not your cousin Kelly, but your other cousin, Mike's girl? You remember Mike, he's your great uncle Danny's youngest son, lives in PA. You probably met him at young Dennis's wedding. Yeah, his daughter. She's dead.
I don't know if it's because of the many people with Irish heritage in the state, but Minnesota has this too, but we call it the "Minnesota Goodbye" where we say we are leaving, say goodbye to everyone and have a conversation as we are literally walking out of the door and taking another at least 20 minutes with that conversation before we actually leave the place. Apparently just fucking leaving is "insincere".
I guess that tradition takes a few generations to die, because my Irish/German -American grandma does this. If only I had a dollar for every blank stare my mom's given her in return...
"Yep, see ya, I'll talk to ya later, yep, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, yep, I'm going now, haha yeah, see ya, good night, yeah that's all the craic, yep, yep, good bye."
Exactly! My wife is Irish, when we're at family gatherings I've learned that I don't even have to get up when she says that we're leaving, it's more of a 'time for one last round of conversations with everyone'.
This is why I sometimes do an Irish Exit. I find it weird living in England and I tell people I'm leaving and they're okay with it. In England: "no problem dude, I might go soon too."
In Ireland: "ah Seán you're no craic, you'll stay for one more" so in the end you need to duck out.
That's pretty similar to Indian. Except the host constantly asks you to stay for another cup of tea. No matter what time you leave. There's always one more cup of tea!
My experience with the Irish good-bye generally consists of a statesman declaring one last drink and then you'll leave, and then waking up extremely
Hungover and wondering how you got home.
My father would fit in quite well, then. He's the only person I know where for him, "we should get going now," means, "in an hour, we're really gonna have to leave."
This is how my wife's family works. Also, you can't leave without saying goodbye to everyone. Nowadays, I initiate the leaving sequence a half-hour before I actually want to leave.
That was torture as a kid and you're dying to go home then another long ass chat starts all over again and you kinda just hover on the outside of the conversation hoping your parents got the message.
This is very Indian too. I'd be at a cousin's place playing Smash Bros or something and my parents would call out to me to say we were leaving. So I call back 5 minutes to finish our game and they say no, now. I come down and then have to wait in the doorway for an age and a half as their convo just keeps going.
I thought this was "The Mom Goodbye" every time as a child my mom would chat for hours on the phone, then her girlfriends would come over and they'd chat for hours in the kitchen. Then it was time to say goodbye and they'd chat another hour in the entryway. Then a half hour on the porch. Then ten minutes at the car.
1.2k
u/TREBILCOCK Jul 13 '15
My experience of a goodbye in Ireland involves announcing you are leaving, then proceed to have another conversation in the doorway for a further hour.