Galwagian Slang and New Arrivals

Our first guests have arrived. Sue and Tom made it to the West of Ireland. The boys are very excited that their Grandparents are staying with us. After sleeping for twelve hours on their first day they have both adjusted nicely.

I was hoping to post this before our first guests arrived, but as in Ireland, better late than never. Here is my lesson on speaking Galweigan vernacular:

Banger – Sausages, usually for breakfast
Rasher- Canadian Bacon (US), Back Bacon (Canada)
White/ Black Puddin’ – a meat substance with barley and seasonings in a tube form.

Chips- French Fries
Bap – Sandwich, usually served in a pub.
Easy Peelers – Clementine.
Crisps – Potato Chips also referred to as Taytos for the popular brand.
Squash – A delicious concentrated juice beverage diluted by the glass with water.
Messer – A trouble maker
Sultanas – Dried green grapes
Topper – Pencil Sharpener
HB - Pencil
Jumper - Sweater
Runners – Tennis Shoes
Wellies – Tall rubber boots
Banjaxed - Broken
Desperate – Bad, needs attention
Craic – Pronounced 'Crack', fun times
Queue – A waiting line; to get into a line
Deadly - Gorgeous
Brilliant - Wonderful
Knackered - Tired and frustrated
The Jacks - Public bathrooms
The Bog - Poorly kept Jacks

In the morning at our Renmore home the boys enjoy bangers, rashers and puddin’, while their Mum puts together their lunch’s of sultanas, easy peelers, crisps and baps. After breakfast the boys put on their scoil uniform jumpers (or track suit and runners if they have PE in the yard). They quickly fill their packs with their copies, topper and HBs. After sixty minutes in desperate traffic queues we leave them with a quick slan and remind them to avoid the messers. We then have five hours for housework, some lunchtime craic in a pub, and various work duties until it's time to collect them. By evening, the boys have us knackered and ready for bed.

Forty

Little Meg Melchior turned forty years old today. We called to wish her a happy mid-life, even though she's only recently entered her baby makin' years. She was also warned that her Irish birthday gift from Galway had been delayed at the US Customs' quarantine facility, but would be cleared within a week and forwarded to St. Paul. A bale of fresh hay will arrive prior to 'the package'.

In honor of Meg's big day, the Irish tune du jour is the metaphorical I Don't Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats (1979) - Bob Geldof's band from Dun Laoghaire in County Dublin. Happy 40th Birthday Mary Margaret. We love you.

Science Lavatory

Paul concluded his three week study of toilet paper dispenser neglect in the GMIT Life Sciences Building as a way to quantify the appalling condition of the college’s bathrooms. The study was adequately controlled and the sample population included six (of nine) randomly selected stalls from three (of five) randomly chosen men’s rooms in the building. Sampling events were randomly timed (during work hours) and occurred once per work day. Stalls were considered ‘empty’ if the dispenser was bereft of any tissue, and ‘full’ if at least one visit’s (for lack of a better term) worth of tissue was still available in the stall.

Results were as follows:

Sample events: n= 132
Total ‘empty’ events: 104 (79%)
Total ‘full’ events: 26 (19.5%)
Total ‘non-full but tissue depauperate’ events: 2 (1.5%)

The results clearly indicated that, with an effective empty rate of 80.5%, the chances of a male restroom user finding a toilet with adequate paper resources is a paltry one in five - ominous odds since each restroom only has three stalls. Combined with the intangible of periodic toilet seat thefts, and the emergency user is clearly vulnerable to the desperate unpleasantries of a TP deficient visit. In conclusion, this study strongly suggests that the typical GMIT building user appropriate an independent, and therefore more reliable, supply of bathroom tissue prior to use. Furthermore, due to the chronic olfactory assault faced when entering these facilities, it may well be advisable to go at home.

The accompanying photo from the author’s GMIT laboratory is included for a flavoring of both irony and absurdity. Please note the tag on the assembly.

County Kerry

Due to the inadequate portrayal of our weekend in County Kerry by the primary author, the rest of the Melchior clan has temporarily blog-jacked this site. This may become a more common occurrence if it continues to take until Thursday evening to report on the activities of the previous weekend. Don’t expect Joyce or Yeats, just the facts folks. Click on the photos to enlarge them!

We got an early start on Friday due to Theo’s short school week. I don’t think he has put in a full five day week since we arrived. We pulled Sam out early to hit the road; no one should drive the rural roads of Ireland at night. We arrived in Tralee at the “Grand Hotel” after our 3 hour drive - it’s like going to Naylon’s. The hotel had a three star rating and was quite honestly nicer than anything we have stayed in before. After consuming three large Irish breakfasts and one porridge we were off to explore the Dingle Peninsula.

Our first stop was pooh-poohed by our driver (something about going to the Netherlands later this Spring) - the largest windmill of its kind in Europe (21.3 meters high). The morning was beautiful so we stopped at a beach near the town of Camp. Theo found some razor clams and two full sea urchin shells, while Paul and Sam tossed the football around on the hard sand beach. We were very excited to see some stone ‘beehive’ huts, unfortunately our first stop was cut short by the gentleman in the ticket booth requiring two Euros each for us to go in his backyard and see the ancient ruins. Our patience paid off outside of Ballyferriter at the Gallurus Oratory, however. We ended our day at an unremarkable B&B in Killorglin.

The next morning we set off around the Ring of Kerry. Our destination for the day was Cahersiveen. We went directly to the Cahergal Fort. I saw a picture of it in one of the brochures we got at the Grand Hotel. The photo depicts a beautiful stone fort ruin filled with tourists. To our pleasant surprise, though, when we arrived the fort it was all ours. It will be interesting when we have to share our finds with tourists! It was an incredible site. The circular ring had small staircases up the sides of the walls with “cozy little benches” that Theo discovered at the top. You could walk up all sides and even the top of the ruin. Inside was a beehive structure that had lost its roof over the years. We read that it was inhabited by a family of wealth somewhere between 500 BC and 1000 AD.

We continued on to Waterville for a lunch break and a little “trinket” shopping. We ate at a wonderful pub “The Lobster”. We met the proprietor who hailed from New Jersey and had the laid-back Irish lifestyle down - it took us longer to get our bill paid and our take-out boxes than it did to order and eat. Our travels lead us to several wonderful spots for photos and a stretch. We are anxious to get back to the area as it is now our “favorite” part of Ireland.

The clan headed for the Kerry Coast last Friday, ancestral home of the Moore/Connor line of our family tree. We spent the night in Tralee at a nice little hotel, a la Fawlty Towers (complete with Manuel). We dined at a hole in the wall called Allegro, which had the best lasagna imaginable – a major feat in Ireland, which apparently has never heard of Italian sausage (the Bragnalos and Mezzengas in our life would not be able to cope). After we returned to our digs, Theo and Paul headed for The Pikeman, the pub attached to the hotel, for a nightcap. The former had neopolitan icecream while his daddy enjoyed a pint of Dublin’s finest nectar. Sue and Sam followed a bit later and we all enjoyed the company of the local patrons.

Saturday brought us out to the Dingle Peninsula. After sunshine in the morning, we dealt with rainfall most of the day. The landscape is so incredible, however, that little could dampen our spirits. We cut through the mountains via Connor Pass, stopped for lunch in Dingle Town, and spent time at remarkable beach at Slea Head. After a night in a cheap guesthouse in Kilorglin, we spent Sunday exploring the coast and hinterlands of the Iveragh Penninsula. The fabled Ring of Kerry circumscribes the Iveragh, and affords great views. The real treasure, however, is the drive on single-lane, trecherous roads through the center. Magnificent scenery. We were stymied by the local bovines who believed the road was theirs.

The way home brought us through Limerick, home of the Cranberries. Thus, we'll leave you today with Dreams - the quintessential song by Delores O'Riordan and her band.

Pancakes and Holy Ashes

It was nice to see Joe Biden sportin' an ashen forehead cross on TV yesterday. Love him though we do, it's hard not to see pandering written in the form of dirty thumbprints. Politics!

In related matters, Theo found out that it was Pancake Day across Ireland on Tuesday. Apparently, it’s a tradition to make pancakes or crepes the day before Ash Wednesday as a means to rid refrigerators of any remaining sausages and rashers before Lent begins. It is essentially a temptation attenuation event, and Theo has decided to bring the tradition home with him for next year.

Rag Week

It’s Rag Week in Galway. What began in the 1800’s as a way for university students to raise money for charities (i.e. solicit rags/clothing for the poor) has become more of an excuse to drink and carouse than anything else. Because the Irish need an excuse to drink and carouse. Some funds certainly are raised by student societies throughout Ireland and the UK, but the cost of clean-up to the municipalities – especially in college towns like Galway – outstrips any benefit. The number of broken bottles, discarded beer cans, and random ‘lost lunches’ all over town and including our neighborhood is staggering. Sue even saw some ‘fare jumpers’ bail out of their taxi and flee the cabbie over two stone walls, and all before scoil!

Paul had been warned about Rag Week, and had a significant amount of experience with ethanol-induced behavioral stupidity in college. However, he was a bit surprised when only four students showed up for the midday lecture on Tuesday, and only one of them Irish. So far this semester the average daily attendance rate for his classes is a paltry 58%!! While he’s making no judgments yet, the ‘pass – fail’ curriculum doesn’t seem to inspire much of a work ethic in most students. It’s tough to motivate people to attend lecture and lab, much less study, when the passing percentage for each class is a mere forty percent. Besides, it’s obviously more fun to be loaded and puking on Abbeygate Street at dawn than worrying about silly things like electron transport and chemiosmosis.