So we just finished up the Awakening, our worship conference here in Dublin. Nothing earth-shattering for me. Definitely felt God’s presence, received some good teaching, and enjoyed fellowship with my squadmates, particularly Matt Delaney. We have received new teams, more to come on that later, not sure if I’m allowed to talk about it at this time. I wanted to give one last Irish update before we head off to Africa. In Africa I will update you on my new team and what we’ll be doing in Kenya. But for now I wanted to compile a list of the Top Ten differences between Ireland and America. This next top 10 list’s purpose is two-fold, one is to educate you about Ireland and the other is to hopefully be somewhat comical. With that being said, I’m not going to state the obvious differences between Ireland and America (people drive on the left side of the road, etc). But I hope to shed some light on this great land.
Top 10 differences between Ireland and the United States
10. Irish people are much more open to talking about spiritual matters with strangers than Americans generally are; this helped us in our evangelism efforts.
9. What Americans call French Fries, Irish call Chips, and it may be hard to believe but the average Irish citizen consumes more chips than we do fries. This is not an accurate statistical analysis, simply an observation.
A picture of a good bowl of Irish chips from the Chipper.
8. The Irish are not as afraid of chilly water as Americans tend to be. Everyday, including wintertime, people swim in the Irish Sea. The water for August, their summertime, was probably around 50` F. Christmas day it is a tradition for people to jump in the Irish Sea.
7. There is no such thing as the Atkins Diet in Ireland as potatoes, corn, and bread are served at most every meal.
6. The Dublin railway system, DART, is much cleaner than typical American city railway systems. Its privately run, maybe thats why?
Here is a picture inside a DART train, credit to google image search.
5. However the Irish bus system, which is filled with double-decker buses, is not nearly as reliable as the DART, we had to wait an hour after the bus was supposed to be there one day. I can’t imagine an American heading to work would trust this bus system.
4. The Irish much like America love sports that are not as popular through the rest of the world; however, their unique sports are quite unique from America’s Football, two of the sports are Gaelic Football and Hurling.
-Exhibit Hurling, I don’t understand what is going on here, but read the Wikipedia pages on Gaelic football and Hurling it is very interesting.
3. Products in Ireland are expensive, and not just Euro stronger than dollar expensive, but toilitries or snacks are pretty pricy as the island causes most products to have to be shipped in from elsewhere.
2. Obviously you know Irish people have a different accent than Americans, but some interesting terms on which we differ.
American “I like this girl” Irish “I fancy this girl”
American “Go throw that in the dumpster” Irish “Toss it in the skip”
American “Hello, friend” Irish “Hello, lad”
-many more but can’t think as of right now, if any more funny ones come to mind I’ll be sure to let you know.
1. The Irish people need Jesus, so do American people, I guess were not all that different.
Until next time, War Eagle, hopefully Auburn will beat Arkansas St and Mississippi St. before my next blog. I’ll udate yall from Africa.
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