What a week. Everyone’s cat puked, everyone’s dog crapped where it shouldn’t have, everyone’s dinner got burnt at least once, ants are looking for water in the bathrooms, one of your friends or relatives asked for money, and Little Green Footballs still has the most inane commenters of the entire internest. Only one thing left to do.
It’s officially Happy Hour on The Overnight Open Thread!
Dogs o’ War they be. Irish Wolfhounds were used as weapons, as they could take a man off his horse for killing by others. Celtic dogs are also regarded as good luck as they were the protectors of highways and crossroads, and of lost souls in the Celtic Otherworld.
Many Irish myths and legends include mentions of hounds. The most famous involves the Celtic hero Cuchulainn (The Hound of Ulster) or (The Hound of Culann) who stroked a blacksmith’s Celtic hound with his bare hands. When Culann, the blacksmith asked who would now guard his shop the young Cuchulainn offered to take the dog’s place thus gaining himself the title of ‘The hound of Culann’. The offer was turned down and Cuchulainn went on to become one of the greatest warrior legends of that era, but the nickname stuck. Other famous Irish hounds were Bran and Seolan who belonged to the warrior, Fionn mac Cumhaill. The mother of Bran and Sceolan was Tuiren, and was Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s aunt, transformed into a hound by a fairy or Sidhe. [via]
Whether you like it or not, everyone becomes Irish tomorrow, so here’s a big green steaming pile of The Overnight Open Thread.
Gaelic Storm‘s Patrick Murphy tells the tale leading up to the classic Irish traditional song “The Night I Punched Russell Crowe In The Head” which, in my opinion, is an appropriate way to wrap up St. Patrick’s Day on
The Overnight Open Thread.
On Saturday last we had the serious, liturgically approved, thread about the man. Tonight we have a thread about the celebrations of all things Irish. Every St Paddy’s Day, I remember this place:
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That is a bar-mat from an Irish Pub that doesn’t really exist anymore. The Shannon Irish pub in Berlin, Germany from 1986-1992 was a very very special place to be. It was owned by Mark and Declan, two Dubliners living in West Berlin (more to come on the Shannon in a later ‘Cold War’ post). Berlin had a large Irish community in that time as the Irish economy wasn’t really that great. So Ireland did what it always did, export its young who made outposts of Irishness wherever they went. The Irish in Berlin did not fail, there were about 8 really good Irish Pubs, The Shannon was my favorite.
The Irish community in Berlin numbered into the thousands, they did everything from run companies to tend bar and waitress in cafe’s. They managed, no matter why they were there, to hold onto home…always proud to be a Dubliner, a Corkman, or whatever identity they carried from the island. On St Patrick’s Day it was damn near impossible to get into the Irish Pubs due to the crowd. All of the Berlin Irish would be out on that night, celebrating home and lamenting leaving, always with a hope to return for good, one day.
Cheers Mark and Declan, and Slainte! to the rest of you!
(It seems someone else like the place)
Anyone else have a good Irish Pub or a story?
This is also an Open Thread,.
The Diary of Daedalus
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