Hi there,

Here's your weekly dose of Irish for May 2nd, 2021...

• I decided to send the weekly dose out on Sunday for a change. Next week will go back to Friday.
• Did you know I have a YouTube channel? I haven't added new videos in ages, but I am planning to in the coming weeks. Subscribe here.
• In fact, a video I made 3 years ago has nearly reached 300k views; it is an Irish joke. You can watch it here.

Seven Irish facts for your Sunday:

1. Newgrange is 5,000 years old, making it older than the ancient pyramid of Giza and Stonehenge. During the winter solstice, light penetrates through to the burial tomb for about 19 minutes.
2. “Why is the sky blue?” A simple question, but did you know that it was an Irish scientist, John Tyndal. The discovery was made in the 1860s of why the sky is blue in the day but red at sunset.
3. Ireland is the only country in the world to have a musical instrument as the national symbol. You can visit some of the oldest harps in the world at Trinity College in Dublin.
4. The ball that drops in Times Square on New Year’s Eve is made by Waterford Crystal.
5. The longest river in Ireland is the River Shannon. 
6. Irish Wolfhounds are the tallest dog breed in the world.
7. The Wild Atlantic Way is the longest coastal drive route in the world.

Read More Irish Facts here.

This week's posts:

☘️ Under Ben Bulben, By W. B. Yeats – Yeats Final Poem

Another great top Irish poem!

This week it is from the great W.B Yeats.

It comes in at number 79 in the list of top 100 Irish poems.

Click here to read more.

☘️ Tik Tok Dublin Girls Leave You In Stitches After Their Video

It seems Tik Tok is making many people go viral.

Only a few weeks ago, for St Patrick’s day, these Irish dancing guys from Tik Tok performed live on the …

The post Tik Tok Dublin Girls Leave You In Stitches After Their Video appeared first on Irish Around The World.

Click here to read more.

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Popular posts:

1. Olympic skater Irish dances across the ice 
2. 40  Of The Best Irish Jokes That Will Make You Laugh Out Loud 
3. Top Irish Celtic Symbols And Their Meanings 
4. Adele's "Hello" Sung In Irish Is Incredible(as Gaeilge)  
5. The best way to send money from the US to Ireland

This week's Irish joke: The 1-year prison sentence

An Irishman, a Scotsman and an Englishman are each sentenced to a year in solitary confinement; before being locked away, each is to be granted a year’s supply of whatever he wants to help him get through the long, long spell alone.

The Scotsman asks for a year’s supply of scotch; it’s given to him, and he’s locked away.

The Irishman asks for a year’s supply of cigarettes, so he’s locked up with several thousand cigarettes.

The Englishman asks for a year’s supply of pornography, and he’s given a giant pile of dirty magazines, and the cell door is shut on him.

One year later, the doors are all unlocked.

The Scotsman staggers out and shouts, ‘I’m free!’ and then keels over dead from alcohol poisoning.

The Englishman is dragged out into the light, whereupon he promptly dies of muscle overuse failure.

When the door to the Irishman’s cell is opened, everybody watches eagerly to see what sort of a wreck the man has made of himself.

To their surprise, he walks right out the door, sidles up to the first person he sees, and asks,

‘I say you wouldn’t happen to have a light, would ya?’

This week top Irish poem:

Under Ben Bulben, By W. B. Yeats – Yeats Final Poem

Another great top Irish poem! This week it is from the great W.B Yeats. It comes in at number 79 in the list of top 100 Irish poems. This poem was one of Yeats last poems before he died. 

And he dictated his final revisions on his deathbed. A timeless, longer poem that has a lot of depth. He completed the poem in 1938, just one year before he passed(he died in January 1939).

I

Swear by what the Sages spoke   

Round the Mareotic Lake

That the Witch of Atlas knew,   

Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.

Swear by those horsemen, by those women,   

Complexion and form prove superhuman,   

That pale, long visaged company

That airs an immortality

Completeness of their passions won;   

Now they ride the wintry dawn

Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.

Here’s the gist of what they mean.   

II

Many times man lives and dies   

Between his two eternities,   

That of race and that of soul,   

And ancient Ireland knew it all.   

Whether man dies in his bed   

Or the rifle knocks him dead,

A brief parting from those dear   

Is the worst man has to fear.   

Though grave-diggers’ toil is long,   

Sharp their spades, their muscle strong,   

They but thrust their buried men   

Back in the human mind again.

III

You that Mitchel’s prayer have heard   

`Send war in our time, O Lord!’   

Know that when all words are said   

And a man is fighting mad,   

Something drops from eyes long blind   

He completes his partial mind,   

For an instant stands at ease,   

Laughs aloud, his heart at peace,   

Even the wisest man grows tense   

With some sort of violence   

Before he can accomplish fate   

Know his work or choose his mate.

IV

Poet and sculptor do the work   

Nor let the modish painter shirk   

What his great forefathers did,   

Bring the soul of man to God,   

Make him fill the cradles right.

Measurement began our might:   

Forms a stark Egyptian thought,   

Forms that gentler Phidias wrought.

Michael Angelo left a proof   

On the Sistine Chapel roof,   

Where but half-awakened Adam   

Can disturb globe-trotting Madam   

Till her bowels are in heat,   

Proof that there’s a purpose set   

Before the secret working mind:   

Profane perfection of mankind.

Quattrocento put in paint,

On backgrounds for a God or Saint,   

Gardens where a soul’s at ease;   

Where everything that meets the eye

Flowers and grass and cloudless sky   

Resemble forms that are, or seem   

When sleepers wake and yet still dream,   

And when it’s vanished still declare,   

With only bed and bedstead there,   

That Heavens had opened.

                                       Gyres run on;

When that greater dream had gone   

Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude   

Prepared a rest for the people of God,   

Palmer’s phrase, but after that

Confusion fell upon our thought.

V

Irish poets learn your trade   

Sing whatever is well made,   

Scorn the sort now growing up   

All out of shape from toe to top,

Their unremembering hearts and heads   

Base-born products of base beds.   

Sing the peasantry, and then   

Hard-riding country gentlemen,   

The holiness of monks, and after   

Porter-drinkers’ randy laughter;   

Sing the lords and ladies gay   

That were beaten into the clay   

Through seven heroic centuries;   

Cast your mind on other days   

That we in coming days may be   

Still the indomitable Irishry.

VI

Under bare Ben Bulben’s head

In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid,   

An ancestor was rector there

Long years ago; a church stands near,

By the road an ancient Cross.

No marble, no conventional phrase,   

On limestone quarried near the spot   

By his command these words are cut:

               Cast a cold eye   

               On life, on death.   

               Horseman, pass by!

See my top Irish poems list here.

About the founder of Irish Around The World: 

Okay, some of you might be wondering.

Just who runs this Irish Around The World website?? 

Or maybe you don't care, haha. 

My name is Stephen Palmer from Co. Cork and I have been involved in many Irish related projects over the years. 

While it may seem this website is run by a whole team of highly skilled Irishmen, it is just run by myself. 

So I want to thank you again for taking the time to subscribe and being a part of the community. 

So how did you start a website about Irish people around the world Stephen?

Where it all began: 

I created a website in 2013 to help Irish people who are moving to Australia and recently a new group to help Irish ex-pats who are returning to Ireland.

I have always enjoyed reading about Irish heritage and how connected Irish people are around the world.

But I felt that the websites out there did not connect the people to the information. Instead, they just published daily articles regardless if people cared about them or not. 

So I decided to change it and create my own Facebook community called Irish Around The World.

It expanded to a group also called Irish Around The World, now with over 70k members!

Many of you have probably seen me popping in, and out of our Facebook group has been amazing to see the interaction with each member. 

There has been many ups and downs in the groups. Laughs and tears but every day, it continues to move forward. Thanks for being a part of it.

If you haven't joined yet, you don't know what you are missing, sign up here.

Thank you again for being a part of Irish Around The World. 

Have a great day! 

All the best, 

Stephen Palmer

P.S Invite your friends or family to this weekly newsletter. Just share this link with them: Irisharoundtheworld.com/join. 

Enjoy,

Stephen Palmer