ArenaNet:International cultural references/United Kingdom/Northern Ireland

International cultural references
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Northern Ireland virtually never gets referenced -- either we're lumped in as part of the Republic of Ireland (Northern Ireland is officially part of the UK, not Ireland), or we're forgotten altogether, overshadwed by England, Scotland, and even Wales. Admittedly, our short history is littered with violence, and I suppose that contributes heavily to the lack of lighthearted references to NI. But we do have a few lighthearted things of note:

• Titanic was built in Belfast by Harland and Wolff. H&W stopped producing ships a few years ago, but were the biggest, most famous company in the country for over a hundred years, producing most of Britain's famous ships. Belfast's landmark is the two massive yellow gantry cranes used by the H&W shipyard -- Samson and Goliath.
• The north Antrim coast is home to the Giant's Causeway, a rock formation similiar to the ones found in some of the Guild Wars dungeons.
• County Derry is also known as Londonderry. That is, Londonderry is also known as Derry. The original, Irish name was Derry, but it was changed by the British to Londonderry -- and many people even today take offense at those who refer to it by the "wrong" name. As such, everyone else finds themselves using both names at once. Even the mnemonic used to remember the names of the six counties has two versions -- FAT LAD, and FAT DAD.
• A common greeting is "What about ye?" or "How's about ye?", or just "'bout ye?", for short. Also, our accent is derived from Scottish, so we say "aye" for yes and "wee" for small, almost exclusively.
• A popular football (soccer) player called George Best was born in Belfast. He died recently, which was sort of our Steve Irwin shock -- murals were painted, banknotes were printed, and airports were renamed in his honour. (No, seriously, they renamed the airport. It used to be called Belfast City airport, and now it's George Best Airport. Bleh.)

--Mme. Donelle 19:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh! I just thought of a really good one -- "Northern Ireland", in a native accent, is pronounced "Norn Iron". :D --Mme. Donelle 00:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

And more still:

• There's a famous (and hilarious) poem by Crawford Howard called "The Diagonal Steam Trap". It's about a worker in Harland and Wolff called Jimmie Dalzell who, for a joke, tells his workmates that the ship's engine isn't working because they've left out the Diagonal Steam Trap. Such a device doesn't exist, but nobody wants to admit they don't know what it is, so they say "oh yes" and ask Jimmie to make one so they can install it.
• This one applies to Ireland as a whole: the "craic" (pronounced crack). It's a word we use to describe fun times: "that party was good craic" or "come out tonight, just for the craic". It's also sometimes used in a greeting: "what's the craic?", which is similar to "how are you?" or "what's up?".
• Just to clarify something about my previous comment -- "Norn Iron", spelt like that, is a common and well-known joke.

--Mme. Donelle 10:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

These are really nice, detailed references, Mme. Donelle. Thanks! -- Gaile 03:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, thank you for the nice comment! :D --Mme. Donelle 19:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)