Weekly funny video

The Vikings first raided Ireland in 795, set up a ship camp at Dublin in 841 and went on to found Ireland’s first towns at Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Limerick and Cork. Here is the story from the raids and the slave trade to the Hiberno-Norse, Clontarf in brief and the great Wood Quay dig, plus the Norse place names, Irish words and surnames they left behind, an honest look at the DNA claims, where to see Viking Ireland today and a facts-for-kids box.

Happy birthday in Irish is Lá breithe sona duit, literally “a happy day of birth to you”. Here’s how to pronounce it in each dialect, why it’s sona and not shona, how to say it to Mam, Dad, Granny or your love, old wishes like Go maire tú an lá, how to sing it to the usual tune, card messages, and the Irish birthday customs that are real (plus two online “Irish traditions” that need a second look).

Who was Seamus Heaney? The Irish poet who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature was born on a Co. Derry farm in 1939, the eldest of nine. Here is his life in order: Mossbawn, his brother Christopher and Mid-Term Break, Queen’s, Marie Devlin, Death of a Naturalist, the bog poems, Glanmore, Harvard and Oxford, Beowulf, the two-word Latin text he sent his wife before he died, his grave in Bellaghy and HomePlace, plus which of his poems to read first.

Kathleen, Maureen, Colleen, Eileen and Sheila all came from Irish. Here are 25 anglicized Irish names that Irish-American families gave their daughters and sons, with the Irish original (Caitlín, Máirín, cailín, Eibhlín, Síle and more), a rough pronunciation, where each really came from and its US popularity from Social Security data, plus the names that caught on in America first, why the spellings changed, and stand-in names like Timothy, Denis and Julia.

Real Irish house blessings for a new home, in English and Irish with pronunciations, and the moving-in customs Irish schoolchildren recorded in the 1930s: salt and holy water first, bread and a sod of turf, a Brigid’s cross and a horseshoe over the door, and ‘Saturday flit, short sit’. Plus where the bread, salt and wine blessing first appears (It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946) and why ‘Bless the four corners of this house’ is an American poem.

Good luck in Irish is ádh mór (great luck) or go n-éirí leat (may it go well with you), the same verb hiding in ‘May the road rise up to meet you’. Here are 30 ways to wish someone luck: 24 in Irish for exams, the Leaving Cert, interviews, new jobs, journeys and match days, each with its literal meaning and pronunciation, plus six popular English ‘Irish blessings’ marked genuine or modern, and the real Irish folklore of magpies, horseshoes and the four-leaf clover.

Thank you in Irish is go raibh maith agat, literally “may there be good at you”. Here’s how to say it to one person or a group, the bigger go raibh míle maith agat and míle buíochas, how to say thank you for something, the replies (tá fáilte romhat, ná habair é, go ndéana a mhaith duit), Munster, Connacht and Ulster pronunciations, how the Irish say thanks in English, thank-you card wording and Happy Thanksgiving in Irish.

A proper Irish brown bread recipe, in metric and US cups: a tin-baked wholemeal soda loaf with coarse wholemeal, oats, wheat bran, wheat germ, buttermilk and an optional spoonful of treacle, with no yeast and no kneading. Plus US flour swaps (Irish-style flour, or whole wheat plus bran), a full Guinness and treacle brown bread, bread machine and freezing notes, the Northern Irish name ‘wheaten’, 1930s Schools’ Collection accounts of home baking, the Emergency’s ‘black bread’ and the Irish words for it all.

A proper Dublin coddle recipe in metric and US measures: pork sausages, back rashers, onions and potatoes simmered gently with parsley, plus browned, oven, slow cooker and Dutch oven versions. Then the white, brown and black coddle argument, the disputed carrots, barley and cabbage, where the word coddle comes from, the tenement and Saturday-night history (including a 1980 Ringsend memory of coddle as a treat), and what’s really true about Swift, O’Casey and Joyce.

Irish mythology in one place: what it is, the four cycles (Mythological, Ulster, Fenian and Kings), the Book of Invasions, 20 of the best stories from the Children of Lir and the Táin to Oisín in Tír na nÓg and Mad Sweeney, the medieval manuscripts they survive in, free translations by Lady Gregory and Kuno Meyer, the best stories for kids, and how Irish myth differs from ‘Celtic’ myth.

All Souls’ Day, 2 November, is the day Catholics pray for all the dead, and in Ireland the whole of November belongs to the Holy Souls. Here’s All Saints versus All Souls, where the feast came from (including Clonmacnoise’s ‘a prayer for’ grave slabs), the November list of the dead, blessing the graves, the plenary indulgence explained, the 1930s customs of the unlocked door, the laid table and the candle in the window, the truth about the ‘salt and water’ tradition, and prayers for the dead in Irish.

The real Irish names for grandma and grandpa: Mamó, Móraí, seanmháthair, Daideo and seanathair, with dictionary-checked pronunciations, regional notes, the English names Irish families use, words for great-grandparents and grandchildren, card wording in Irish, and the “Gaelic grandma names” on gift sites that are really Welsh, Scottish or misspelled.

The Morrígan is the war goddess of medieval Irish myth, a shape-shifting prophet of battle and death. Here’s what her name means and how to say it, her sisters Badb, Macha and Nemain, her Samhain meeting with the Dagda at the Unshin, her clashes with Cú Chulainn in the Táin, the bird on his shoulder and Sheppard’s statue in the GPO, her cave at Rathcroghan, her real symbols and tattoo ideas, and what’s modern, from the maiden-mother-crone triple goddess to horror films.

Ireland had only a handful of witch trials. Here is the real history: Dame Alice Kyteler and the demon Robin son of Art (1324), Petronilla of Meath, burned on 3 November 1324, Florence Newton of Youghal (1661), Goody Glover in Boston (1688), the Islandmagee witches (1711), why Ireland had so few trials, the butter-stealing hare-witch of folklore, and Biddy Early, who was never convicted of anything.

Old Irish curses were wishes of real harm, not swear words. Here are the bardic satires said to raise blisters, the widow’s and priest’s curses from the 1930s Schools’ Collection, the cursing stones of Killinagh and Inishmurray, a dozen real curses in Irish with pronunciations (and the truth about ‘may the cat eat you’), and the legend of the 1951 Mayo curse, laid to rest by Mayo’s All-Ireland win in July 2026.