Write Your Own Irish Memoir!

March 17, 2009 1:48 PM

Write Your Own Irish Memoir! Francesco Marciuliano, creator of Medium Large and writer for Sally Forth presents his Irish Memoir generator I Can't Find Me Legs: A Tale of Growing Up Poor, Catholic and Eventually Blind in Ireland.
posted by tommasz (25 comments total)

(imagine the worst job possible for a woman, then imagine it occurring inside an underground factory)

Hilarious! And yet: McCompletename = Scottish, no?
posted by kittyprecious at 1:55 PM on March 17, 2009

Macs are Scottish. Mcs are Irish.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:57 PM on March 17, 2009

Does anyone else remember the episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles where Indy stops off in Dublin and gets lectured on Irish stereotypes and narrative cliches...by Sean O'Casey...in a pub...on the eve of the Easter uprising? Later he meets William Butler Yeats and gets in a donnybrook with Sean LeMass.
posted by Iridic at 2:02 PM on March 17, 2009

Thanks, Francesco.
Up next: mad libs about Italians by the writer of Apartment 3G.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 2:20 PM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

Didn't Flann O'Brien do something like this? Hmmm. Think I'll go check out the Cruiskeen Lawn.
posted by CCBC at 2:22 PM on March 17, 2009

Macs are Irish? how do you like them Apples.
posted by Postroad at 2:39 PM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

Macs are Scottish. Mcs are Irish.

Uh, no. Mc and Mac are widespread in Ireland and Scotland.

Mac = son of. MacDonald = son of Donald. The Mc is an anglicised version of the same thing.
posted by fire&wings at 2:47 PM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

If you like this sort of thing you'd be well served to check out Well Remembered Days by Father Ted co-writer Arthur Matthews.
posted by jtron at 2:48 PM on March 17, 2009

Yeah you'd be surprised how many people try to tell me I'm Scottish because of the "Mc' which I think would be a shocker to my Grandfather McNamara who was born in Ireland, but hey what do I know? It's only my family history :)

But seriously though, happy reveling in the truly awesome stereotypes of my ancestors McMetaFilterFriends.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:00 PM on March 17, 2009

You know, you're right.
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:08 PM on March 17, 2009

An A for Amusing but also an A for Annoying. Because shit like this is why tourists keep turning up asking for "the real Ireland" and disappointed that we have iPhones and mojitos and so few street urchins.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:13 PM on March 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

I hear you, Bri. Any place that has a myth that is more popular than the fact and an active tourism industry is going to start reinventing itself in a tourist's image of itself, and that's always a shame. Bourbon Street is not New Orleans, but it's what tourists wish New Oreans was.

That being said, the tourists tend to stick to Bourbon Street, so places like that are useful. And, honestly, from what I hear, you're more likely to get Fosters in an Irish bar than an Irish beer, and, if I wanted Fosters, I'd go to Australia, where I assume they all drink Miller High Life, just to be contrary.
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:16 PM on March 17, 2009

Does anyone else remember the episode...

...and then there's always the one about the gay Scottish couple, Ben Doon and Phil MacKracken.

[/gratuitous derail]
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:28 PM on March 17, 2009

the gay Scottish couple

And the gay Irish couple, Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald.
posted by stargell at 3:59 PM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

I keep saying, "I can't find me legs!" in a probably terrible Irish brogue and laughing uproariously.
posted by orange swan at 4:12 PM on March 17, 2009

Wait.
Sally Forth has a ghostwriter?
posted by madajb at 4:16 PM on March 17, 2009

He took over Sally Forth from Greg Howard.

I found an interesting interview in Google's cache.
posted by eye of newt at 4:25 PM on March 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

Didn't Flann O'Brien do something like this?

Flann O'Brian's The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Poor Life.
posted by winna at 5:22 PM on March 17, 2009

if I wanted Fosters, I'd go to Australia, where I assume they all drink Miller High Life, just to be contrary.

Only tourists drink Fosters here; the only thing worse that Fosters would have to be something by one of the Big Three, BudMillOors.

(not that VB is anything to write home about either)
posted by 5MeoCMP at 6:44 PM on March 17, 2009

Grandpa?
posted by Miko at 7:33 PM on March 17, 2009

I was sitting in a park in Cork once and a confused Spanish tourist came up to me and asked me where the fields and cows were.
posted by minifigs at 2:42 AM on March 18, 2009

Didn't Flann O'Brien do something like this?

Yes, brilliantly. I think he called it Hard Times.
posted by OmieWise at 4:22 AM on March 18, 2009

Bourbon Street is not New Orleans, but it's what tourists wish New Oreans was.

No it's not, it's what a bunch of drunk frat guys wish New Orleans was and even then it's lacking in bare breasts and back alley blowjobs from transvestites (because drunken Frat guys can't get enough of those even as many as Bourbon Street can offer). (Non frat boy)Tourists actually want what is closer to the real New Orleans. They want to eat great food and see an awesome show at some ratty but fun venue. They settle for the 32 oz. Hand Grenades and 3 AM Lucky Dogs because that's what is provided in the tourist package. If they knew, tourists would be swarming the Funky Butt and the locals would never get in the door, but of course then the locals would find another place and the Funky Butt would install daquari machines and a shitty house band.

Ireland on the other hand is not in reality what the tourists want, it's (largely) a modern European nation. The tourists are looking for the past of Ireland. They are looking for the land of their ancesters, because their ancesters left it behind due to its hardship. The modern Irish are trying to leave it behind as well, but they never left home.

Basically the tourists wish for Ireland's failure, they want New Orleans to be New Orleans
posted by Pollomacho at 5:46 AM on March 18, 2009 [4 favorites]

Basically the tourists wish for Ireland's failure...

Yes, that. Exactly that. I've never heard the point made so well, or been able to articulate why that kind of touristic curiosity grates so heavily, but that's it exactly. A million points to Pollomacho.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:22 AM on March 18, 2009

Basically the tourists wish for Ireland's failure...

Where you see failure, I see the potential for an extremely morbid theme park.
posted by thivaia at 8:04 AM on March 18, 2009 [1 favorite]