1. Do You Like the "Nuggets" format? 

I published the first short "Nuggets" piece  on March 13.  All the subscribers who commented said they liked it.  How about you?  If "Yes!" and "More!" I will continue at least a few times each month.  May I have your response?  Please send me a note.  

loren@conversationmatters.com.  Many thanks!

"There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting."  

--John Millington Synge, Irish playwright.

"Black Irish" people, who have black hair and swarthy skin, are thought to descend from sailors of the Spanish Armada, who came ashore when two of their ships were wrecked off Spanish Point (County Clare) in 1588.  

(Note, when I asked my Swedish mother why she had black hair, she told me that Spanish conscripts in Napoleon's army jumped ship when they stopped in southern Sweden for provisions.  Thus, the "Black Swedes.")

4.  Mirthville

Here's a rather spicey Irish song for St. Patrick's Day.

"This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."

--Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)

"Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat".
--Alex Levine

During which years did the Irish Potato Famine occur?

a. 1564-1616

b. 1815-1825

c. 1845-1849

d. 1867-1875

(Check your answer at the end of today's article.) 

"May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand."

--Traditional Gaelic Blessing 

Nations have different cultural priorities.  Such as France:  cuisine, wine, fashion.  Italy,  music and art.   

And Nations have exemplars of their best.   

France has Dior and Chanel for fashion and Auguste Escoffier and Hubert Keller for cuisine.

Italy has Puccini and Verdi for music, Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo for art.    

Ireland is famous for its pubs, poets, playwrights, and palaver.

Irish pubs have been opened throughout the world, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, from Boston  to Beijing, and in dozens of countries.  They generally have a lot in common with pubs in Ireland..  A key feature of Irish pubs is the ambiance - the atmosphere of congeniality and good humor, most usually enhanced by song and colorful talk. 

Irish poets are world-renowned, like W. B Yeats (Nobel Prize, 1923) and Seamus Heaney (Nobel Prize, 1995)   Many other notables, including James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, and C.S. Lewis.

Irish playwrights include George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett,  Oscar  Wilde, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and John Millington Synge.   

Irish palaver (aka cajolery, sweet-talk, blarney) is mastered by a great many Irish folks.  Probably Oscar Wilde is the Irishman most acclaimed for his wit.

The pubs serve as a perfect setting for mirthful talk.  Palaver, including  story-telling, lively debates, joking, and cajoling are the currency of socializing -- leavened, of course, by a few pints of Guinness.  The love of the English language by the Irish and its masters like James Joyce stimulate an intense cultural motivation to play with language and compete to be the best.  Scintillating talk and playful banter are a top priority among the Irish.

As drama critic T.E. Kalem wrote in response to Brendan Behan's 1958 play Borstal Boy,

"The English language brings out the best in the Irish. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter. They hurl it at the sky like a paint pot full of rainbows, and then make it chant a dirge for man's fate and man's follies that is as mournful as misty spring rain crying over the fallow earth."

Irish poet Katherine Tynan Hinkson wrote

"There is an Irish way of paying compliments as though they were irresistible truths which makes what would otherwise be an impertinence delightful."

During which years did the Irish Potato Famine take place?

Answer:  1845-1849