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Well I've never been to Ireland despite my irish heritage, so there are some questions I have about it, if you would be so kind as to answer them for me sweatdrop

Where I live the major stereotype is that most Irish people drink a lot. Is the drink such a big problem as it is made out to be?
Along the same lines, most irish people are depicted as Guinness lovers, is it very popular over there?

Would you find it offensive if someone asked you if you had a pot of gold/ if someone depicted the irish as leprecauns.

In school, I'm sure you have to learn the history of Ireland... where do the teachers start?? Do they choose certain important periods of time that you have to learn or do they work on it chronologically throughout the years of school??? Canada is Barely 150 years old so it's not hard to teach it all but Ireland is thousands of years old... it seems almost impossible.

This one is for college students (if there is any around smile ), here in university all the marks from every course we take gets averaged together and then put on a points scale from 0.0 - 4.0 and they call it our GPA. Do you have this and does it go to 4.0 or some other number?

I'll post more questions as I think of them.

Lol yeaaahh, I was in japanese class and we were learning how to say where we are from and my friend said ireland and my japanese teacher (who is actually from japan) was so serious and asked her if she had a pot of gold XD

I havent tried looking up the third question but I tried looking up the fourth one but it was impossible... the only thing I discovered is that Ireland does use a point system but it doesn't say what it's out of. ><

Hm eh I'm in college but Im not really sure this is my first year. I think it depends on the college and the course. Im doing more of a practical, laid back fun course, and so far it seems that as long as we dont fail more than 1 or 2 classes each semester we fail.

There is a points system for getting into college though. Leaving secondary school we have an exam called the Leaving certificate. You usually do about 7/8 subjects, for example, Maths, Irish, English, History, French, Geography and Biology. Each subject is graded and given a mark between 1-100, basically the %, then your top 6 scores are graded together to make your "points" for your college course.


Oh and ninja Im a Leprechaun, and ye can't see me pot o' gold! Or I'll smite ye!

I'm not sure I've ever gone into a bar that doesn't serve Guiness. It's Irish tradition. Good luck finding a place in Ireland that doesn't!

Hm... I've been overseas a few times, and I've gotten joking questions like that pot o' gold stuff. Depends on my mood, how I react. In some context, it's offensive, but in others, it's fine and even funny!

i didnt know if anyone knew this but Guiness is actually extremely healthy for you. it has enough vitamins and minerals in it to could as a meal ^_^

Drink is a problem here, well problem isn't the right word for it, it's more of something that people like to do, like everyone drinks EVERYONE and that is a it of a problem and then there's the roads, even though they've came down on drink driving so hard in the last few years so that's not really the issue binge drinking would be the worst and even them like that's improving aswell so people drink to enjoy themselves, nothing wrong with that once they don't go over the top. (trying to convince myself here)

Guinness, I'm not the biggest fan of guiness but it's all right. It's a popular enough drink. The home of the black stuff. Ya now that I think about it, it's really popular.

If someone called me a Leprechaun and ask me if I'd a pot of gold well eh, it depends on what kinda mood I'm in but I live somewhere where tourists flock to all year round (for some reason) and I've been asked stranger things then that, I have been asked thatm, well my friend who was standing next to me was, she's red hair.

When it comes to history in primary school it's usually like about the Normans and the Vikings and the Famine and then there's the legendary stuff like Cuchulain, Tir na nOg, the Children of Lir, all of them and more and then in secondary school (in the Irish part of it)..the the plantations would be done, Home Rule, The Easter Rising the War of Independence, the Civil War..all that jazz..so that's around 1916 on is (the plantations go way back though..obviosuly buts that's only really done in 1st/2nd year) they only really concentrate on 1913ish, like the 20C like mainly that like, then there's the European history like that covers WW 2 and all that jazz aswell (there's more in the Irish history I just can't think of at the momento..)

College..uh..I'm not even going to start, 5th year is bad enough without having to think about that, eh whatever there's a point system to get into college (it's ridiculous and hard) You do like 7 or 8 subjects but you can only count 6, (your highest six usually) the higher your points the better, all courses have points that you've to get, you don't know what the points are going to be you only have last years points to go from, they tell you the points you need to get into courses a while after you get your results (usually they drop again after) so with all the results added up together you pray that it's enough and to put more pressure on you need to pass Irish, maths and a language to get into most places..the systems screwed up like I swear. Like medicine for example was around 500 physio therapy was higer and so was denistry so that means if you wanted to do any of them last year you would of needed to get almost perfest marks which is 100% A's all As it's stupid and so so stressfull. The waiting oh the waiting.

I found this Irish link that might be interesting especially to we uninformed Americans domokun

Ooh I love Guinness, when I was in Ireland I was a complete dork and took pictures of all the signs. I liked it better there than in the US though. Is it really that different? Someone told me it was a completely different thing.