The guide books warned me. The Irish swear a lot. They do it in mixed company. They do it in public. They do it in front of children. They especially love the F-word. I discovered this during one of our day trips. With a full bus of tourists listening, our guide and the bus driver joked about an inept coworker.
"He's the worst fooking tour guide I ever met," laughed our guide. I was grateful we dodged an excursion with that incompetent.
After about an hour on the road, we stopped at a rest stop. While waiting for coffee, I eavesdropped on two men. Fellow No. 1 says to Fellow No. 2, "I'd like to study another language. Spanish or Portuguese, maybe."
"What about German?" inquired Fellow No. 2.
"Nah, fook that," Fellow No. 1 responded.
Americans might call it swearing like a sailor or cursing a blue streak. The Irush say effing and blinding. The effing part is pretty much self explanatory. The blinding part probably comes from a mild English swear word "blimey" which might be a corruption of "God blind me." There is so much profanity in the air that Irish officials are making it a punishable offense to swear in public. Authorities in County Waterford can impose fines of up to €1,270 for cursing at a playground.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/new-bylaw-will-outlaw-swearing-in-playgrounds-31325865.html
Galway official Peter Keane would like to institute similar legislation in his region.
http://www.newstalk.com/Waterford-City-Council-smoking-cursing-fines-new-rules-children-parks
I'm pretty sure it's going to be an uphill battle to keep a Hibernian from using four letter words. Acording to Irish entertainer Richie Kavanagh, even the chickens go about effing and blinding.
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