Green is not a creative colour

 Today, in honour of St. Paddy's Day (yes, Paddy's, not Patty's), I decided to write this little blog post on how to actually talk and behave like an Irish person. I'm partially Irish, though I grew up in England, so forgive me if I get some things wrong. 

First of all, speech. As the great Irishman JackSepticEye once put it, Irish people have "a very special way of talking". Here's some useful turns of phrase.

No self-respecting Irish person ever says "Top o' the mornin' to ye". Ever. Avoid using this phrase if you want to sound like an actual Irish person. For a real Irish greeting, try "Hiya" or "How are ya?"

Talk about the weather a lot. Another common Irish 'greeting' is to comment on the weather, often with euphemisms that make it sound nicer than it actually is. For example, if it's windy, it's "a great day for drying [your clothes]". If it's raining, it's a "soft day" (if the rain is light) or "lovely weather for ducks" (if it's more heavy rain).

"I'll be doing X" instead of "I'll do X". For instance, instead of "I'll go to the shop later", say "I'll be going to the shop later. This works in second and third person too, e.g. "Will you be eating dinner soon?" In general, "be X-ing" is often used in place of the simple present tense, so for example, "I be wanting that game" instead of "I want that game".

The Irish language has no words for "yes" and "no", so Irish people, even when speaking English, tend to instead restate the verb in the affirmative or negative. For example, "Did you see the movie?" "I did." "Was it good?" "It was."

Start sentences with "sure" a lot. "Sure" is basically a filler word in Irish English, used in similar ways to "yeah" in Standard English. However, avoid using "sure and", which is a stereotypical phrase that's not actually used. For example, "Sure, it's a fine day today."

Similar to the above, "now" can be used at the ends of sentences. It serves absolutely no purpose, but Irish people like to put it there anyway. "Lovely day now", "It's a long way now", etc. It doesn't mean "currently" or "at this time", it's just used as an empty filler word.

"So" can be used at the ends of sentences for emphasis, a shortening of "so it is" or "so it was" (or variations), which is also used. "Lovely day today, so it is."

Irish people always talk about having something "with them". Instead of just "I have my wallet", for instance, they say "I have my wallet with me." Same with questions - "Do you have your keys with you?"

Sentence structure is a bit weird. Rarely will it go as far as "Went I to the pub with O'Malley, a pint of Guinness to have", though you may hear that kind of thing in some old songs. Regardless, you'll often find the verb moved to the end of the sentence, similar to in German. "I have my breakfast eaten" instead of "I've eaten my breakfast", for example. Similarly, instead of "Do you want this one?", try "Is it this one you want?"

"After X-ing" means "have recently done X". This is only used when the event is particularly shocking, surprising, or otherwise unusual - for mundane things, you use the structure described above. For instance, "Me ma is after dying" means "My mother has just died".

Replace "me" with "my" and "you" with "ye" (pronounced like "yuh", not "yee") (and "your" with "yer") as often as possible. 

Contrary to popular belief, "to be sure" doesn't mean "certainly", it means "just in case." A statement like "It's going to rain today, to be sure" would make little sense to an Irish person (it's going to rain today, just in case? Just in case what?), but something like "I heard it's going to rain today, so I brought my umbrella, to be sure" would make perfect sense.