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Beckett, edmund Burke, George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats,
Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Deane, James
Joyce, R.B. Sheridan, Flann o'Brien, Sean o'Casey, oliver
Goldsmith, Jonathan Swift etc. etc. etc. etc. [11], [12].
It is also a fact that as the underdog, and/or new immigrant
to a new land, and/or being denied by law our language
and education [13], we took a bardic tradition of fluency and
story telling and gave it even more importance in our society,
one that survives to this day. Fluency, verbal dexterity, and wit
are premium qualities in Irish society in the 21st Century as
much perhaps as they were in the 1st.
on the other:
70
1 in 4 Irish adults has difficulty with reading, writing, and
maths. [14].
That is a pretty damning (and damn scary), not to say shaming,
national statistic. Fine, so they are including numeracy
there but still. So don't expect the red-haired, drunken Irish
yob who attacks you to always be able to delight you with his
lyrical language gymnastics while doing so, as you have a 25%
chance of getting the other kind.
Verdict: HMMMM.
Well all the Irish people you have heard of are pretty good
with words, true but it isn't part of our DnA or anything —
you can be Irish and be rubbish with language — you don't
have your citizenship revoked.
In summary, I started answering this question fully intending
to debunk all these ridiculous and offensive or lazy
stereotypes, and I found out while researching the answer
that they were mostly true, so I changed my mind and my
answer and decided to challenge the premise instead (admittedly
this assumes my common stereotypes are the ones the
questioner had in mind — always a dangerous assumption but
one I am willing to volunteer you for).
Don't let them put you off us or our country though,
please. We really aren't drunk all the time (I'm only half-cut
right now, for example), and we usually fight with each other
instead of strangers — we pride ourselves on our hospitality
(another cliché that is true: the Irish really are welcoming).