What’s seldom is beautiful.
We often lament our country’s inability to have a good summer. However, when the sun does shine and the temperatures start to rise, there are a few things you will see which will remind you that the sun is shining in Ireland.
1. Water fights
Might be a bit of an expensive hobby this time next year, but as soon as the temperatures rise, gangs of kids will be partaking in the urban ritual which is the ‘water-fight’.
Using empty two litre mineral bottles and buckets, everyone gets soaked and parents are pulling their hair out as junior keeps coming in and out of the house to ‘re-load’ from the tap at the back door.
2. Sitting in the front garden
Everyone is in their front garden chatting and enjoying the sunshine usually accompanied by a cuppa… or maybe something a little stronger.
It’s accepted when the sun shines. You try to do that in the winter and the Guards will be called.
3. Kids catching bees
Gangs of kids walking through fields with jam jars. Scoping out flowers to spot their prey.
They punch a couple of holes in the lid so as to allow their prey to breathe. They’re not complete animals you see.
4. Gangs in parks
Everywhere, as far as the eye can see. Parks are covered in gangs of teenagers. Young lads hoping to impress young ladies by taking off their tops to reveal a pasty, translucent skin tone.
Quite often, you will see the gangs seperated by about one metre with every single one of them making daisy chains.
5.Heavy traffic in the vicinity of anything that contains water
You try to head to the beach, lake, river, swimming pool. Anywhere that contains something to cool off in and you will undoubtedly be met with a huge traffic jam.
You see, when the sun shines, everyone, and we mean EVERYONE wants to cool off, hence mind-numbingly frustrating traffic jams.
6. Packed beaches
As mentioned above, we like to head to the beach when the sun comes out. It gives us a sense of escapism, that we may actually be on holidays.
Pity then, that the seventy million people on your beach felt the same too. Everyone sitting on top of each other with no room to breathe.
7. Loud music coming from houses
People sitting in their gardens or having barbecues like to pump up the volume on their sound systems. They want the whole neighbourhood to know that their taste in music is both tasteful and discerning.
More’s the pity then when everyone within a three mile radius of the house in question has to suffer the extended remix version of Gangham Style.
8. Canal drinking
No, we don’t mean drinking out of the actual canal, silly.
A past-time of many people on a hot sunny day in Ireland.
Lads who wouldn’t be normally caught dead near a canal are suddenly having picnics with their significant others and wine glasses can be heard clinking everywhere.
9. Sunburn epidemic
Most Irish people are not cut out for hot sunny conditions. It’s a well known fact that some Irish people will get sun-burnt simply by flicking through a few pages of a travel brochure.
We are mostly white and pasty. If you are going to sunbathe, ensure you are protected with a very high factor sun-block.
Don’t be like that kid in The Sixth Sense, except, all you can see is… red people.
10. Regular ice-cream van visits
Housing estates across the country have a sunny soundtrack and it usually consists of an ice-cream van blaring out a very loud version of some popular nursery rhyme/song.
They are cashing in and will probably visit your estate not once, not twice, but three times on any given day. The stampedes and queues will tell you that this is a wise business choice.
11. Soft-top explosion
You would question the sanity of someone who buys a soft-top car in this country. The chances to use it are very few and far between.
But, when that temperature rises and the sun is blasting down, you can be sure that the soft-top car owners of the country will unite and drive everywhere blasting out some poor fourth-rate hip-hop.
12. Packed beer gardens
We love having cold drinks in the sun.
If your pub has a beer-garden, the chances are it will be packed and full of people boozing and basking. There won’t be a spare seat in the house.
13. More children exist
What?
Simply put, the sunshine brings out the kids on to the streets. Whether they’ve been thrown out by their parents or not is a moot point.
The fact is that kids we did not know had previously existed, are now out of their comfort zones and are roaming our streets actively interacting with other human children. It’s astonishing.
14. The right-angle arm jacket/jumper holder
The country is peppered with people who love to take off their jumpers/t-shirts and show off their physiques.
Quite often the physique is tantamount to that of a pigeon in jeans, but that’s neither her nor there.
They like to put their arms at right angles and drape their removed item of clothing across the forearm or tucked into the front of their trousers.
15. Fresh cut grass
One of the best things about an Irish summer is undoubtedly the whiff of freshly cut grass wafting through the summer air.
Everyone and anyone is out with the lawn-mower cutting the grass and the bye-product is this heavenly, reassuring aroma.
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