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CLAIM: There were not enough ambulances available to save the victims of a recent mass shooting in Odessa, Texas. VERDICT: FALSE. The City of Odessa said that its ambulances responded to the shooting quickly. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) received praised from his rivals onstage at the third Democrat debate at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas, on Thursday evening. But he is being criticized by local West Texas CBS affiliate KOSA-7, which says that his claim that there were not enough ambulances available is “absolutely wrong.” O’Rourke said during the debate (transcript via ABC News): When we see that...

John O'Reilly hoisted his beer and said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, between the legs of me wife !" That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night! He went home and told his wife, Mary, "I won the prize for the best toast of the night." She said, "Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?" John said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church Beside me wife." "Oh, that is very nice indeed, John!" Mary said. The next day, Mary ran into one...

The romance and myths of the American Revolution have long obscured the disproportionate contributions of the Irish, who numbered as high as one half million of America’s two million population. Yet, the role of the Irish has often been written out. No chapter of America’s story has been more thoroughly dominated by myths and romance than the nation’s desperate struggle for life during the American Revolution. Unfortunately, America’s much-celebrated creation story has presented a sanitized version of events. The long-accepted proper imaginary of the typical American patriot was that of an Anglo-Saxon who descended from early English settlers. This popular...

The 50 yr-old rabid anti-Israel Irish lawyer/activist who was jailed for 6 months after a drunken, racist incident onboard an Air India flight to London has been found dead on an English beach. A disgraced anti-Israel activist from Britain who was jailed for staging a rowdy and racist scene aboard an airplane was found dead in what police are treating as a suicide. The lifeless body of Simone Burns, 50, also known as Simone O’Broin, was found last month on a beach, the Daily Telegraph reported Thursday. Sussex Police confirmed her death “is not being treated as suspicious” and next of kin have been...

Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris is descended from Irish slave owner Hamilton Brown, the namesake of Brown’s Town in Jamaica, who recruited massive numbers of Irish migrants to Jamaica to work on his sugar plantations after the British empire abolished slavery. Kamala Harris’ father Donald Harris wrote an essay entitled “Reflections of a Jamaican Father” for Jamaica Global Online, in which he made a startling admission (emphasis added): “My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (née Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of...

I've noticed some discussion over this in various places and figured a genius freeper might have the answer, or at least enjoy speculating.

A new study published in The Lancet has revealed that on average Irish people continue to drink more year-on-year. According to the research, alcohol intake in Ireland has risen from 12.3 litres in 2010 to 13.2 litres in 2017. That’s more than double the global average of 6.5 litres, which is based on studies from 189 countries across the world. The study found 84% of Irish adults drink alcohol, with Ireland boasting one of the highest per capita consumption rates in Europe. IRELAND’S ANNUAL alcohol consumption continues to rise, despite notable decreases across the rest of Europe. It also revealed...

Sean’s Bar has been in business since the Dark Ages, and many locals and respected Irish historians also believe it to be the oldest in Europe and the world. [...snip...] Sean’s Bar, with its woodchip-covered floor and walls made of wattle and wicker interwoven with horse hair and clay, has been in business since the Dark Ages. Located near to the ruins of a 12th-Century Norman Castle, it is the oldest extant public house in Ireland, a claim officially certified by Guinness World Records in 2004. But many, including the current owners and plenty of Athlone regulars and respected Irish...

Brenda O'Malley is home making dinner as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door. "Brenda, may I come in?" he asks. "I've somethin' to tell ya." "Of course you can come in. You're always welcome, Tim. But where's my husband?" "That's what I'm here to be tellin' ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery." "Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don't tell me..." "I must, Brenda. Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry." Finally, she looked up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?" "It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat...

Kurdish forces in Syria said Sunday that they had captured two American citizens hiding out in the country's final Islamic State stronghold. In a statement, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, identified the detainees as Warren Christopher Clark, 34, and Zaid Abed al-Hamid, 35. It said the pair had been captured alongside three others suspected of being foreign recruits in the extremist group.

Father O'Malley had been transferred to Texas. Father O'Malley rose from his bed one morning. It was a fine spring day in his new west Texas mission parish. He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of the beautiful day outside He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He promptly called the local police station. The conversation went like this: "Good morning. This is Sergeant Jones. How might I help you?" "And the best of the day te yerself. This is Father O'Malley at St.Ann's Catholic...

Irish hospitals with a Catholic ethos will be expected to carry out abortions when new laws on terminations come into effect, the Irish prime minister has said. Leo Varadkar said doctors, nurses or midwives could opt out of performing procedures on conscience grounds. However, entire institutions will not have that option. Mr Varadkar was addressing concerns about surgical abortions raised in the Dáil (Irish parliament).

The NYPD police union this week honored heroic members of the force who stopped recent tragedies -- and most were Irish cops. Ironic isn’t it at a time when Mayor de Blasio is specifically omitting outreach to the Irish community in the latest notifications about the NYPD entrance exam in the name of diversity. Last year a $54 million campaign to widen the base of the department was announced. The press release stated there will be a “particular focus on African American, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, women and LGBTQ applicants," according to the request for proposals released last October. No Irish...

In the last few hundred years, dark-skinned peoples have been likened to apes in an effort to dehumanize them and justify their oppression and exploitation. This is familiar to most Americans as something that is done peculiarly to Black people. The history of U.S. discrimination against the Irish, however, offers an interesting comparative data point. The Irish, too, have been compared to apes, suggesting that this comparison is a generalizable tactic of oppression, not one inspired by the color of the skin of Africans.

The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.(Deuteronomy 28:56-57)But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not...

Hat Tip: Howard Fishman 1. The Jewish ELBOW A Jewish grandmother is giving directions to her grown grandson who is coming to visit with his wife. "You come to the front door of the apartment. I am in apartment 301. There is a big panel at the front door. With your elbow, push button 301. I will buzz you in. Come inside, the elevator is on the right. Get in, and with your elbow, push 3. When you get out, I'm on the left. With your elbow, hit my doorbell." "Grandma, that sounds easy, but, why am I hitting all...

In the fifth century Saint Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland and drove the snakes out of the Emerald Isle. Fifteen centuries later we celebrate his memory with green milkshakes, green beer, and, if you mix the two, green vomit. Oh yeah, and parades. They’ve been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in America since the 1700s and as the saying goes; everyone’s a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Well, except for Italians and the Scottish, that is. Before becoming presidents and late night talk show hosts, the Irish faced prejudice as one of America’s first immigrant groups. And like others denied...

Sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s Peter Jones discovered a collection of century-old letters in his parents' attic in Bethesda, Maryland. The letters had been sent by his great-great-great grandfather, Byran Hunt, to his son, Jones' great-great grandfather, John Hunt,[a] who had emigrated from Kilkelly, County Mayo, to the United States in 1855 and worked on the railroad. As Byran was illiterate, the letters were dictated to the local schoolmaster, Pat McNamara (d. 1902), who often wrote letters on behalf of his neighbors who were unable to read and write. Covering the years 1858 to 1893, the Hunt letters...

It's always grand in March of every year to pour myself a pint of Guinness and enjoy the glorious Irish wit. It's my good fortune to be a fellow of Irish descent. I share my good fortune with a quarter of all Americans, who can trace their heritage to the rolling, green hills of Ireland - including my Uncle Mike, rest his soul, whose grandparents came to America from Ireland. As a lad, I loved the way he and my father celebrated St. Patrick's Day: by swapping the same Irish jokes and witticisms that I've been retelling for years. Such...

Boston Taxi Driver A Boston taxi driver backed into a stationary fruit stall and within seconds he had a cop beside him. "Name?" asked the cop. "Brendan O'Connor," the taxi driver replies. "Wow, that's the same as mine. Where are you from?" asked the cop. "County Cork." "Wow, same as me......", the policeman says as he paused with his pen in the air. "Hold on a moment and I'll come back and talk about the old county. I need to talk to this fella that ran into the back of your cab!"