What's the Craic
That's Neat Paddy No. 47
Craic Addict
When Irish people get together and have fun, they call it “having the craic”, for some reason. Likewise, when they great each other, they may ask “what’s the craic”. Craic is a catch all term for anything from having a good time to sharing a bit of gossip. The use of the term craic has been around for a few hundred years, but the very Irish concept of having the craic gained popularity in the 60s.
Surprisingly, the word craic originates in medieval England, and was appropriated by the Irish. Crak in middle English meant loud or braggadocious talk. An 1820s treatise on the speech of Northern England described the sense of crack as "chat, conversation, news."
Crack first entered the Hiberno-English lexicon through Scots moving to Ulster in the 1920s. Use of the word crack begin to appear in 1950 editions of The Irish Independant, "There was much good 'crack'... in the edition of Country Magazine which covered Northern Ireland"; or from 1955, "The Duke had been sitting on top of Kelly's gate watching the crack." Having the crack became such a common turn of phrase in Northern Ireland that many people assumed it was a concept native to Ulster.
As Crack made it’s way south into the Republic of Ireland, where English influence is not exactly welcome (up the ra), the spelling was changed to craic. Craic looks significantly more Gaelic, as the language is full of the letters i and c being in places that they have no right being in.
Despite the craic being a relatively new concept, it has become an integral part of Irish society, where value is placed on the quality of conversation and good times spent with friends. I myself am a bit of a craic addict. I should be allowed paid time off to have the craic as it is a part of my cultural heritage that the colonial English have taken away from me. The protestant work ethic and it’s consequences.
Sport Washing Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Round two of the Dirty Money Sport Washing Racing Series went exactly as expected. Formula 1 has been largely uncompetitive since the mid 90s, with a few teams taking turns dominating the sport. This makes the predictability of the last few seasons nothing new, but with that being said, this seasons boredom hits different. The cars aren’t neat. They’re too quiet, too big, and too slow. If I’m going to watch a Red Bull dominate at least let them blow the diffuser so it sounds cool. Also, racing on an incredibly mid street circuit on a Saturday when the Hockenheimring and Nurburgring are sitting in Germany is insane, but as we know, the Germans don’t have enough money to bribe take over invest in the FIA so nobody thinks about their many human rights violations.
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Weekend Tune
As next weekend is Paddy’s day, don’t be surprised if I forget to hit publish on the newsletter as I will be culturally enriching myself by having the craic (Drinking 8 - 13 Guinness)
