:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72669981/1244246301.0.jpg "What’s your favorite thing about Ireland that doesn’t involve Notre Dame?")
Everyone knows that one of the best parts of being a sports fan is discussing and analyzing the most (and least) important issues in the sports world with friends. So we bring it to the pages of LGHL in our favorite column: “You’re Nutty.”
In the film Are You Crazy, two LGHL employees will express different points of view on the same issue and argue passionately about their opinions. Then in the end it’s up to you to decide who is right and who is crazy.
Today’s question: What’s your favorite non-Notre Dame Irish thing?
Jami’s Take: Derry Girls
I’ve thought about this a lot, but I think the best Irish thing (and certainly the Irish thing that changed my life the most) is the coming-of-age series Derry Girls.
The teen sitcom, written and created by Irish screenwriter and playwright Lisa McGee, follows 16-year-old Erin Quinn, her cousin Orla, her best friends Claire and Michelle, and Michelle’s English cousin James, as they grow up in Derry in the mid-1990s. Northern Ireland, the last years of the Troubles.
The girls attend Our Lady Immaculate College, which is run by the cult-like Sister Michael, a no-nonsense nun with a sarcastic tongue who has a comedic disdain for students and priests alike.
We also spend time with Erin and Orla’s family: Erin’s parents, Orla’s mom and their grandfather, who all live together.
One of the things that makes Derry Girls such a special show (besides its absolutely flawless use of Cranberry’s “Dreams”) is its ability to show how the girls’ teenage lives unfold despite the political turmoil around them.
Like teenagers in other parts of the world, Derry Girls are more concerned with dating, finding a good party and finishing school than with Trouble. But the series cleverly infuses its larger-than-life comedy with moments of seriousness when the news and the world around us become larger than our daily lives.
We’ve all experienced those moments when a bad date that felt like the end of the world no longer happens because there’s something bigger going on around the world than us. And that’s something special about this series, whether you grew up in Northern Ireland or not.
We see references to real events: the IRA ceasefire announcement in 1994, the Good Friday Agreement, etc. But we also see the girls living like normal teenagers: studying for exams, getting into friendly fights, getting into trouble with their parents .
The series is based on McGee’s own experiences as a teenager in Derry in the 90s. The show is full of laughter and heart and serves as a reminder that growing up is one of the most awkward and terribly wonderful times.
I suggest if you’re planning on watching it, wait until Saturday because the Buckeyes don’t need your bad jiju this weekend. But Derry Girls is available on Netflix in the US, and it’s the best Ireland has to offer (and that’s saying something, because Ireland gave us Guinness AND Saoirse Ronan).
Matt’s Take: McDonald’s Shamrock Shake
Let’s cut to the chase: the best thing McDonald’s does every year is not bring back the McRib, but take full advantage of its Irish heritage and offer the Shamrock Shake in late February/early March in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day.
Mint Chocolate Ice Cream was my favorite ice cream growing up, so I was predisposed to love the Shamrock Shake, but it became more than just a tasty treat for me. It has become a symbol of the changing of the seasons, the end of the harsh winter that brings cold, gray skies to Ohio and the Midwest.
When Ronald decides it’s time to bring back the bright green mixture, it means warmer weather, brighter colors, and an easing of Seasonal Effective Disorder are just around the corner. The appearance of this dessert, vaguely reminiscent of toothpaste, is much more reliable than the appearance of some rodent crawling out of a hole to see its shadow.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve lived in Florida for almost ten years, so the only seasons we have are summer and hell, and I haven’t eaten sugar in two and a half years, so my love for Shamrock Shake is almost entirely nostalgic, because which, to be fair, I think it lost a bit of its edge when they tried to make it a lot fancier than anything from McDonald’s.
They took it out of the cheap paper cup and put it in a slightly less cheap plastic cup. They put a dome-shaped lid on it. They started putting whipped cream on top to fill the dome. Nobody asked for this. Nobody needs these things.
Just give me a regular milkshake with artificial flavors that tastes like it came out of a machine that only works half the time. I don’t come to McDonald’s for tasty treats; for this I go to cool restaurants like Steak ‘n’ Shake or Shake Shack.
So I think my view is old Shamrock Shake. The one you could get before McDonald’s tried to compete with fast food restaurants, instead of accepting the fact that they serve billions of people because they offer a cheap and lowest common denominator that in some cases makes you question all the life decisions you made there, but in others deliver a completely pleasant artificially flavored dining experience.
Read more