NEWS: Muck of the Irish

CULTURE: Muck of the Irish

Two Irishmen have set up a company selling dirt to Americans.

According to the BBC, Alan Jenkins, 65, from Lisburn and agricultural scientist Pat Burke, 27, from Tipperary, say the demand for the "official Irish dirt" has been "phenomenal."

Mr. Burke has used his scientific background to patent a way of processing the soil to pass US import regulations, meaning it is disease-free and contains no Irish insects.

An elderly New York businessman has already placed a $100,000 order so he can be fully buried in Irish soil.

Now, I know I have a touch of the British snobbery about Americans – in fact, I’m pretty certain we have a touch of snobbery about anyone and anything that isn’t us (some call it xenophobia, but I think that’s such an ugly word). So I don’t want to start mouthing off, and using words like “gullible” and “stupid” without fully researching my facts, lest I offend anyone who also thinks, like me, that importing dirt from Ireland is just about as dumb as buying a bit of rock from a street seller in Germany and believing it’s a part of the Berlin Wall.

Sadly, the facts read something like this – at last count, the enterprising Irish duo have just sold their first $1 million shipment of genuine Irish soil to the US.

Muck raking? Not me. You guys will have more than enough over there to take care of that on your own.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of patriotism, may I suggest seeking out these absolute morons who spend $15 per 0.75lb bag of imported Irish soil, smacking them over the head with a wooden shamrock, stealing all their money as they clearly don’t deserve to have it, and as a parting shot, hissing “Not so lucky now, are you?”

They'll buy anything

This is sheer brilliance!

I had actually looked into this a while back, it was just getting the stuff through the import regulations of the US was going to be a nightmare.
The reason I looked into this? Because when working next to Bunratty Castle and folk park I would regularly see americans picking up blocks of turf (peat, used like coal in fires) and asking what it was and could they keep some.
I'm pretty sure there was no hope of them being allowed to actually take it home but it got me thinking.
Clearly though, someone else had been thinking quite a bit earlier than me, namely these two gentlemen, and the people who are selling genuine irish air, and genuine irish water over the internet.
Some guy in Wales is selling welsh air in perfume bottles too I think.
And the old favouite of 'own your own square meter of Ireland' land resellers.

I'm sure it's just a handy little talking point to most people, "look I have a genuine piece of Ireland".

I'm just surprised that someone in the US isn't selling american soil to someplace like Iran, but then perhaps Bush would use this as a pretext to invasion to "get our god fearing soil back from the clutches of terror".

You might have missed out on selling dirt but you could still try flogging bottled Luck of the Irish. I'm sure someone would buy it and you could have fun writing the labels.

jees.

"jump to conclusions"

I'm getting my Irish citizenship back and selling dirt to plastic paddies. Seriously. Fuck art school, man.

Shall we go into business and undercut their prices?

I had an idea years ago to do this with soil from Transylvania. Sell it in a little coffin-shaped box. Hot Topics all over the country would have Goth kids lining up to throw down their cash. Half of them would probably scatter it on their beds so they could sleep on it...

We already have that here. It's called Jameson

We've never had a culture of our own, or any kind of real history to be proud of (that wasn't a lie), so it's understandable to some degree.

We have all the toys and all the lights, all the pretty little things and the endless stream of babble to sell it by. We just don't have the value of belonging to anything worthwhile.

So far as I can tell anyway.



it's still stupid of course

Hell, we bought London Bridge, why not Ireland....One 75lb bag at a time....

Can I get a pot o' gold with that???

How about just the pot???

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

seriously

ha ha ha

last summer i brought home some genuine dublin dirt for my dad. received a hilarious lecture from a fine irish gent whilst collecting said dirt. but damn. if i knew people would actually pay for it...

When my friend and I went on a cross country road-trip, I collected dirt from every place we stopped, and then planted a pretty lily in it when I got home. I thought it was nice. Would sort of take any meaning out of it to pay for it, though.

I have enormous respect for these entrepreneurs.

1. When you find out how stupid people can be, you can either write snide comments about it on internet message boards, or become millionaires. We're taking one of those options here, and those guys are taking the other!

2. I'm Irish. We have two things in abundance: good reputation and dirt. For so long we have only thought of making money via the first one! Respect to these gentlemen for harvesting our only other resource!

Fainne oir orthu!