Céilí Mór...more what?

Irish-ness:

"Brilliant!"
"That's Grand."
or,
"No, (don't worry) you're grand."
"You're okay."
"Cheers!"
"Love (like referring to you in person)"
"Trad(itional) music."
"Thanks a million,"
or the shorter
"Thanks a mil."
"Is it not...?"
"Quite drunk."
which is different than
"Drinking a pint or two."
neither of which means drunk
and
"good craic"
or
"just a bit of craic"
neither of which mean cocaine, but fun.

Last night was the celebration of

Imbol,

and so there was a Ceili Mor at the college bar. Ceili (ka-lee) was probably the best craic since I've gotten here. i'm glad we waited. the thing about ireland is nothing is ever on time. the people here call it "irish time." when I was in kilkenny, we met a bartender who had a pub in the bronx and said it was so hard to come back home to ireland, because he'd invite people to parties that started at 9 and really people would show up at 10.
but anyway, the ceili was supposed to start @9, but music didn't start until 10:30 and the first set at 10:45. colleen and i almost left, but it was totally worth it to stay. it was incredible - american square dancing stems from ceili. it was exhilarating - a little nuannarpoq in ireland, kind of. basically, you stand in lines, four facing four, holding hands. when the music starts you irish skip (it is totally different than american skipping, seriously) towards each other twice. then you hold hands with your partner and switch places with the other couple in your set. then.....the best part. you skip across to your partner across the way, "shake hands with your left" and hold each other on the side with your right and just spin as fast as possible for the next eight beats. it is AWESOME. then you skip towards each other again, but the second time you go under each others arms so you're facing a new group of four. look at this video from another ceili at NUIG http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VntoLATvIwk

they only do it on special occasions, so hopefully there will be another ceili while i'm here, although possibly not. i'm in love with the irish culture. every day here feels more and more like i'm connecting with everything.