#tiocfaidharlulz

[balaqlava]

tiocfaidharlulz replied to your post “What is the meaning of life?”

These tags were written by Jeff rosenstock

[hawtsee]

tiocfaidharlulz replied to your post “Tonight will be the last time I canvass for this referendum. I can’t...”

You’re an actual fucking star mate and we all appreciate what you’ve done, whatever way it goes!

You have the best username on this site!

Thank you. I’m so proud to have been involved in this campaign and to have worked alongside and with so many wonderful, amazing, inspiring women (and a few good fellas too). Whatever the outcome, we can all hold our head up high.

And when the time comes, I hope that all of us down here show the same support for our sisters in the North as they have shown us.

Did you see the Orange Order have come out in favour of a no vote?  Cheers, lads.

[balaqlava]

tiocfaidharlulz mentioned you on a post “See where is says “say something nice” you fucking reprobate”

why are u afraid of completing task you begin? @balaqlava

you know what? i’m just gonna say it

i don’t care that you got an ulcer

[balaqlava]

tiocfaidharlulz replied to your post “There’s some fella running for QUBSU President and his own manifesto...”

I honest to god added him on snapchat this morning just to see what the fuck

Is it any good? I followed him on insta. He took a screenshot of the definition of ‘freedom of speech’ and wrote that that “since [he’s] been at university [he’s] realised that we no longer have this” so I’m excited for his next update.

[balaqlava]

I shared a womb with @tiocfaidharlulz and I have never seen her more in her element than she is in these two photos

[tiocfaidharlulz]

Could you explain your username? I'm not Irish so I don't get it but I've seen a few comments and I'm curious...

Yeah, man! Every now and then I forget to a lot of people it just looks confusing lmao.

So, in Irish culture there’s a phrase which is really considered the catchphrase for the fight for Irish independence, and it’s “tiocfaidh ár lá”. Tiocfaidh ár lá means “our day will come”, which is a phrase James Joyce used in “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” in relation to Irish independence and sovereignty.

If you don’t know much about Irish history, I can go into further detail but to keep it short here, after the War of Independence in the early 20th century, the six north-eastern counties of Ireland remained under British occupation (and still do), so the struggle for independence never ended. Now, during British rule, the Irish language was suppressed. But in the North because British control and discrimination towards nationalists has been so strong, the language continued to be suppressed, even though in the rest of country, it’s still very common for people to know the Irish language or at least littles bits. Even to this day, there are only a couple of Irish-speaking schools in the six counties, and most of those are recent - the Irish language revival movement here is a big deal right now.

In the 70s and 80s when the Irish political prisoners were in jail in the North, they would teach themselves (and each other) Irish and use that to communicate - and also just for revival on a cultural level. But being self-taught has its flaws obviously, so a lot of the time it wasn’t always correct. So this started being referred to as Jailtacht Irish (jailtacht as a pun on gaeltacht - irish speaking areas). One if the most prominent Irish republican political prisoners was hunger striker Bobby Sands, from Belfast. In his prison diary, he wrote in this broken Irish a lot and he was the one who used the phrase “tiocfaidh ár lá”.

So, technically, tiocfaidh ár lá doesn’t grammatically make sense; however, the power of the statement is two-fold. The sentiment of “our day will come” is important and signifies strength, resilience, inevitability, community and righteousness. But it also holds the importance of an oppressed group defying how they’ve been treated and refusing to allow those in power to take their identity and their freedom away from them. In irish there’s also a phrase, “is fearr Gaeilge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste,” which means ‘broken Irish is better than clever English’. That really shows the importance of the phrase, because it highlights the rebellious (and accepting) attitude amongst the Irish community in regards to culture and is a reminder of how people in certain areas of Ireland were left behind/stripped of their culture and how they claw their way back to their cultural identity even in the face of an empire trying to crush it.

So, it’s a really important phrase, especially for those of us in the north. And my blog started out as a politics blog (like, historical politics blogging) so I wanted to make the username relevant, but I also didn’t want to be a dry bastard, so I changed the ending. Another phrase Bobby Sands was known for was, “our revenge will be the laughter of our children”. I don’t need to explain why that’s important, but I thought I’d fuse the two together to make it more like… “our laughs will come” but still in that broken Irish… and using silly phrasing.

So, whilst it’s steeped in historic and political meaning, tiocfaidh ár lá is also so widely used that in Irish culture we use it really jokingly all the time. We also do this with the phrase “up the 'RA”. So if you’ve done something and you’re celebrating or you’re saying good luck or fucking anything honestly… people say tiocfaidh ár lá (like the two O'Donovan brothers, they said it at the Olympics after winning a medal in rowing). So to a lot of Irish people, the term is funny too, and lulz is obviously the dank ass equivalent for lol, so I fused the two extremely heavy political messages together and used them in their super comical ways and that’s the username.

I appreciate that that was very detailed and unnecessary and I shouldn’t have to go so far to explain a joke, but that’s the jist of it. I’m not sure if people on here like it because it just sounds funny or because its so specific and colloquial or because they get that dark/light meaning behind it. But that’s the meaning of it anyway. Thanks for asking anyway, I hope that explains it. Sorry for taking up six hours of your say, pal. 😂

[badgerswake]

unabashedlybritish replied to your post“@uk friends and followers: can you explain to me why Theresa May...”

yep^ essentially she expected a resounding victory that would give conservatives more seats in parliament, and her more popular backing to go into Brexit negotiations, however, it appears that's not going to happen exactly

tiocfaidharlulz replied to your post“@uk friends and followers: can you explain to me why Theresa May...”

Yes, she already had what she needed. Essentially she was looking for a resounding backing so she had more power and leigh-way to act out conservative plans without being constantly challenged that she had no mandate. With the Brexit vote being rejected in Scotland and Northern Ireland and the Brexit vote being so contentious even in England and Wales, she believed her mandate would be stronger if an election was called and the Tories were propped up by the voters. Which evidently, was a mistake

That’s so...cocky of her. And yeah, sounds like its back firing, too. Wow. Another question: She can just call an election because she’s not getting her way? That’s kind of fucked up. I don’t think we have anything like that here in the US. Why is that allowed/what other purpose does it serve? Seems so...disruptive. Is there a limit to the amount of elections that can be called like that?

[[Thank you so much for your responses @unabashedlybritish & @tiocfaidharlulz !!!!<3]]

[balaqlava]

Colour palette: Anxiety.