Paddy had long heard the stories of an amazing family tradition. It seems that his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been able to walk on water on their 18th birthday. On that special day, they'd  each walked across the lake to the pub on the  far side for their first legal  drink.

So when Paddy's 18th birthday  came around, he and his pal Mick, took a boat out to the middle of the  lake, Paddy, stepped out of the boat ...and nearly drowneddd! Mick just barely managed to pull him to safety. Furious and confused, Paddy  went to see his grandmother.

 "Grandma," he asked, "Tis me  18th birthday, so why can't I walk across the lake like me father, his father  and his father before him?"

Granny looked deeply into  Paddy's, troubled blue eyes and said,

"That's because ye father, ye grandfather and ye great-grandfather were all born in December, when the lake is frozen, and ye were born in August, ya  dumb idgit!"

Mrs. McGervey was walking down O'Connell Street in Dublin when she met up with Father O'Flaherty. The Father said, 'Top o' the mornin' to ye! Aren't ye Mrs. McGervey and didn't I marry ye and yer hoosband 2 years ago?'
She replied, 'Aye, that ye did, Father..'
The Father asked, 'And be there any wee little ones yet?'
She replied, 'No, not yet, Father.'
The Father said, 'Well now, I'm going to Rome next week and I'll light a candle for ye and yer hoosband.'
She replied, 'Oh, thank ye, Father.' They then parted ways.

Some years later they met again. The Father asked, 'Well now, Mrs. McGervey, how are ye these days?'
She replied, 'Oh, very well, Father!' The Father asked, 'And tell me, have ye any wee ones yet?'
She replied, 'Oh yes, Father! Three sets of twins and 4 singles, 10 in all!'
The Father said, 'That's wonderful! How is yer lovin' hoosband doing?'
She replied, 'E's gone to Rome to blow out yer fookin' candle.

An Irish daughter had not been home for over 5 years. Upon her return, her Father cussed her.

'Where have ye been all this time? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn't ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old Mother thru?'

The girl, crying, replied, 'Sniff, sniff....Dad....I became a prostitute...'

'Ye what!!? Out of here, ye shameless harlot! Sinner! You're a disgrace to this Catholic family.'

'OK, Dad-- as ye wish. I just came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten bedroom mansion plus a $5 million savings certificate. For me little brother, this gold Rolex. And for ye Daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited edition convertible that's parked outside plus a membership to the country club........................ (takes a breath)............. and an invitation for ye all to spend New Years Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera and... ...'

'Now what was it ye said ye had become?' says Dad.

Girl, crying again, 'Sniff, sniff....a prostitute Daddy! Sniff, sniff.'

'Oh! Be Jesus! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a Protestant. Come here and give yer old Dad a hug.'

What It Means To Be Irish:
1. You will never play professional basketball.
2. You swear very well.
3. At least one of your cousins is a fireman, cop, bar owner, funeral home owner or holds political office.
4. You think you sing very well.
5. You have no idea how to make a long story short!
6. There isn't a big difference between you losing your temper or killing someone...
7. Much of your childhood meals were boiled.
8. You have never hit your head on a ceiling.
9. You spent a good portion of your childhood kneeling in prayer (ya know ya were thinkin' about being bad whether ya did it or not).
10. You're strangely poetic after a few beers.
11. You are, therefore, poetic a lot.
12. You will be punched for no good reason...a lot.
13. Some punches directed at you are from legacies of past generations.
14. Many of your sisters and/or cousins are named Mary, Catherine or Eileen...and there is at least one member of your family with the full name of Mary Catherine Eileen.
15. Someone in your family is incredibly cheap. It is more than likely you.
16. You may not know the words, but that doesn't stop you from singing.
17. You can't wait for the other guy to stop talking before you start talking.
18. You're not nearly as funny as you think you are...but what you lack in talent, you make up for in frequency.
19. There wasn't a huge difference between your last Wake and your last keg party.
20. You are, or know someone, named Murph.
21. If you don't know Murph then you know Mac. If you don't know Murph or Mac then you know Sully.
Then you probably know Sully MacMurphy.
22. You are genetically incapable of keeping a secret.
23. You have Irish Alzheimer's... your forget everything but the grudges!
24. "Irish Stew" is a euphemism for "boiled leftovers."
25. All of your losses are alcohol-related (loss of virginity, loss of drivers license, loss of money, loss of job, loss of significant other, loss of teeth from punch...) but it never stops you from drinking.

Paddy had been drinking at his local Dublin pub all day and most of the night. Mick, the bartender, says to him: "You'll not be drinking no more tonight, Paddy."

Paddy replies: "OK, Mick. I'll be on me way then." Paddy spins around on his stool and steps off. He falls flat on his face. "What the...." he says and pulls himself up by the stool and dusts himself off. He takes a step towards the door and falls flat on his face again. "Damn!" he says.

He looks to the doorway and thinks that if he can just get to the door and get some fresh air he'll be fine. He belly-crawls to the door and shimmies up the door frame. He sticks his head outside and takes a deep breath of fresh air. Feeling much better, he takes a step out onto the pavement and
falls flat on his face again. "B'Jesus... I'm soused," he says.

He can see his house just a few doors down, and decides to try for it. He crawls down the street, shimmies up the door frame, opens the door and looks inside. He takes a look up the stairs and says, "No flappin' way." But he somehow crawls up the stairs to his bedroom door and thinks, "I think I can make it to the bed." He takes a step into the room and falls flat on his face again. He says, "This is hell. I gotta stop drinking," but manages to crawl to the bed and fall in.

The next morning, his wife comes into the room carrying a cup of coffee and says, "Get up Paddy. Have a bit to drink last night, did ye?"

Paddy says, "I did Jess, Truly, I did. I was totally wasted. But how'd you know?"

"Mick called ... You left your wheelchair at the pub."

From Chet: St. Patrick's Day is finally here. Even though I'm not Irish, and I don't have red hair, and my mother didn't have 17 kids, and I'm not an alcoholic or a little Leprechaun - I still enjoy celebrating St. Patrick's Day.

Here is my schedule for St. Patrick's Day:

6:30 AM - Wake up. Slam two shots of Jameson Irish Whiskey.
6:45 AM - Take shower, use Irish Spring. Brush teeth, gurgle with Irish whiskey.
6:55 AM - Pour bowl of Lucky Charms. Substitute Guinness for Milk. 
7:10 AM - Put on clothes. Wear "Kiss Me, I'm An Irish Poseur" t-shirt.
7:20 AM - Get beer helmet and stock it with Guinness. Then grab two more Guinness and chug them like an Irish rock star. 
7:25 AM - Find four-leaf clover in back yard. 
7:26 AM - Screw it; just drink two shots of Bailey's Irish Cream.
7:35 AM - Play U2's JOSHUA TREE album. Dance jig.
7:45 AM - Sing dirty limericks. 
7:55 AM - Drink three more shots of whiskey and punch self in the face.
8:00 AM - Pass out till tomorrow. 

Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, "Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up Irish Whiskey"

Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Paddy looked up again and said, "Never mind, I found one."

Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and says to the first man he meets, "Do you want to go to heaven?"
The man said, "I do Father."
The priest said, "Then stand over there against the wall."
Then the priest asked the second man, "Do you want to go to heaven?"
Certainly, Father," was the man's reply. "Then stand over there against the wall," said the priest.
Then Father Murphy walked up to O'Toole and said, "Do you want to go to heaven? 
O'Toole said, "No, I don't Father.
The priest said, "I don't believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don't want to go to heaven?"
O'Toole said, "Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now."

Paddy was in New York. He was patiently waiting, and watching the traffic cop on a busy street crossing. The cop stopped the flow of traffic and shouted, "Okay pedestrians" . Then he'd allow the traffic to pass. He'd done this several times, and Paddy still stood on the sidewalk.

After the cop had shouted "Pedestrians" for the tenth time, Paddy went over to him and said, "Is it not about time ye let the Catholics across?

Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend Finney.

Did you see the paper?" asked Gallagher. "They say I died!!"

Yes, I saw it!" replied Finney. "Where are ye callin' from?"

An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut. The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.

He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?

Just water," says the priest.

The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?"

The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"

Walking into the bar, Mike said to Charlie the bartender, "Pour me a stiff one - just had another fight with the little woman."

"Oh yeah?" said Charlie "And how did this one end?"

"When it was over," Mike replied, "she came to me on her hands and knees.

"Really," said Charles, "now that's a switch! What did she say?"

She said, "Come out from under the bed, you little chicken."

Flynn staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking buddy, Paddy. He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Mary.

He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom step. As he caught himself by grabbing the banister, his body swung around and he landed heavily on his rump. A whiskey bottle in each back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful.

Managing not to yell, Flynn sprung up, pulled down his pants, and looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt cheeks were cut and bleeding. He managed to quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place he saw blood.

He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and stumbled his way to bed.

In the morning, Flynn woke up with searing pain in both his head and butt and Mary staring at him from across the room.

She said, "You were drunk again last night weren't you?"

Flynn said, "Why you say such a mean thing? " Well," Mary said, "it could be the open front door, it could be the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could be the drops of blood trailing through the house, it could be your bloodshot eyes, but mostly....it' s all those Band-Aids stuck on the hall mirror."

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he'd just been run over by a train, again. His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut and bruised and he's walking with a limp.
"What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.
"Jamie O'Conner and me had a fight," says Paddy.
"That little shit, O'Conner," says Sean, "He couldn't do that to you, he must have had something in his hand."
"That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had, and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it."
"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended yourself, didn't you have something in your hand?"
"That I did," said Paddy. "Mrs. O'Conner's breast, and a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight."
============================================
Three Irishmen, Paddy, Sean and Shamus, were stumbling home from the pub late one night and found themselves on the road which led past the old graveyard.
"Come have a look over here," says Paddy, "It's Michael O'Grady's grave, God bless his soul.
He lived to the ripe old age of 87."
"That's nothing", says Sean, "here's one named Patrick O'Tool, it says here that he was 95 when he died."
Just then, Shamus yells out, "Good God, here's a fella' that got to be 145!"
"What was his name?" asks Paddy?
Shamus stumbles around a bit, awkwardly lights a match to see what else is written on the stone marker, and exclaims, "Miles, from Dublin."
===========================================
Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.
He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"
She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."
The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, Mary, did he have any last requests?"
She says, "That he did, Father.."
The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?"
She says, "He said, 'Please Mary, put down that damn gun...'
===========================================
A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down but says nothing. The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention but the drunk just sits there.
Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall.
The drunk mumbles, "Ain't no use knockin', there's no paper on this side either".

Three Pints of Beer A man walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of beer, and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each. When he finishes, he returns to the bar and orders three more. The bartender tells him, "You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it; it would taste better if you bought one at a time."

The man replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the other in Australia, and I'm here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the days we all drank together." The bartender admits that this is a nice custom and leaves it there. The man becomes a regular in the bar and always drinks the same way: he orders three pints and drinks them in turn.

One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars in the bar notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss."

The man looks confused for a moment, then a light dawns, and he laughs. "Oh, no," he says, "Everyone is fine. I've just quit drinking!"

A Dog’s Funeral Muldoon lived alone in the Irish countryside with only a pet dog for company. One day the dog died, and Muldoon went to the parish priest and asked, “Father, me dog is dead. Could ya’ be saying a mass for the poor creature?”

Father Patrick replied, “I’m afraid not, we cannot have services for an animal in the church. But there are some Baptists down the lane, and there’s no tellin’ what they believe. Maybe they’ll do something for the creature.

Muldoon said, “I’ll go right away, Frather. Do ya’ think $5,000 is enough for donate for the service?”

Father Patrick exclaimed, “Sweet Mary, Mother of Jesus? Why didn’t ya’ tell me the dog was Catholic?”

Brenda O'Malley is home making dinner, as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door. "Brenda, may I come in?" he asks, "I've somethin' to tell ya." 
" Of course you can come in, you're always welcome, Tim. But where's my husband?" 
"That's what I'm here to be tellin' ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery..." 
"Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don't tell me..." 
"I must, Brenda. Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry." 
Finally, she looked up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?" 
"It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout and drowned." 
"Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim. Did he at least go quickly? 
"Well, no Brenda... no." 
"No?" 
"Fact is, he got out three times to pee. 

An Irishman who had a little too much to drink is driving home from the city one night and, of course, his car is weaving violently all over the road. A cop pulls him over. 
"So," says the cop to the driver, "where have you been?" 
"Why, I've been to the pub of course" slurs the drunk. 
"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few drinks this evening". 
" I did all right," the drunk says with a smile. 
"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms across his chest, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?" 
"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I  thought I'd gone deaf." 

Oh, It's A Proud, Proud Day! An American tourist is in Scotland, and while touring the moors, she comes upon a Scotsman who got drunk the night before and passed out under a tree.  She sees that the man is out cold and decides to satisfy her curiosity about what Scottish men have under their kilts.  So she tiptoes over to the man, lifts up his kilt, and sees for sure that the rumors are true!

So she takes out a ribbon, ties it on the Scotsman's honor and leaves.  When the man wakes up, he has to pee really bad, so he goes over to the creek, lifts up his kilt, sees the ribbon and says, "I don't know what you've done or where you've been, but I'm happy you got first prize!"

I've Lost Me Luggage An Irishman arrived at JFK Airport and wandered around the terminal with tears streaming down his cheeks. An airline employee asked him if he was already homesick. "No," replied the Irishman. "I've lost all me luggage!"

"How'd that happen?"

"The cork fell out!" said the Irishman.

The Reunion A man stumbles up to the only other patron in a bar and asks if he could buy him a drink.  "Why, of course," comes the reply.

The first man then asks, "Where are you from?" 

"I'm from Ireland," replies the second man.

The first man responds, "You don't say. I'm from Ireland too! Let's have another round to Ireland."

"Of course," says the second.

Curious, the first asks: "Where in Ireland?"

"Dublin," comes the reply. 

"I can't believe it. Me too! Lets have another round of drinks to Dublin."

"Of course."

The second man can't help himself so he asks, "What school did you attend?"

"Saint Mary's," replies the first man. "I graduated in '62."

"This is becoming unbelievable!"  They say in union.

About that time, in comes one of the regulars and sits down at the bar.

"What's up?" he asks the bartender.

"Nothing much," replied the bartender. "The O'Malley twins are drunk again!"

The Brothel Two Irishmen are sitting a pub having beer and watching the brothel across the street. They saw a Baptist minister walk into the brothel, and one of them says, "Aye, 'tis a  shame to see a man of the cloth goin' bad."

Then they see a rabbi enter the brothel, and the other Irishman says, "Aye, 'tis a  shame to see that the Jews are fallin' victim  to temptation."

Then they see a catholic priest enter the brothel, and one of the Irishmen says, "What a terrible pity ... one of the girls must be quite ill."