Tuesday 13 November 2007

Facts about Ireland

While browsing the web I came across this little list....thought it would be fun to share!

1. The average height of Irish men is 5' 7".
2. The average height of Irish women is 5'5".
3. 90% of Irish nationals are Catholic but only 30% ever attend church.
4. The average Irish adult spends 3,500 euro a year on alcohol.
5. The most popular Irish Radio station is RTE, attracting 1.1 Million listeners every weekday.
6. The Irish report the lowest annual number of UFO sightings in Europe.
7. The Irish eat 12 million cream eggs between New Years Day and Easter.
8. 70% of married Irish women would consider having an affair while n a foreign holiday without their spouse or children.
9. 90% of all Irish men would do the same.
10. The Irish buy 20 million cigarettes a day.
11. Experts believe that the average price of a 3-bedroom house in Dublin will rise to 250,000 by 2005.
12. The most popular cars in Ireland are the Ford Fiesta & Focus, the Toyota Yaris and the 3 series BMW.
13. The average Irish household has three TV's and two video recorders.
14. The average Irish married couple has sex one and a halftimes a week.
15. The average Irish single couple has sex four times a week.
16. The average unattached Irish male only has sex once every six months.
17. 76% of all Irish nine-year-olds have tried alcohol and cigarettes.
18. 63% of all Irish people think that corrupt politicians should be made bankrupt and then imprisoned.
19. 73% of Americans are unable to locate Ireland on a map bereft of country names.
20. Bra sales in Ireland increased by 4million between 1998 and 1999.
21. Raymond O'Brien is the shortest person in Irish history. The midget, who died in 1795, was one foot eleven inches tall.
22. Less than two percent of the Irish population have been bitten by poisonous snakes.
23. The Irish drink four million pints of tea a day.
24. The average Irish farmer receives 40,000 euro in EC subsidies every year.
25. Ireland has one of the lowest rates of crime against tourists in the western world.
26. Dublin is the Gay capital of Ireland with over ninety percent of the indigenous gay population residing there.
27. The average Irish family is made up of two parents and two point nine children.
28. Irish women believe that thirty is the best age to get married and begin a family.
29. Irish men believe that thirty-five is early enough to settle down.
30. Only 9% of the Irish population are natural red heads.
31. May is generally the driest month of the year in Ireland.
32. Galway is the Hash capital of Ireland.
33. Dublin is the Smack capital of Ireland.
34. RTE's "The Late Late Show" is the world's longest running Talk Show, initially hosted by Gay Byrne, Pat "The Plank" Kenny now hosts the show.
35. 57% of Irish people wear glasses or contact lenses.
36. In 1907, Bernard Murphy legally swapped his daughter for three cows and a sheep at a Donegal market.
37. Cat's now out number dogs by two to one as Ireland's most popular pet.
38. Almost 100% of Irish Catholic children take a pledge to stay away from alcohol until they are eighteen. Only 2% of them actually stick to it.
39. 58% of practicing Catholics see the church as outdated and in need of major overhaul.
40. Dublin boasts one pub for every 120 head of population.
41. Tourists cite the severe lack of Dublin taxi's on weekend nights as the main reason they would not recommend the city as a short break destination to their friends.
42. Only 1/8 of Irish people under the age of 24 are married.
43. Irish marriages last an average of thirteen years although the majority do not end in divorce. Irish couples prefer to separate and live in sin with their new partners rather than go through costly legal proceedings.
44. An album only needs to sell 5,000 copies to top the Irish music charts.
45. A book only needs to sell 3,000 copies to top the Irish best seller's list.
46. The Canary Islands are the most popular sunshine holiday destination with retired Irish citizens.
47. 89% percent of the population were in favour of permanently separating Northern Ireland from the Republic.
48. The fattest Irish person on record was Aine Gowan. At the time of her death she weighed over thirty stone.

6 comments:

Jason said...

"76% of all Irish nine-year-olds have tried alcohol and cigarettes."

Ah yes but the legal age at which a parent can give their own child alcohol is 4 years old.

Malcolm said...

b3n I am honoured that you popped by! Is the legal age not around teething time, a bit of whiskey on the gums at about 5-6 months ;)

Anonymous said...

Then Irish people are very short. I am a Persian and live in Iran, and my 15 years old brother is one of the shortest students in his class being 5'6.5". And I am 5'11.7", a young adult man, being a short one among my friends. And my mom is 5'6.5".

Anonymous said...

Nearly 100% percent take the pledge, doubt it. I know one person who took it and I'm 18

Paul Larkin said...

the worlds first knee transplant also took place in Ireland, on a you rugby star named Diarmuid Whyte

Roughy the Dog said...

--Argument against "Considering having an Affair"--


You can't apply the rules of statistics to such vague things as considerations. Considerations are not something you can measure, so how then can you quantify a statistic such as the percentage of people who "consider" having an affair. All you are really measuring here is the percentage of (a small sample of) people who say, in a survey of questionable validity, that they consider having an affair. Even in a rigorously calculated and executed survey, the result will always fall short of the truth for two reasons:

1. The sample is practically never the entire population being measured.

2. Humans are liable to answering incorrectly for varying reasons.

As long as the survey asks precise questions that will most likely be answered correctly, and is of a reasonable size (so as to reasonably represent the desired population) I can accept such errors.

However, when a survey asks about considerations, the result -to me- is next to meaningless. The interpretation of "Considering having an affair" can range from the thought of an affair popping into ones head- which I would guess would occur for more than 90% of the population, to the contemplation of an affair to such a point that one is literally just as likely to do it as not.

If the former interpretation is to be taken as correct, then what meaning do the results really have? All they really say is that people conceve a situation in which they are having an affair, though it says nothing about their intentions .

If the latter, more extreme, interpretation is taken on board, then would the results of the survey not indicate that exactly double the number of people who actually have an affair is the number saying they "consider" an affair- otherwise their considerations are not to be taken too seriously.

More likely than the interpretations of everyone lying in either of the two camps of extremity listed above is that they lie scattered in between- from one extreme to the other, with only a small percentage taking to the extremes. As such, the survey is rendered fairly useless since the meaning of its results could too could waver from extreme to the other.

Hence, I strongly refute such an argument that an average of 80% of us humans are cheaters at heart, i.e. that 80% of people would seriously consider cheating on their spouse.