These are the best Irish jokes you’ll hear all day, unless you go over to Smoke&Mirrors where I stole them from and read the whole whack all at once.

It should be noted (or is that “noted it should be”?) that:

I’m Irish Catholic on one side and Irish Protestant on the other, my favorite pub is the impeccably authentic Irish Heather, I host a literary gathering that meets at the Shebeen, the women of my immediate family are somewhat, and quite inconveniently from time to time, renowned for the Second Sight, my uncle goes over to Ireland on vacations to teach them how to play the fiddle, my grandfather was an infamous warlock, and there’s a Bend Sinister in the gene pool somewhere for bonus points.

So I have total Celt cred.

1586 words of the most amusing Irish jokes around over the jump. But not the leprechaun nun one. Gross!

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Here’s one I stole from the GrassyKnollInstitute:

An aging man lived alone in Ireland. His only son was in Long Kesh Prison, and he didn’t know anyone who would spade up his potato garden. The old man wrote to his son about it, and received this reply, “For HEAVENS SAKE, don’t dig up that garden, that’s where I buried the GUNS!!!!!”

At 4 A.M. the next morning, a dozen British soldiers showed up and dug up the entire garden, but didn’t find any guns. Confused, the man wrote to his son telling him what happened and asking him what to do next.

His son’s reply was: “Just plant your potatoes.”

This is one I remember from watching Dave Allen, which I used to do as a toddler because my parents were…well, just about what you’d expect them to be from the above description, and more, and so they would wake me at 11pm when Mission Impossible came on and let me stay up to watch Dave Allen right after. So here’s what I remember learning at the age of five or so:

So, there’s this fellow. We’ll call him Dave. Because we can’t call him Pat because you’ll see why because. Dave was born and raised a Bible-thumping, flag-waving Protestant, joined the Orange Lodge and did the thing with the goat onstage and the whole nine yards. Oh, in all of Ulster you would not find any Protestant as Protestory as Dave. And he lived there his whole life and brought up a fine family there, and then, eventually, he lay dying there in his bed at home with his grown sons and daughters gathered around him, and his wife weeping in the corner.

“Family,” he says, “I’m not long for this world.” And the wailing of the offspring nearly drowned out the sound of the rain on the roof and the Wild Hunt riding by.

“No, Father,” says the eldest son. “You’ll be with us for many a year yet!”

“No, my boy,” says the father. “My time has come. Send for the priest.”

The PRIEST? The family exchanged horrified looks among themselves. Surely their father was dying, but equally surely he had his wits about him just a few moments ago. Had he suddenly snapped?

“Father,” said the youngest daughter gently, “Don’t you mean the Reverend?”

“No, Peggy, that I do not. I mean send for the priest and I mean that right smartly, too. I haven’t much time and this is my last request on this Earth. See to it.”

And though the family members were horrified to the very core, they sent for the priest as he had requested. Father O’Malley (for we can give the priest a cliched name, for all Catholics in Irish jokes have but five names among them, no matter how many children they may spawn, although nobody ever heard of Father O’Malley doing such a thing, to be sure) arrived within minutes and with an unbecoming gleam in his eye, for in truth he’d coveted the souls of this Protestant stronghold for years, wishing for the triumph of adding them to his Catholic flock. And here was his big chance.

They brought Father O’Malley to where Dave lay dying, and Dave raised himself up, coughed a little, and said, “Father, I want to convert. Make me a Catholic and give me the Last Rites. And the priest obeyed, hurrying a little, for it was apparent that the man hadn’t much time left, as he’d predicted. When the ceremonies were finished, the priest bowed to the family and the patriarch and said he would let himself out, which he did.

As the door clicked shut, the middle daughter could contain herself no longer.

“Why, Father? Why did you convert? All your life you’ve raised us to be proudly Protestant, and never giving an inch to the Catholics. Why would you turn Catholic now?”

The old man looked at his child tenderly, smiled a little, and said, “Better they lose one of them than we lose one of us.”

“Irish Last Request”

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. Me husband passed away last night.”

The priest says, “Oh, Mary, that’s terrible. Tell me, 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.”

Then there’s the one about the priest who’s giving a sermon on temperance, a tough sell indeed in Ireland. And there he is again, our intrepid Father O’Malley (do Catholic priests do sermons? On temperance? Oh well, if they’ll buy the premise they’ll buy the bit, right? Yeah, yeah, they totally do sermons on temperance in Ireland, all the best Catholic Priests do, yeah, that’s the ticket) up at the pulpit and yammering away about the demon Rum and the demon Vodka and the demon Absinthe and the demon Sherry and the demon Jack Daniels and the demon Pisang Ambon and the demon Creme de Violettes and the demon South-Facing Vinyard in the Medoc, and a great many demons of which I am sure you and I have never heard.

He was a very educated man, was Father O’Malley.

“AND,” he thunders, scaring his flock half to death, “What’s proof on Earth of God‘s opinion of these accursed fluids? I’ll show you!”

And he holds up, very impressively I assure you, for there’s nothing that makes a man look impressive onstage like wearing a dress with some whopping great accessories, ask any drag queen, he holds up, very impressively, a big crystal tumbler of pure water, and in it he drops an earthworm.

And what does the earthworm do but swim about happily in the water, for all the world like it was some kind of Annelid spa or something. And Father O’Malley, he fishes it out again.

“NOW!” he thunders, for he was very thundery, although not very lightning at all but rather heavy going if you know what I mean, “NOW! FOR! THE! WHISKEY!” and he holds up a tumbler of golden whiskey and into SMACK! he drops the little earthworm.

And the poor little fellow (by which I mean the earthworm) shrivels up and dies right then and there, with the eyes of the congregation upon him.

“AND. WHAT. DOES. THAT. TELL. YOU?” asks the thundersome Father O’Malley?

And a little old wino at the back pipes up, “Drink whiskey and you’ll never have worms.”

“Lent”

An Irishman moved into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry.
He walks into the local pub, orders three pints of Guinness takes them to a table and proceeds to drink them taking his time.
He repeats this two times and then leaves the pub.

A few nights later he returns to the pub, orders three pints of Guinness, takes them to a table and drinks them taking his time. He repeats this two times and leaves the pub. He continues this for several weeks.
Soon the entire town is talking about the “Three Pint Man.”

Finally, one day the pub owner on behalf of the entire town broaches the subject to the man. “I don’t mean to pry, but folks are quite curious why you order three pints each time you come in .”

The man replied, “I have two brothers – one in America and one in Australia. When we parted ways we all promised that each time we had a drink, we would order an extra two pints as a way of keeping up with each other.”

The pub owner and the entire town thought this was wonderful and were pleased that the brothers meant so much to each other. “The Three Pint Man” became a celebrity not only to the town but to the surrounding area.

One day the man came into the pub and orders only two pints of Guinness. The pub owner poured them with a heavy heart knowing in his soul that something dreadful must have happened. The news spreads around town and people are offering prays for the “Three Pint Man.”

This went on for a few weeks and the pub owner says to the man, “I want to offer our condolences due to death of your brother. We are all heart broken. You know the two pints and all.”

The man ponders this for a few minutes and replies, “You will be glad to hear that my brothers are alive and well. It’s just that I, meself, have decided to give up Guinness for Lent.”