5 movies with an Irish link of some sort that my siblings think I need in my life now, right now

"May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you."
- Irish Blessing

Last year, here on the blog, Jolene, Danielle, Natalie and myself wrote (argued/wrote - potato, po-tah-to) a St. Patrick's Day list. Top 5 Irish actors we argued over for this top 5 St. Patrick's Day post, to be specific. Weirdly (?), it received quite a few hits. This year, I decided to keep with the St. Patricks Day post (mostly because I am all kinds of a fool for an Irish accent), but switch it up a little. Well, I thought a little, but siblings hijacked the post so it resembles nothing like what I started with. I wanted to list 5 Irish Films You Need in Your Life Now, Right Now! just because it's St. Patrick's Day. But it's a pretty contentious topic in our household, and fiercely debated. For example, what, exactly, did I mean by 'Irish'? It got to the point where a list of 'Is THIS what you meant?!?' points were made and argued about, back and forth, back and forth:

Actors/actresses born in Ireland?

Actors/actresses not Irish (with terribly hammed-up accents) yet playing Irish characters?

Films shot in Ireland that aren't about Ireland or its Irish history?

Films with Irish characters but not set in Ireland?

Don't even get me started on whether or not Irish actors/actresses in what is, really, an American film, counts *sigh* Yes. Fun and games over dinner, I'll tell you. In the end, craving peace and quiet, and wanting to avoid bloodshed (and cold shoulders), I opted to give my movie-watching experience over to them *somewhat hesitant look* which is why this list is a mish-mash of (probably) all of the above *holds head in hands* And so behold! 5 movies with an Irish link of some sort that my siblings think I need in my life now, right now. Oy. Happy St. Patricks Day!

Top 5 Irish actors we argued over for this top 5 St. Patrick's Day post

List by Jolene, Natalie and Tosca

"If you're lucky enough to be Irish, you're lucky enough!"
- Irish Saying

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My favourite day of the year, when I worked at the Manukau Library branch, was St. Patrick's Day - all day long you were guaranteed to have Irish customers pop in to email home and, if there's one thing I've always loved, it's an Irish accent. This post is little more than a quick St. Patrick's Day salute :)

Late yesterday afternoon three of us were kicking around the idea of an Irish-related blog post that, somehow, got derailed. One thing we absolutely agreed on was that it should be about Irish actors. Once we'd named Liam Neeson - and argued about Gerard Butler's national identity (he's Scottish - who knew?) - we ran out of names. A quick Google-fu session later and we had a whole heap more. What we couldn't decide on was which actor belonged at what number. Some *very* intense discussion later, it ended up somewhere around here:

Jolene: And Michael Flatley!
Tosca: What? He's not an actor! *adopts scathing tone* He's a dancer.
Natalie: He's Lord of the Riverdance.
Jolene: He's more than a dancer! And I think he should be on this list.
Tosca: No. He's not an actor. And anyway, riverdance is synchronised swimming without the water.
Jolene: *silent for a moment* Fine. I'm making my own list and it'll be called 'MY top 5 list of naff Irish people that Tosca wouldn't let me put on her list including Westlife and Michael Flatley.' *smug look*

For the sake of the list we haggled and bartered and traded and, generally, argued rather loudly (poor Tony who has to sit in our open plan office). And finally we had our list of top 5 Irish actors (with links to some of their films we've enjoyed).