Bring back #HomeToRide: why I miss the golden days of Irish Twitter

Last year, my Halloween costume was easy to assemble. I made a fake staff badge for Dicey’s bar on Dublin’s Harcourt Street, put some sliced limes in a pint glass and slapped on a fake moustache. It was just esoteric enough to be annoying, especially for anyone who hasn’t spent a reasonable amount of time on Irish Twitter.

When I shared the tweet that had inspired the costume, appreciation rose: “The one time I ever went to Diceys, I ordered a Desperados and asked for a lime slice with it and the barman gestured to a pint glass full of lime slices but I was so drunk that I poured my bottle into the pint glass and started sipping away and then the barman shouted ‘My limes!’”

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Published in 2018 by a now locked Twitter account, “My limes!” has been guaranteed a spot on any list of “Best Irish Tweets Ever” that’s been curated since. It’s a perfect mixture of droll yet vivid storytelling, local flavour and comic timing. With the platform now in constant and unsettling flux since Elon Musk’s takeover, it feels like the golden days of Irish Twitter – and Twitter as a whole – are getting smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror.

“Irish Twitter” is a thing in the same way “Scottish Twitter” is a thing. Slang, turn of phrase and historical, political and cultural in-jokes have been used to create a rich and humorous commentary on Irish life since Twitter first launched in 2006. Early adopters took the opportunity to tweet rambling thoughts and dark jokes into the relatively unchecked ether but, before long, Twitter became the go-to source for breaking news, breakneck memes and jokes and agenda setting.

Every time I travel abroad I am gripped by the fear that Ireland is making a fool of me

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Emer McLysaght: You’re going to see phones at gigs. Suck it up

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I’d never wear my big straw hat on the streets of Dublin. Someone would call me JR Ewing

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I’m all for AI as long as I can have a robot to do all the housework

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Hashtags like #LateLateToyShow and #RoseOfTralee have trended around the world and caused much head scratching on international Twitter. When Ireland briefly legalised class A drugs thanks to a legal loophole, the #yokegate hashtag made the US late night talkshows.

Author and journalist Séamas O’Reilly also went viral for tweeting about illicit substances when he used Twitter to tell a story about accidentally ended up alone in a room with his boss and then president Mary McAleese, while high on Ketamine and “sweating like microwaved bread”.

Irish Twitter has a been a great mobiliser for both public and personal causes. #HomeToVote was a rallying call during the 2015 marriage equality campaign and ballot, and again in 2018 for the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment. #HomeToVote then spawned #HomeToRide, a hashtag started in 2015 by Twitter user Linda Kavanagh, which collects stories about all the local Declans and Sineads coming back from Vancouver or Perth or Rathmines for Christmas to congregate in the local pub Down Home on St Stephen’s night. Nothing like a little bit of nostalgic gob lobbing to mark the festive season.

Christmas has always been a fruitful time on Irish Twitter. #MassTweets have documented who has come to midnight mass in an ostentatious new coat or which altar girl has done a “bong” at the wrong moment. Plenty of tweets, too, about changes to the order of Mass and the deep confusion after a few pre-church Christmas Eve pints.

The pandemic caused us to pull together – and apart – over certain issues. Normal People was a Twitter phenomenon on its own but when Liveline played host to a debate about the sex scenes in the Sally Rooney adaptation, poor old Joe Duffy was driven to tweet, “I’m calling in sick. Who do I ring?” Normal People star Paul Mescal also used Twitter to simply declare, “I’m Irish”, after his success meant the British press was suddenly desperate to claim him.

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Snowstorms, windstorms and storms in the Dáil have all played out on Twitter and politicians must be careful to never put a foot wrong because the eagle eyes of Irish Twitter never rest. A personal favourite and relatively harmless example is former Labour TD Seán Kenny tweeting in 2013, “Eoin, did u collect the eggs.” He was tweeting in response to a radio slot but, to me, it will always be a misplaced text about some broody hens.

If Twitter continues on the current trajectory and the status quo on the platform continues to change, maybe the last great occurrence on Irish Twitter will be a tweet and subsequent hilarious replies by user @janky_jane: “Props to anyone who tries to be fashionable in Ireland. I wore a red beret once in Waterford and someone called me Super Mario.”