I am waiting for the glacial uploading of pictures of my trip to Ireland to a Picasa album. For some reason, they are taking a long, LONG time but I wanted to do a wee post regarding the lovely
Aer Lingus convention of naming their airplanes. Probably other airlines do this, I just never noticed.
Here's the ACTUAL plane we flew on (photo online, courtesy of Tony Marlow) ...
... named after the patron Saint of the Emerald Isle. I was quite surprised, since the English spelling of the Saint's name was used. The Irish are quite adamant about their language being in evidence everywhere (
Ní tír gan teanga - There is no nation without a language. Also:
Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste - Broken Irish is better than clever English) and when one gets to the Dingle Peninsula and other points west, many of the signs don't even bother with English.
As we boarded the plane at JFK, we walked through a gate that had a rather long hall that went back on itself. When we came in view of the front of the airplane, my sister, Ann, pointed and said, "Oh, look, Ro! It's named St. Patrick!"
But you know, if it had said "
Naomh Pádraig," I would have been equally comforted.
Now I'll have to check each plane I fly on to see if it has been named. We used to name all of our cars, when I was a kid. Our favorite of all time has to be "Old Gerty." My dad named that one. She was rusted through in several spots so you had to be careful not to drop objects on the floor as they had a tendency to roll down through one of Old Gerty's holes before you could grab it back up. At some point well below zero, Old Gerty's doors refused to stay shut - so passengers were obliged to hold the door closed until you reached a sufficient speed that the wind would hold it shut. (And hope the driver didn't have to break hard.) Ah, the good old days.
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