Anyone know where this saying comes from? “There are no Sir’s in Ireland.”

13 comments
  1. Well titles cannot be bestowed in Ireland legally afaik so maybe that’s why. Also probably just a general self deprecating joke about Irish people

  2. It’s a reference to British rule. Former EU commissioner Peter Sutherland put it very matter of fact.. “: “As an Irish citizen who has taken an honorary knighthood, as opposed to a knighthood, I neither will, nor could, use a title.”

  3. It has hints of old fashioned servility, from the peasant addressing the landlord or British government officials. It would be irritating to the older generation.

  4. Article 40 of the Irish Constitution, *Bunracht na hÉireann*, forbids the conferral of titles of nobility in Ireland. Here, such things are not viewed as being in people’s best interests.

  5. Possibly from the move to being a republic taking away all titles of nobility that existed as a monarchy (~1922) or the general notion of equality in poverty of the Irish, and no *perceived* class system.

  6. We don’t have Sir’s because its a British knighthood thing being Sir but we do have Mr’s.

    It kind of old fashioned but people of a certain rank or position in some of the state and semi-state companies/departments use to be called Mr’s as they would be called Mr and there last name. Low ranks called them the Mr’s.

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