Mixed - True and Maybe Not

This happened a long time ago - despite the TV series "Victoria" which might make you think the following anecdote was more recent than it really is.

It was the custom back then that if royalty came to visit, you had to not only feed and drink them lavishly, but if they admired, say, a decorative item in your house - a gold tablecloth?  A finely-wrought bit of sculpture? - you had to give it to them, then and there.   The poor hosts had to have been torn between showing off -"Oh, this - my grandfather brought it back from India - pure jade" or else hide everything of any value whatsoever and apologize for your house being so bare - "Ah, the winter floods - did terrible damage in the salons - everything has to be repaired to explain the rather bleak look you see around you."  Both monarch and host knew exactly what was going on.

And this is one story of host and monarch.

The owner of Muckrake House outside of Killarney went broke entertaining Queen Victoria.  When he died shortly after her bank-breaking visit, near death, he asked to be buried in a standing position.  "On Judgement Day, I want to wake up looking out at my beloved lake."  And upped and died shortly thereafter.

The tenants - who, by the way, hated him - buried him in a vertical position all right - upside down.

Meaner spirits declared that he wanted to be buried standing up to keep what few coins he had left in his pocket!

Murphy's Bar, Galway
Richie tried to get a free drink in every bar named "Murphy's we passed by waving his California driver's license around and wheedling, "Sure and you don't have a beer for a thirsty cousin?"  We got laughed out of every bar named Murphy's all over Ireland.

Others have a system.  Four women and a man strolled into the Galway laugh fest, asked for a clean glass and they all put money in it.  They paid for beverages from the money glass.

Cistercian monks
Their first job of the day is to go out to the private cemetery and dig a shovelful of dirt from the grave marked for them.  This was done to remind them of their own mortality.  They then put the shovels back in the shed, went in for breakfast and started their day.

Choctaw Indians and Irishmen
During the Great Famine, the people of County Mayo were hit especially hard.  They died of hunger by the hundreds at the sides of the roads, trying to escape.

Somehow, the Choctaw Indians of Florida who had been moved from their own lands heard about the this Irish plight and collected $405 among themselves and sent it to Ireland.  This began a great friendship between the people of County Mayo and the Choctaw Indians who still trade visits to this day.