Even the Oxford English Dictionary has finally recognised a phrase that has become Ireland’s best national asset
Neil Leslie Group Editor Irish Daily Star, irish Daily Mirror, Irish Sunday Mirror
05:00, 26 Mar 2026
Ireland fans celebrate after Troy Parrott goal’s in Budapest(Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
Maybe it was the moment they watched Micheal Martin deploy the gift of the gab to rescue Britain’s special relationship with America.
Or when it took a Kerry woman, Jessie Buckley, and a former Kildare minor footballer, Paul Mescal, to bring the story of England’s greatest man of letters to the screen.
Whatever the impulse, this week those guardians of the English language in the Oxford Dictionary decided to give Paddy his due.
In a magnanimous flourish of post-Brexit rapprochement, they conceded what we already knew – that when it comes to the King’s English, no one speaks it better than the Irish.
Like Mafia capos, they opened the books of the old language and decreed a dozen Irish words and phrases should become made men.
And among them is perhaps the Don of 21st descriptions, the Godfather of vocabulary that is the Irish-English “Ah sure look it.”
As a people, it has become perhaps our best asset and greatest national treasure in these weird times.
Forget ‘Ireland’s Call’ and ‘Ole, ole, ole’, we should put it to music and march into battle behind it.
Yes, we are a tiny nation adrift on the seas of 21st century permacrisis.
Ok, we are being tossed by wave after rolling wave of war, pandemic and disaster.
Nearly 200 years after the famine, we have replaced the monoculture of the potato with the monoculture of US corporate tax, in the hope lightning won’t strike twice.
In a world rapidly reversing to the order of 19th century military might, we have left ourselves neutral and defenceless.
But…“Ah sure look it.”
Just four words performing the alchemy of a well-turned phrase and already the great world keeps spinning and things don’t seem so bad.
Its power is as versatile as a Swiss army knife.
You’re unfortunate enough to scroll across the Ludicrous Conor McGregor’s latest bilious, political outpourings in the manosphere?
Bono has come out of self-imposed activist exile with a new tune about why the children of Abraham can’t just get along?
Enoch Burke has turned up at your gate?
“Ah sure look it.”
You’ve been refused planning permission for a modest family home but decide to plough ahead and build your own Trump Tower anyway and gamble on getting retention?
“Ah sure look it.”
The council send in the bulldozers to raze your preposterous Celtic Tiger folly into the ground?
“Ah sure look it.”
As a phrase it even demonstrates the journey and maturity of a nation that is finding its own feet after 100 years of statehood.
It defines how we look out at the globe.
The Brits have the “stiff upper lip”, and the Danes turn to the concept of “hygge” to embody the stoic national mood in their darkest hours.
On our windswept Atlantic outpost we have “Ah sure look it.”
Much like the mob’s ‘It is what it is’ code, or the Buddhist mantra of ‘This is this’, ‘Ah sure look it’ conveys our deep embrace of the way things are.
In the growing pains of a people, it shows we have passed through the post-colonial stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and towards acceptance.
Ireland fans on the streets of Dublin at the Italia ’90 homecoming(Image: INPHO/James Meehan)
And nowhere might it be of more national importance than at the Fortuna Arena in Prague tonight.
Not since the shackles of national self-doubt were thrown off in Italy 36 years ago has it felt more like we needed a group of footballers to show us the way back toward the light again.
And just maybe it’s a sign from the fates that our most beloved phrase has won its own little World Cup of words this week.
Because, while it is a ready arm around the shoulder when things go pear-shaped, like any good phrase, when you turn it over, it reveals secret depths.
Behind the shrug of acceptance there is also a twinkle in its eye. A hint of optimism and hope that just sometimes, against all the odds, your numbers in life can come up.
And when they do…
‘Ah sure look it.”
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