The most apparent difference is that Ireland uses the Euro and Northern Ireland uses the Pound Sterling. So everyone just ends up using a debit card.
I went to Derry the other day and walked by this cafe. As it happened, I didn't have any Pounds or Euro on me, and they didn't have a card machine, I couldn't buy anything. But I did study this menu.
I noticed this word, which is Hibero-Irish. (Included in this Hibero-Irish dictionary. )
I don't recall hearing "lashings" on British TV. It's common here as in "Lash more coal into that stove," and "Give it a lash" as an encouragement.
I've noticed that all the cafes in the North serve Indian tea. I heard that British tea is from India, their former colony, and Irish tea is from Africa—so as to not buy from Britain.
However, according to a story in the Irish Times, Irish buy tea from Africa because of Ireland's neutrality in WWII. The war ended Ireland's massive imports of Indian/British tea, so the government-supported importers developed relationships with East African countries like Kenya and Rwanda-to-be.
According to the corporate spokesperson quoted in the story:
“The Irish consumer doesn’t like Indian teas; they’re too thin,” he explains as he takes [the reporter] on a journey from the Rwandan capital of Kigali to a tea producer some 90 minutes north. We are not so keen on Earl Grey either, he says, because of its heavy artificial bergamot scent. “Darjeeling is known as the champagne of teas, but it has never taken off here either. It’s because we are a dairy country, and, when you add milk to it, it looks like dish water.”
Seems to me that the North is also a diary country. While I'm no expert in dairy production of either country, I do prefer Irish tea to English tea, with milk lashed in.
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