11 Irish Excuses For Running Late – And What They Really Mean

From “in a minute” to “I'm just in a taxi”, it's rare that you'll get a straight answer when you ask an Irish person for their estimated arrival time.

However, it seems that we're all about to become a lot more accountable, as a new survey – called the Big Survey Of Irish Time, and carried out by EBS – has revealed that truth about those white little lies we use when running late.

Damn it.

1. The 'scientific' duration of 'in a minute' is actually four minutes and 59 seconds.

2. Unless you're in Dublin, where people seem to be a bit lazier and take five minutes and 32 seconds

3. You're not 'dead late' until you're 43 minutes and 39 seconds running behind.

4. Unless you're in Dublin, when you have exactly 59 minutes

5. A 'donkey's year' is 14 years and five months. Who knew?

6. Some 29% of Irish people say 'I'm in the taxi' when they haven't left the house

7. The 'other week' is actually two weeks

8. Nearly a third of Dubliners reckon that ' 'two shakes of lamb's tail' is the most annoying phrase in relation to time

You've been warned.

9. Our favourite response as a nation is “I'll be there now, in a minute”

10. If someone says 'let's meet up soon', it's never going to happen

Like, ever.

11. And 35% of Dubliners reckon they're “always early”

LIARS.

To find out when was the best time to meet for Irish home buyers, EBS surveyed just over 1,000 respondents from a nationally representative sample of the Irish population on the 15th August 2015.

Check out some of the survey responses