Crubeens and confusion

Something that I was not prepared for when I arrived in Ireland was the amount of Irish that made it's way into everyday sentences. My mother's older relatives in particular have lived in or near a Gaeltacht area. These are places where Irish is the first language.

The red areas are Gaeltacht areas

My mom has many many cousins. This appears to be typical of Ireland as I have yet to meet an Irish person who is an only child. Sometimes I will stay with my cousins during the weekend and the long breaks from school.

During my second semester I was supposed to visit a set of these cousins. I was staying with one sister in Clonmel for the first have of the week, then meeting the older sister down in Ardmore for the second half . When I was getting ready to meet the older sister, the younger asked me if I could bring down some crúibín (crubeens) for the sister in Ardmore.

Unfortunately, I did not know what curbeens were. More unfortunately I made an assumption about the things I was hauling around in my backpack. The only part of the word I understood was the "been". In mind I thought "bean".

"That's a vegetable. It must be a vegetable!". So I went ahead and put the bag of crubeens in my backpack.

After carrying said backpack for most of a day I learn that crubeens are not a vegetable and that pigs feet will smell salty after a few hours.

This is not a bean

My attempt at translation was not a success that day. Now I am aware of the historical significance of the crubeen being a dish in Ireland that was used to make sure every part of the hog was consumed. This is why the Irish word has been retained and why it was used even if the speaker was using primarily English.  I only wish that I had found out sooner.