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20th December 2016
12:10am GMT
Considering that Ireland originated as a fine, Catholic country, it's a given that the number of cousins an Irish person may have could be well in their hundreds, if not thousands.
And due to this vast, vast number of kids running around the house, it was often the case that their respective parents loaded them off to a nearby relative's gaff instead of letting them hang around in the village with the riff raff.
Because of this, cousins had to form unbreakable bonds straight away in order to simply have friends in this world. This closeness inevitably led to your cousin knowing some of your most intimate secrets, such as...
Let's not be coy about this, your true first experience of love was age 5 when cousin Áine grabbed your hand to cross the road after collecting you from creche.
You're not fooling anyone.
Like how much milk is necessary with Club Milk, how much sugar to throw in when you're having a chipper, or when it's necessary to chuck the bags and have tea leaves.
Janet and Mark's Wedding 1996. We'll say no more.
And how it came about in a particularly strange way at horse-riding camp in the backarse of County Kildare.
So you may have fooled the adult side of the family into thinking that the apple you chowed down that particular time was especially tough for that time of year, but your cousins know that that chip was from a particularly rough day of drinking at the tender age of 16, where your poor juvenile jaw hit the toilet seat too damn hard.
They know how you got the bruise on your arse two Christmases ago too.
Loud and slow? Uncle Fergus.
Quick and quiet? Jenny the cat sitter.
High enough only dogs can hear? Sheila.
Lettuce, spicy chicken and taco sauce when it's t-shirt weather, and butter, crisps and wedges when it's not.
And that when you're feeling fancy, you pronounce it 'chicken fillay'.
Whether it's going up to do an overly enthused reading at Mass, singing louder than the rest at graduation, or giving the annoying shit of a child in front of you in the shop the finger, this is your time, and you got this.
Good to note that nine times out of ten they will completely land you in it to save themselves.
They know that you'll throw a YouTube worthy strop when someone leaves an empty carton in the fridge, that you'll come close to punching a wall when you're hungry and that large farmyard animals will reduce you to a puddle of tears.
Yeah, yeah, their mates may have seen them shed a tear when losing a final, or stubbing a toe. But have you seen them aged 12 after their first love dumped them over Bebo on the day of their communion?!
Didn't fucking think so.
''Okay, so we're clear on this. College at 18, marriage at 23, babies at 25 and sell our business by 30.''
''Deal.''
''Okay let's recap, college at 18, maybe marriage, fuck kids, pints later?''
Smile and nod at the match, then swift dropkick in the nightclub.
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