Irish culture and stuff
You know how some Sailormoon pages have a section on Japanese culture?  Well, this is about Irish culture, since Ireland is where the fic takes place.  I figured that since I bring it up sometimes in the fic and sometimes I use Irish expressions and slang, that I should explain myself.  So not only is this a fanfic, but it's an educational page about Irish culture!  Well, not really, but...
Irish slang that I use in the fic sometimes
Cop on: get a clue, or can also be used to mean the ability to cop on or get a clue (as in, "Mariah doesn't have much cop-on, does she?")
Get on: get along, as in "How're you getting on?" or "Those two really get on great together."
Biscuit: Not something that is served with gravy in the southern USA, but a cookie.  Only chocolate chip cookies are actually called cookies, any other small flat sweet pastry is called a biscuit.
Chip: a french fry or potato wedge (like fish and chips)
Crisp: a potato chip (as in, sour cream and onion crisps)
They say self-raising flour instead of self-rising, and they don't say "I got a raise!", they say "I got a rise!"
Buckled, hammered, pissed, bolluxed, langered, twisted, and so on: these are all different words for drunk (see Attitudes Toward Drinking, below, and you'll see why they need so many words)
Slan: goodbye in Irish (as in, the Irish language)
Failte: literally welcome in Irish, but also used in "Bord Failte", the Irish tourism board.  Pronounced "fall-cha", as Mariah informs Dani in episode 3
Go raibh maith agat: thank you in Irish, pronounced "gur rev mah agat"
Is maith liom tu: "I like you" in Irish, pronounced "is mallim hu", but the "is" isn't pronounced like the English word, it's what I call a "passive S sound", meaning the S is pronounced like the S in "this", rather than a Z sound like the word "is".
Ca bfuil: "where is" in Irish, as in "Ca bfuil Dani?"
Shite: sometimes they say this instead of shit, and they say "feck" instead of the same word with a "u" instead of an "e"
Deadly: cool
Giving out: giving an earful to someone, as in "Sister Belinda just gave out shite to me about my exam results."  Or giving out _about_ someone, like the speaker of the aforementioned example was "giving out about" Sister Belinda.  Basically means to complain, or add "shit" or "shite" after the phrase to emphasize.
Puff: literally means gay, but they don't actually use it like that very much.  It's usually used to mean someone that's real wimpy, stupid, effeminate, or "swishy".  Kinda like how young Americans use the word "gay".
Your man: means basically "that guy", and "your woman" means "that woman", and "your one" could mean either (not gender specific)
Giving someone the two fingers: instead of (and along with) giving someone the middle finger, the Irish give them the "two fingers", which is the index and middle finger.  Kinda like a peace sign, but with the back of your hand facing the person you're flipping off.
Doss: easy, goof-off, as in "I thought fourth year was supposed to be a doss year!"
Dodgy: there's no real equivalent...it could mean borderline, suspicious, suggestive, slightly weird or different...interpret it your own way.  Basically anything that's a bit off.  As in, "That cream tastes a bit dodgy; I think it's spoiled."
Skanger: lower-class person, like what Americans would call "gangster", "hood", or "JD".
Knacker: another word for skanger, but usually used to mean someone from Dublin's north side (usually Ballymun, an undesirable neighborhood on the Northside)
Slapper: slut
Shag: Look at this word in the context of "The Spy Who Shagged Me"...that's what it means.  Although apparently this is a really bad word, worse than "feck" with a "u"
Couldn't be arsed: couldn't be bothered
Slag: to make fun of, like "Quit slagging me just because I'm from Offaly."
Biffo or Buffalo: it's an acronym for "Big Ignorant F*cker From Offaly" or "Big Ugly F*cker From Around Laois And Offaly" (Laois and Offaly being big hick counties that you don't want to be from)
Head: dude (knacker slang, as in, most of the Astros wouldn't use this unless they were taking the piss)
Taking the piss: making fun or someone or something; a less vulgar way to say it would be "taking the mick"
Messing: kidding or joking, as in "Hey, I didn't mean to say that you looked like a cow, I was only messing."  I think only the Irish say this, not the British or anyone else.
You's: they say this to mean you in a plural form, even though it's bad grammar it's still acceptable for young people (like "hopefully")
I'm just after: I just did, as in "I'm just after typing up this long pointless list of Irish words that no one will probably ever use." ^-^
 

On the school system...
Okay, how school goes in Ireland is this: elementary school (but it's never called that, it's always called primary school) is for six years.  Instead of saying "first grade", they say "first class" (as in, Misty is in third class), "second class" and so on.  Then they have secondary school for six more years, which is split up into the junior cycle and the senior cycle.  The junior cycle is 1st year through 3rd year (which is the equivalent of 7th grade through 9th grade, like junior high), and at the end of 3rd year there's an exam called the Junior Certificate (but only big nerds call it that, it's known as the Junior Cert to most).  It's not a really important exam, but they study for it for ages even so.  It's more like preparation for the Leaving Cert(ificate), which is at the end of 6th year and that's the REALLY important one, that you need to take in order to graduate, that your future employers even look at (seriously).  So the senior cycle is from 4th through 6th year.  4th year is an optional "transition year" in most schools, and if you get into 4th year you're supposedly "lucky" (although Dani and Anala could tell you otherwise), 'cos 4th year is supposed to be a "doss" year where you go on trips and do fun projects and junk.  Supposedly.  College is different too, because you have to pick a major before you can even THINK of taking a college course.  Which I think is dumb, because who can pick at that age what they want to do with the rest of their life?  But this isn't about my opinion (gotta keep reminding myself that).  The actual school day is different too; at the school I went to it started with an assembly at 8:50 and ended at 3:40.  And in school you don't go around to different classes, you stay in the same classroom with the same people all day and the teachers have to come to _you._
 

Attitudes toward drinking
Eheheh.  I'm sure at some point in your life you've heard one of those "drunk Irishman" jokes, and I'd like to tell you it's just a stereotype, but that wouldn't be entirely true.  Yes, the Irish have a very relaxed attitude toward drinking...extremely relaxed.  Usually when a kid is 12 or so he/she and his/her friends will start experimenting with drink.  Either they'll take some of their parents', or they'll ask their older siblings to buy drink for them, or they'll order some from the off-licences (liquor stores).  They get served at the off-licences, god knows why, and they get away with it.  See, in America if a kid as young as 12 were caught drinking, even a little bit, even if they weren't drunk, they'd get arrested and sent to rehab (even if they weren't alcoholics).  But in Ireland it's so widespread that the gardai (police) figure that selective enforcement is worse than no enforcement at all, so if they catch a kid drinking they either just give them a warning, confiscate the drink, or don't do anything at all.  They don't even call the kid's parents.  By the time the kid is, say, the age of the Astros, they'd be going out to pubs and clubs and getting drunk on a regular basis, maybe two or three times a week.  And it's no big deal to them, they don't event think there's anything wrong with drinking (in moderation), and they don't even realize the long-term effects of drinking (so when I write about the Astros going to pubs and stuff, it doesn't mean they're delinquent alcoholic children, it's just normal).  When I was in school in Ireland, the teachers and the students' parents knew that the students drank, and the teachers and students would even discuss what kind of drink they liked!  I'm totally serious, once I overheard a classmate of mine and a teacher debating whether they liked red or white wine better.  It sounds like a joke, but it's not.  The legal drinking age is 18, but is that ever enforced?  Eh.  No.  Fortunately drink driving isn't a problem, because young drinkers can't drive, they just take buses or taxis to and from the pubs.
Speaking of driving, the legal age for your learner's permit (called a provisional license over there) is 17, I believe.  You can start learning then, although the test to get your full license is extremely hard, so it usually takes another year or two to earn that.  And if you only have your provisional, you have to wear a big red L sticker on your car, for "learner" (or "loser", as one of my friends says).
Oh, and not to mention smoking.  I was one of two people in my class who didn't smoke (although it was a class of about 12 people, still...).  And the teachers and their parents knew they smoked, and although they encouraged them to quit, the smokers didn't get in trouble unless they were actually caught smoking or holding a cigarette (in which case they only got a 10 pound fine).  Whereas if in America the teachers knew a student smoked, it would be all over the school like wildfire (excuse the pun) and they'd probably force the kid to enroll in a program to help them quit even if they didn't want to quit.  But in Ireland they just couldn't be arsed.  It's just the culture.
 

Other stuff
Like Lilia said in one of the episodes, where you're from is important.  She would know this, being from Offaly, a not-so-desirable county in the West.  The more lower-class places to be from are Ballymun, Kerry, Clare, Tipperary, Offaly, Laois, Dundalk...well, according to the Dubliners, basically anyplace besides Dublin is a bad place to be from.  Or the north of Dublin, which is considered a more lower-class area than the south.  Although I'm sure some people from "the country" (what Dubliners refer to as any non-Dublin place) wish Dublin would feck off and drift 30 miles east to where it belongs (to Britain, in other words).  There isn't serious prejudice, though, like a Dubliner won't say to a Kerryman, "Hey, you're from Kerry?  I'm gonna kick your ass, man!"  Well, he might, but he'd only be taking the piss.  There aren't any hate crimes, though.
Speaking of hate crimes...did you know that most people in Ireland don't even know what that phrase means?  Nope.  I guess they'd call it an "ethnic crime", because those do exist, but there aren't as many.  And you'd NEVER hear of school violence like in the States.  Also...did you know that the gardai don't even carry guns unless they know they're going to be up against an armed criminal?  They don't have to, there's so little gun violence there.  It's great, actually.  The downside (for me, anyway) is that it's a big ol' Catholic country, and most of the good schools are private Catholic ones.  You always see priests and nuns (actually wearing their habits, too) walking along the street and in the supermarket.  And you know, homosexuality wasn't even legal until 1993?  Yeah.  Sucky, huh?  I don't know what they did to homosexuals before then, maybe fined them or something.  Probably carried the same penalty as underage drinking: nothing, but it's still considered illegal anyway.

The Astros' Irish photos
Okae...this is just photos of Ireland that I happened to have for whatever reason, that I've edited to put pictures of the senshi in.  Heh.  Okay, here's the senshi's "scrapbook", which I'm going to let them narrate...
Anala: Here's me at Giant's Causeway...the photo itself is a little spotty, but we can blame Bord Failte for that since that's where this photo came from.
Hunter: That's not the only thing that's spotty...
Anala: TEME...! (chases after Hunter)
Lilia: Giant's Causeway is cool, though.  And it's a natural geographical formation!  Amazing, isn't it?
Aisling: This next picture doesn't have any of us in it, but it's of the Powerscourt Gardens, where we had a couple of our battles.
Dani: Yeah, this is where the battle of Vega and I versus Oscurio took place.
Viola: (pops up in SD form with a book on Greek mythology and glasses fogged over like Hououji Fuu when she goes SD) That fountain in the middle of the pond is of Poseidon, the god of the sea, or Neptune to the Romans.
Dani: Erm, yeah...HEY!  There's a pic of me!  This one is in Powerscourt Gardens too.
Ciara: *snickers* Yeah, it was originally a pic of _Willow_ in Powerscourt Gardens, but she edited herself out and put a pic of Zephyr instead, which you can probably tell because she didn't do too good a job of it.
Hunter: And that's all the pics for now, at least until Willow will stop being lazy and scan some more.
Willow: TEME...! (follows Anala in chasing Hunter)