The birr (Amharic: ብር^?) is the unit of currency in Ethiopia. Before 1976, dollar was the official English translation of birr. Today, it is officially birr in English as well.

In 1931, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, formally requested that the international community use the name Ethiopia (as it had already been known internally for at least 1600 years) instead of Abyssinia, and the issuing Bank of Abyssinia also became the Bank of Ethiopia. Thus, the pre-1931 currency could be considered the Abyssinian birr and the post-1931 currency the Ethiopian birr, although it was the same country and the same currency before and after.

The Ethiopian Birr is the second-most-used currency in Africa with 88 million users, after the Nigerian naira. 186 billion birr were in circulation in 2008 ($14.7 billion or €9.97 billion).

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Maria Theresa thalers and blocks of salt called "amole tchew" (አሞሌ ጨው) served as currency in Ethiopia. The thaler was known locally as the Birr (literally meaning "silver" in Ge'ez and Amharic) or ታላሪ taleri. The Maria Theresa thaler was officially adopted as the standard coin in 1855, although the Indian rupee and the Mexican dollar were also used in foreign trade.

Birr (Irish: Biorra; pronounced [bʌːr]) is a town in County Offaly, Ireland. It was formerly called Parsonstown, after the Parsons family who were local landowners and hereditary Earls of Rosse. The town lies within a parish of the same name in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe.

Birr is a designated Irish Heritage Town with a carefully preserved Georgian heritage. Birr itself has graceful wide streets and elegant buildings. Many of the houses in John's Place and Oxmantown Mall have exquisite fanlight windows of the Georgian period.

The town is situated at the meeting of the Camcor and Little Brosna rivers which flow on into the River Shannon near Victoria Lock.

Birr railway station opened on 8 March 1858, but finally closed on 1 January 1963.

The Ormond Flying Club has been in operation at Birr Airfield for over 30 years. The area has been linked with aviation for some time - as a British Army airstrip was previously near the current field.^{[citation needed]}

Birr lies on the N52 and N62 national secondary roads. The routes are combined as they pass through Birr. The R439, R440 and R489 regional roads also terminate in the town.

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.