Margamore; the 'Great Market' held in Derry immediately before Christmas or Easter. (Derry.) Irishmargadh[marga], a market,mór[more], great.Martheen; a stocking with the foot cut off. (Derry.) Irishmairtín, same sound and meaning.Martheensare what they call in Munstertriheens, which see.Mass, celebration of,144.Mau-galore; nearly drunk: Irishmaith[mau], good:go leór, plenty: 'purty well I thank you,' as the people often say: meaning almost the same as Burns's 'I was na fou but just had plenty.' (Common in Munster.)Mauleen; a little bag: usually applied in the South to the little sack slung over the shoulder of a potato-planter, filled with thepotato-sets(orskillauns), from which the setter takes them one by one to plant them. In Ulster and Scotland, the word ismailin, which is sometimes applied to a purse:—'Amailinplenished (filled) fairly.' (Burns.)Maum; the full of the two hands used together(Kerry); the same asLyreandGopan, which see. IrishMám, same sound and meaning.Mavourneen; my love. (Used all through Ireland.) IrishMo-mhúirnín, same sound and meaning. See Avourneen.May-day customs,170.Méaracaun [mairacaun]; a thimble. Merely the Irishméaracán, same sound and meaning: fromméar, a finger, with the diminutive terminationcán. Applied in the South to the fairy-thimble or foxglove, with usually a qualifying word:—Mearacaun-shee (shee, a fairy—fairy thimble) or Mearacaun-na-man-shee (where na-man-shee is the Irishna-mban-sidhe, of thebansheesor fairy-women). 'Lusmore,' another name, which see.Mearing; a well-marked boundary—but not necessarily a raisedditch—a fence between two farms, or two fields, or two bogs. Old English.Mease: a measure for small fish, especially herrings:—'The fisherman brought in ten mease of herrings.' Used all round the Irish coast. It is the Irish wordmías[meece], a dish.Mee-aw; a general name for the potato blight. Irishmí-adh[mee-aw], ill luck: from Irishmí, bad, andádh, luck. Butmee-awis also used to designate 'misfortune' in general.Meela-murder; 'a thousand murders': a general exclamation of surprise, alarm, or regret. The first part is Irish—míle[meela], a thousand; the second is of course English.Meelcar´ [carlong like the English wordcar]; also calledmeelcartan; a red itchy sore on the sole of the foot just at the edge. It is believed by thepeople to be caused by a red little flesh-worm, and hence the namemíol[meel], a worm, andcearr[car], an old Irish word for red:—Meel-car, 'red-worm.' (North and South.)Meeraw; ill luck. (Munster.) From Irishmí, ill, and ráth [raw], luck:—'There was somemeerawon the family.Melder of corn; the quantity sent to the mill and ground at one time. (Ulster.)Memory of History and of Old Customs,143.Merrow; a mermaid. Irishmurrughagh[murrooa], frommuir, the sea. She dives and travels under sea by means of a hood and cape calledcohuleen-dru:cochall, a hood and cape (with diminutive termination);druádh, druidical: 'magical cape.'Midjilinn or middhilin; the thong of a flail. (Morris: South Monaghan.)Mihul or mehul [iandeshort]; a number of men engaged in any farm-work, especially corn-reaping, still used in the South and West. It is the very old Irish wordmeithel, same sound and meaning.Mills. The old English game of 'nine men's morris' or 'nine men's merrils' ormillswas practised in my native place when I was a boy. We played it on a diagram of three squares one within another, connected by certain straight lines, each player having nine counters. It is mentioned by Shakespeare ('Midsummer-Night's Dream'). I learned to be a good player, and could play it still if I could meet an antagonist. How it reached Limerick I do not know. A few years ago I saw two persons playing mills in a hotel in Llandudno; and my heart went out to them.Mind; often used in this way:—'Will you write that letter to-day?' 'No: I won't mind it to-day: I'll write it to-morrow.'Minnikin; a very small pin.Minister; always applied in Ireland to a Protestant clergyman.Miscaun, mescaun, mescan, miscan; a roll or lump of butter. Irishmioscán[miscaun]. Used all over Ireland.Mitch; to play truant from school.Mitchelstown, Co. Cork,155.Moanthaun; boggy land. Moantheen; a little bog. (Munster.) Both dims. of Irishmóin, a bog.Molly; a man who busies himself about women's affairs or does work that properly belongs to women. (Leinster.) Same assheelain the South.Moneen; a littlemoanor bog; a green spot in a bog where games are played. Also a sort of jig dance-tune: so called because often danced on a greenmoneen. (Munster.)Month's Mind; Mass and a general memorial service for the repose of the soul of a person, celebrated a month after death. The term was in common use in England until the change of religion at the Reformation; and now it is not known even to English Roman Catholics. (Woollett.) It is in constant use in Ireland, and I think among Irish Catholics everywhere. But the practice is kept up by Catholics all over the world. Mind, 'Memory.'Mootch: to move about slowly and meaninglessly: without intelligence. A mootch is a slow stupid person. (South.)Moretimes; often used as corresponding tosometimes: 'Sometimes she employs herself at sewing, and moretimes at knitting.'Mor-yah; a derisive expression of dissent to drive home the untruthfulness of some assertion or supposition or pretence, something like the English 'forsooth,' but infinitely stronger:—A notorious schemer and cheat puts on airs of piety in the chapel and thumps his breast in great style; and a spectator says:—Oh how pious and holy Joe is growing—mar-yah! 'Mick is a great patriot, mor-yah!—he'd sell his country for half a crown.' Irishmar-sheadh[same sound], 'as it were.'Mossa; a sort of assertive particle used at the opening of a sentence, like the Englishwell,indeed: carrying little or no meaning. 'Do you like your new house?'—'Mossa I don't like it much.' Another form ofwisha, and both anglicised from the Irishmá'seadh, used in Irish in much the same sense.Mountain dew; a fanciful and sort of pet name for pottheen whiskey: usually made in themountains.Mounthagh, mounthaun; a toothless person. (Munster.) From the Irishmant[mounth], the gum, with the terminations. Both words are equivalent togummy, a person whose mouth isall gums.Moutre. In very old times a mill-owner commonly received as payment for grinding corn one-tenth of the corn ground—in accordance with the Brehon Law. This custom continued to recent times—and probably continues still—in Ulster,where the quantity given to the miller is calledmoutre, ormuter, ormooter.Mulharten; a flesh-worm: a form of meelcartan. See Meelcar.Mullaberta; arbitration. (Munster.) Merely the Irishmoladh-beirte, same sound and meaning: in whichmoladh[mulla] is 'appraisement'; andbeirtĕ, gen. ofbeart, 'two persons':—lit. 'appraisement of two.' The word mullaberta has however in recent times drifted to mean a loose unbusinesslike settlement. (Healy.)Mummers,171.Murray, Mr. Patrick, schoolmaster of Kilfinane,153,154, and under 'Roasters,' below.Murrogh O'Brien, Earl of Inchiquin,165.Musicianer for musician is much in use all over Ireland. Of English origin, and used by several old English writers, among others by Collier.Nab; a knowing old-fashioned little fellow. (Derry.)Naboc´lesh; never mind. (North and South.) Irishná-bac-leis(same sound), 'do not stop to mind it,' or 'pass it over.'Nail, paying on the nail,183.Naygur; a form ofniggard: a wretched miser:—'I certainly thought my poor heart it would bleedTo be trudging behind that old naygur.'(Old Munster song; 'The Spalpeen's Complaint':from 'Old Irish Folk Music and Songs.')'In all my ranging and serenading,I met no naygur but humpy Hyde.'(See 'Castlehyde' in my 'Old Irish Music and Songs.')Nicely: often used in Ireland as shown here:— 'Well, how is your [sick] mother to-day?' 'Oh she's nicely,' or 'doing nicely, thank you'; i.e. getting on very well—satisfactorily. A still stronger word isbravely. 'She's doing bravely this morning'; i.e. extremely well—better than was expected.Nim or nym; a small bit of anything. (Ulster.)Noggin; a small vessel, now understood to hold two glasses; also called naggin. Irishnoigín.Nose; to pay through the nose; to pay and be made to pay, against your grain, the full sum without delay or mitigation.Oanshagh; a female fool, corresponding with omadaun, a male fool. Irishóinseach, same sound and meaning: fromón, a fool, andseach, the feminine termination.Offer; an attempt:—'I made an offer to leap the fence but failed.'Old English, influence of, on our dialect,6.Oliver's summons,184.On or upon; in addition to its functions as explained at pp.27,28, it is used to express obligation:— 'Now I put ituponyou to give Bill that message for me': one person meeting another on Christmas Day says:—'My Christmas boxonyou,' i.e. 'I put it as an obligation on you to give me a Christmas box.'Once; often used in this manner:—'Once he promises he'll do it' (Hayden and Hartog): 'Once you pay the money you are free,' i.e.iforwhenyou pay.O'Neills and their war-cry,179.Oshin [sounded nearly the same as the English word ocean]; a weakly creature who cannot do his fair share of work. (Innishowen, Donegal.)Out; used, in speaking of time, in the sense ofdownorsubsequently:—'His wife led him a mighty uneasy life from the day they marriedout.' (Gerald Griffin: Munster.) 'You'll pay rent for your house for the first seven years, and you will have it free from thatout.'Out; to call a personout of his nameis to call him by a wrong name.Out; 'be off out of that' means simplygo away.Out; 'I am out with him' means I am not on terms with him—I have fallen out with him.Overright; opposite, in front of: the same meaning asforenenst; butforenenstis English, while overright is a wrong translation from an Irish word—ós-cómhair.Osmeans over, andcomhairopposite: but this last word was taken by speakers to becóir(for both are sounded alike), and ascóirmeansrightor just, so they translatedos-comhairas if it wereós-cóir, 'over-right.' (Russell: Munster.)Paddhereen; a prayer: dim. of LatinPater(Pater Noster).Paddereen Paurtagh, the Rosary: from Irishpáirteach, sharing or partaking: because usually several join in it.Páideóge [paudh-yoge]; a torch made of a wick dipped in melted rosin (Munster): what they call aslutin Ulster.Paghil or pahil; a lump or bundle,108. (Ulster.)Palatines,65.Palleen; a rag: a torn coat is 'all inpaleens.' (Derry.)Palm; the yew-tree,184.Pampooty; a shoe made of untanned hide. (West.)Pandy; potatoes mashed up with milk and butter. (Munster.)Pannikin; now applied to a small tin drinking-vessel: an old English word that has fallen out of use in England, but is still current in Ireland: applied down to last century to a small earthenware pot used for boiling food. These little vessels were made at Youghal and Ardmore (Co. Waterford). The earthenware pannikins have disappeared, their place being supplied by tinware. (Kinahan.)Parisheen; a foundling; one brought up in childhood by theparish. (Kildare.)Parson; was formerly applied to a Catholic parish priest: but in Ireland it now always means a Protestant minister.Parthan; a crab-fish. (Donegal.) Merely the Irishpartan, same sound and meaning.Parts; districts, territories:—'Prince and plinnypinnytinshary of these parts' (King O'Toole and St. Kevin): 'Welcome to these parts.' (Crofton Croker.)Past; 'I wouldn't put itpasthim,' i.e. I think him bad or foolish enough (to do it).Past; more than: 'Our landlord's face we rarely see past once in seven years'—Irish Folk Song.Pattern (i.e.patron); a gathering at a holy well or other relic of a saint on his or her festival day, to pray and performroundsand other devotional acts in honour of the patron saint. (General.)Pattha; a pet, applied to a young person who is brought up over tenderly and indulged toomuch:—'What apatthayou are!' This is an extension of meaning; for the Irishpeata[pattha] means merely apet, nothing more.Pelt; the skin:—'He is in his pelt,' i.e. naked.Penal Laws,144, and elsewhere through the book.Personable; comely, well-looking, handsome:—'Diarmid Bawn the piper, as personable a looking man as any in the five parishes.' (Crofton Croker: Munster.)Pickey; a round flat little stone used by children in playingtranseor Scotch-hop. (Limerick.)Piggin; a wooden drinking-vessel. It is now calledpigínin Irish; but it is of English origin.Pike; a pitchfork; commonly applied to one with two prongs. (Munster.)Pike or croppy-pike; the favourite weapon of the rebels of 1798: it was fixed on a very long handle, and had combined in one head a long sharp spear, a small axe, and a hook for catching the enemy's horse-reins.Pillibeen or pillibeen-meeg; a plover. (Munster.) 'I'm king of Munster when I'm in the bog, and thepillibeenswhistling about me.' ('Knocknagow.') Irishpilibín-míog, same sound and meaning.Pindy flour; flour that has begun to ferment slightly on account of being kept in a warm moist place. Cakes made from it were uneatable as they were soft and clammy and slightly sour. (Limerick.)Pinkeen; a little fish, a stickleback: plentiful in small streams. Irishpincín, same sound and meaning. See Scaghler.Piper's invitation; 'He came on the piper's invitation,' i.e. uninvited. (Cork.) A translation ofIrishcuireadh-píobaire[curra-peebara]. Pipers sometimes visited the houses of well-to-do people and played—to the great delight of the boys and girls—and they were sure to be well treated. But that custom is long since dead and gone.Pishminnaan´ [theaalong asaincar]; common wild peas. (Munster.) They are much smaller—both plant and peas—than the cultivated pea, whence the above anglicised name, which has the same sound as the Irishpise-mionnáin, 'kid's peas.'Pishmool; a pismire, an ant. (Ulster.)Pishoge, pisheroge, pishthroge; a charm, a spell, witchcraft:—'It is reported that someone took Mrs. O'Brien's butter from her bypishoges.'Place; very generally used for house, home, homestead:—'If ever you come to Tipperary I shall be very glad to see you atmy place.' This is a usage of the Irish language; for the wordbaile[bally], which is now used forhome, means also, and in an old sense, a place, a spot, without any reference to home.Plaikeen; an old shawl, an old cloak, any old covering or wrap worn round the shoulders. (South.)Plantation; a colony from England or Scotland settled down orplantedin former times in a district in Ireland from which the rightful old Irish owners were expelled,7,169,170.Plaumause [to rhyme withsauce]; soft talk, plausible speech, flattery—conveying the idea of insincerity. (South.) Irishplámás, same sound and meaning.Plauzy; full of soft, flattering,plausibletalk. Hencethe nounpláusoge[plauss-oge], a person who is plauzy. (South.)Plerauca; great fun and noisy revelry. Irishpléaráca, same sound and meaning.Pluddogh; dirty water. (MacCall: Wexford.) From Irishplod[pludh], a pool of dirty water, with the terminationach.Pluvaun; a kind of soft weed that grows excessively on tilled moory lands and chokes the crop. (Moran: Carlow.)Poll-talk; backbiting: from thepollof the head: the idea being the same as inbackbiting.Polthogue; a blow; a blow with the fist. Irishpalltóg, same sound and meaning.Pooka; a sort of fairy: a mischievous and often malignant goblin that generally appears in the form of a horse, but sometimes as a bull, a buck-goat, &c. The great ambition of the pooka horse is to get some unfortunate wight on his back; and then he gallops furiously through bogs, marshes, and woods, over rocks, glens, and precipices; till at last when the poor wretch on his back is nearly dead with terror and fatigue, the pooka pitches him into some quagmire or pool or briar-brake, leaving him to extricate himself as best he can. But the goblin does not do worse: he does not kill people. Irishpúca. Shakespeare has immortalised him as Puck, the goblin of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream.'Pookapyle, also called Pookaun; a sort of large fungus, the toadstool. Called alsocausha pooka. All these names imply that the Pooka has something to do with this poisonous fungus. See Causha-pooka (pooka's cheese).Pookeen; a play—blindman's buff: from Irishpúic, a veil or covering, from the covering put over the eyes. Pookeen is also applied in Cork to a cloth muzzle tied on calves or lambs to prevent sucking the mother. The face-covering for blindman's buff is calledpookoge, in which the dim.ógis used instead ofínoreen. The old-fashionedcoal-scuttlebonnets of long ago that nearly covered the face were often calledpookeenbonnets. It was of a bonnet of this kind that the young man in Lover's song of 'Molly Carew' speaks:—Oh,laveoff that bonnet or else I'lllaveon itThe loss of my wandering sowl:—because it hid Molly's face from him.Poor mouth; making the poor mouth is trying to persuade people you are very poor—making out or pretending that you are poor.Poor scholars,151,157.Poreens; very small potatoes—merecrachauns(which see)—any small things, such as marbles, &c. (South:porransin Ulster.)Porter-meal: oatmeal mixed with porter. Seventy or eighty years ago, the carters who carried bags of oatmeal from Limerick to Cork (a two-day journey) usually rested for the night at Mick Lynch's public-house in Glenosheen. They often took lunch or dinner of porter-meal in this way:—Opening the end of one of the bags, the man made a hollow in the oatmeal into which he poured a quart of porter, stirring it up with a spoon: then he ate an immense bellyful of the mixture. But those fellows could digest like an ostrich.In Ulster, oatmeal mixed in this manner with buttermilk, hot broth, &c., and eaten with a spoon, is calledcroudy.Potthalowng; an awkward unfortunate mishap, not very serious, but coming just at the wrong time. When I was a boy 'Jack Mullowney'spotthalowng' had passed into a proverb. Jack one time wentcourting, that is, to spend a pleasant evening with the young lady at the house of his prospective father-in-law, and to make up the match with the old couple. He wore his best of course, body-coat, white waistcoat, caroline hat (tall silk), andducks(ducks, snow-white canvas trousers.) All sat down to a grand dinner given in his honour, the young couple side by side. Jack's plate was heaped up with beautiful bacon and turkey, and white cabbage swimming in fat, that would make you lick your lips to look at it. Poor Jack was a bit sheepish; for there was a good deal of banter, as there always is on such occasions. He drew over his plate to the very edge of the table; and in trying to manage a turkey bone with knife and fork, he turned the plate right over into his lap, down on the ducks.The marriage came off all the same; but the story went round the country like wildfire; and for many a long day Jack had to stand the jokes of his friends on thepotthalowng. Used in Munster. The Irish ispatalong, same sound and meaning; but I do not find it in the dictionaries.Pottheen; illicit whiskey: always distilled in some remote lonely place, as far away as possible from the nose of a gauger. It is the Irish wordpoitín[pottheen], little pot. We have partly the same term still; for everyone knows the celebrity ofpot-still whiskey: but this isParliamentwhiskey, notpottheen, see p.174.Power; a large quantity, a great deal: Jack Hickey has a power of money: there was apower of cattle in the fair yesterday: there's a power of ivy on that old castle. Miss Grey, a small huckster who kept a little vegetable shop, was one day showing off her rings and bracelets to our servant. 'Oh Miss Grey,' says the girl, 'haven't you a terrible lot of them.' 'Well Ellen, you see I want them all, for I go intoa power of society.' This is an old English usage as is shown by this extract from Spenser's 'View':—'Hee also [Robert Bruce] sent over his said brother Edward, with a power of Scottes and Red-Shankes into Ireland.' There is a corresponding Irish expression (neart airgid, a power of money), but I think this is translated from English rather than the reverse. The same idiom exists in Latin with the wordvis(power): but examples will not be quoted, as they would take up a power of space.Powter [tsounded likethinpith]; to root the ground like a pig; to root up potatoes from the ground with the hands. (Derry.)Prashagh, more commonly called prashagh-wee; wild cabbage with yellow blossoms, the rape plant. Irishpraiseach-bhuidhe[prashagh-wee], yellow cabbage.Praiseachis borrowed from Latinbrassica.Prashameen; a little group all clustered together:—'The children sat in a prashameen on the floor.' I have heard this word a hundred times in Limerickamong English speakers: its Irish form should bepraisimín, but I do not find it in the dictionaries.Prashkeen; an apron. Common all over Ireland. Irishpraiscín, same sound and meaning.Prawkeen; raw oatmeal and milk (MacCall: South Leinster.) See Porter-meal.Prepositions, incorrect use of,26,32,44.Presently; at present, now:—'I'm living in the country presently.' A Shakespearian survival:—Prospero:—'Go bring the rabble.' Ariel:—'Presently?' [i.e. shall I do so now?] Prospero:—'Ay, with a wink.' Extinct in England, but preserved and quite common in Ireland.Priested; ordained: 'He was priested last year.'Priest's share; the soul. A mother will say to a refractory child:—'I'll knock the priest's share out of you.' (Moran: Carlow.)Professions hereditary,172.Pronunciation,2,91to104.Protestant herring: Originally applied to a bad or a stale herring: but in my boyhood days it was applied, in our neighbourhood, to almost anything of an inferior quality:—'Oh that butter is a Protestant herring.' Here is how it originated:—Mary Hewer of our village had been for time out of mind the only huckster who sold salt herrings, sending to Cork for a barrel from time to time, and making good profit. At last Poll Alltimes sent for a barrel and set up an opposition shop, taking away a large part of Mary's custom. Mary was a Catholic and Poll a Protestant: and then our herrings became sharply distinguished as Catholic herrings and Protestant herrings: each party eating herringsof their own creed. But after some time a horrible story began to go round—whispered at first under people's breath—that Poll foundthe head of a blackwith long hair packed among the herrings half way down in her barrel. Whether the people believed it or not, the bare idea was enough; and Protestant herrings suddenly lost character, so that poor Poll's sale fell off at once, while Mary soon regained all her old customers. She well deserved it, if anyone ever deserved a reward for a master-stroke of genius. But I think this is all 'forgotten lore' in the neighbourhood now.Proverbs,105.Puck; to play the puck with anything: a softened equivalent ofplaying the devil.Puckhere means the Pooka, which see.Puck; a blow:—'He gave him a puck of a stick on the head.' More commonly applied to a punch or blow of the horns of a cow or goat. 'The cow gave him a puck (or pucked him) with her horns and knocked him down.' The blow given by a hurler to the ball with hiscamanor hurley is always called apuck. Irishpoc, same sound and meaning.Puckaun; a he-goat. (South.) Irishpoc, a he-goat, with the diminutive.Puke; a poor puny unhealthy-looking person.Pulling a cord (orthe cord); said of a young man and a young woman who are courting:—'Miss Anne and himself that's pulling the cord.' ('Knocknagow.')Pulloge; a quantity of hidden apples: usually hidden by a boy who steals them. (Limerick.) Diminutive of the Irishpoll, a hole.Pusheen; the universal word for a kitten in Munster: a diminutive of the English wordpuss; exactly equivalent topussy.Puss [usounded as infull]; the mouth and lips, always usedin dialectin an offensive or contemptuous sense:—'What an uglypussthat fellow has.' 'He had a puss on him,' i.e. he looked sour or displeased—with lips contracted. I heard one boy say to another:—'I'll give you askelp(blow) on the puss.' (General.) Irishpus, the mouth, same sound.Pusthaghaun; a puffed up conceited fellow. The corresponding word applied to a girl ispusthoge(MacCall: Wexford): the diminutive terminationaunorchaunbeing masculine andógfeminine. Both are frompusthe mouth, on account of the consequential way a conceited person squares up the lips.Quaw or quagh; aquagor quagmire:—'I was unwilling to attempt thequagh.' (Maxwell: 'Wild Sports': Mayo, but used all over Ireland.) Irishcaedh[quay], for which and for the names derived from it, see 'Irish Names of Places': II. 396.Quality; gentlemen and gentlewomen as distinguished from the common people. Out of use in England, but general in Ireland:—'Make room for the quality.'Queer, generally pronouncedquare; used as an intensive in Ulster:—This day is quare and hot (very hot); he is quare and sick (very sick): likefine and fatelsewhere (see p.89).Quin or quing; the swing-tree, a piece of wood usedto keep the chains apart in ploughing to prevent them rubbing the horses. (Cork and Kerry.) Irishcuing[quing], a yoke.Quit: in Ulster 'quit that' meanscease from that:—'quit your crying.' In Queen's County they sayrise out of that.Rabble; used in Ulster to denote a fair where workmen congregate on the hiring day to be hired by the surrounding farmers. See Spalpeen.Rack. In Munster an ordinary comb is called arack: the wordcombbeing always applied and confined to a small close fine-toothed one.Rackrent; an excessive rent of a farm, so high as to allow to the occupier a bare and poor subsistence. Not used outside Ireland except so far as it has been recently brought into prominence by the Irish land question.Rag on every bush; a young man who is caught by and courts many girls but never proposes.Raghery; a kind of small-sized horse; a name given to it from its original home, the island of Rathlin or Raghery off Antrim.Rake; to cover up with ashes the live coals of a turf fire, which will keep them alive till morning:—'Don't forget to rake the fire.'Randy; a scold. (Kinahan: general.)Rap; a bad halfpenny: a bad coin:—'He hasn't a rap in his pocket.'Raumaush or raumaish;romanceor fiction, but now commonly applied to foolish senseless brainless talk. Irishrámásorrámáis, which is merely adapted from the wordromance.Raven's bit; a beast that is going to die. (Kinahan.)Rawney; a delicate person looking in poor health; a poor sickly-looking animal. (Connaught.) Irishránaidhe, same sound and meaning.Reansha; brown bread: sometimes corrupted torange-bread. (MacCall: Wexford.)Red or redd; clear, clear out, clear away:—Redd the road, the same as the IrishFág-a-ballagh, 'clear the way.' If a girl's hair is in bad tangles, she uses aredding-combfirst to open it, and then a finer comb.Redden; to light: 'Take the bellows and redden the fire.' An Irishman hardly everlightshis pipe: hereddensit.Redundancy,52,130.Ree; as applied to a horse means restive, wild, almost unmanageable.Reek; a rick:—A reek of turf: so the Kerry mountains, 'MacGillicuddy's Reeks.'Reel-foot; a club-foot, a deformed foot. (Ulster.) 'Reel-footed and hunch-backed forbye, sir.' (Old Ulster song.)Reenaw´lee; a slow-going fellow who dawdles and delays and hesitates about things. (Munster.) Irishríanálaidhe, same sound and meaning: fromrían, a way, track, or road:ríanalaidhe, a person who wanders listlessly along theway.Reign. This word is often used in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, in the sense of to occupy, to be master of: 'Who is in the Knockea farm?' 'Mr. Keating reigns there now.' 'Who is your landlord?' 'The old master is dead and his son Mr. William reigns over us now.' 'Long mayyour honour [the master] reign over us.' (Crofton Croker.) In answer to an examination question, a young fellow from Cork once answered me, 'Shakespeare reigned in the sixteenth century.' This usage is borrowed from Irish, in which the verbriaghail[ree-al] means both to rule (as a master), and to reign (as a king), and as in many other similar cases the two meanings were confounded in English. (Kinahan and myself.)Relics of old decency. When a man goes down in the world he often preserves some memorials of his former rank—a ring, silver buckles in his shoes, &c.—'the relics of old decency.'Revelagh; a long lazy gadding fellow. (Morris: Monaghan.)Rib; a single hair from the head. A poet, praising a young lady, says that 'every goldenribof her hair is worth five guineas.' Irishruibe[ribbe], same meaning.Rickle; a little heap of turf peats standing on ends against each other. (Derry.) Irishricil, same sound and meaning.Riddles,185.Ride and tie. Two persons set out on a journey having one horse. One rides on while the other sets out on foot after him. The first man, at the end of a mile or two, ties up the horse at the roadside and proceeds on foot. When the second comes to the horse he mounts and rides till he is one or two miles ahead of his comrade and then ties. And so to the end of the journey. A common practice in old times for courier purposes; but not in use now, I think.Rife, a scythe-sharpener, a narrow piece of board punctured all over and covered with grease on which fine sand is sprinkled. Used before the present emery sharpener was known. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishríabh[reev], a long narrow stripe.Right or wrong: often heard forearnestly: 'he pressed me right or wrong to go home with him.'Ringle-eyed; when the iris is light-coloured, and the circle bounding it is very marked, the person isringle-eyed. (Derry.)Rings; often used as follows:—'Did I sleep at all?' 'Oh indeed you did—youslept rings round you.'Rip; a coarse ill-conditioned woman with a bad tongue. (General.)Roach lime; lime just taken from the kiln, burnt,beforebeing slaked and while still in the form of stones. This is old English from Frenchroche, a rock, a stone.Roasters; potatoes kept crisping on the coals to be brought up to table hot at the end of the dinner—usually the largest ones picked out. But the wordroasterwas used only among the lower class of people: the higher classes considered it vulgar. Here is how Mr. Patrick Murray (see p.154) describes them about 1840 in a parody on Moore's 'One bumper at parting' (alumper, in Mr. Murray's version, means a big potato):—'Onelumperat parting, though manyHave rolled on the board since we met,The biggest the hottest of anyRemains in the round for us yet.'In the higher class of houses they were peeled and brought up at the end nice and brown ina dish. About eighty years ago a well-known military gentleman of Baltinglass in the County Wicklow—whose daughter told me the story—had on one occasion a large party of friends to dinner. On the very day of the dinner the waiter took ill, and the stable boy—a big coarse fellow—had to be called in, after elaborate instructions. All went well till near the end of the dinner, when the fellow thought things were going on rather slowly. Opening the diningroom door he thrust in his head and called out in the hearing of all:—'Masther, are ye ready for theroasthers?' A short time ago I was looking at the house and diningroom where that occurred.Rocket; a little girl's frock. (Very common in Limerick.) It is of course an old application of the English-Frenchrochet.Rodden; abohereenor narrow road. (Ulster.) It is the Irishróidín, little road.Roman; used by the people in many parts of Ireland forRoman Catholic. I have already quoted what the Catholic girl said to her Protestant lover:—'Unless that you turn aRomanyou ne'er shall get me for your bride.' Sixty or seventy years ago controversial discussions—between a Catholic on the one hand and a Protestant on the other—were very common. I witnessed many when I was a boy—to my great delight. Garrett Barry, a Roman Catholic, locally noted as a controversialist, was arguing with Mick Cantlon, surrounded by a group of delighted listeners. At last Garrett, as a final clincher, took up the Bible, opened it at a certain place, and handed it to his opponent,with:—'Read that heading out for us now if you please.' Mick took it up and read 'St. Paul's Epistle to theRomans.' 'Very well,' says Garrett: 'now can you show me in any part of that Bible, 'St. Paul's Epistle to theProtestants'? This of course was a down blow; and Garrett was greeted with a great hurrah by the Catholic part of his audience. This story is in 'Knocknagow,' but the thing occurred in my neighbourhood, and I heard about it long before 'Knocknagow' was written.Rookaun; great noisy merriment. Also a drinking-bout. (Limerick.)Room. In a peasant's house theroomis a special apartment distinct from the kitchen or living-room, which is not a 'room' in this sense at all. I slept in the kitchen and John slept in the 'room.' (Healy and myself: Munster.)Round coal; coal in lumps as distinguished from slack or coal broken up small and fine.Ruction, ructions; fighting, squabbling, a fight, a row. It is a memory of theInsurrectionof 1798, which was commonly called the 'Ruction.'Rue-rub; when a person incautiously scratches an itchy spot so as to break the skin: that isrue-rub. (Derry.) Fromrue, regret or sorrow.Rury; a rough hastily-made cake or bannock. (Morris: Monaghan.)Rut; the smallest bonnive in a litter. (Kildare and Carlow.)Saluting, salutations,14.Sapples; soap suds:sapple, to wash in suds. (Derry.)Saulavotcheer; a person havinglark-heels. (Limerick.) The first syll. is Irish;sál[saul], heel.Sauvaun; a rest, a light doze or nap. (Munster.) Irishsámhán, same sound and meaning, fromsámh[sauv], pleasant and tranquil.Scagh; a whitethorn bush. (General.) Irishsceach, same sound and meaning.Scaghler: a little fish—the pinkeen or thornback: Irishsceach[scagh], a thorn or thornbush, and the English terminationler.Scald: to bescaldedis to be annoyed, mortified, sorely troubled, vexed. (Very general.) Translated from one or the other of two Irish words,loisc[lusk], to burn; andscall, toscald. Finn Bane says:—'Guary being angry with me he scorched me (romloisc), burned me,scaldedme, with abuse.' ('Colloquy.') 'I earned that money hard and 'tis a greatheart-scald(scollach-croidhe) to me to lose it.' There is an Irish air called 'TheScaldedpoor man.' ('Old Irish Music and Songs.')Scalder, an unfledged bird (South):scaldieandscaulthogein the North. From the Irishscal(bald), from which comes the Irishscalachán, an unfledged bird.Scallan; a wooden shed to shelter the priest during Mass,143,145.Scalp, scolp, scalpeen; a rude cabin, usually roofed withscalpsor grassy sods (whence the name). In the famine times—1847 and after—a scalp was often erected for any poor wanderer who got stricken down with typhus fever: and in that the people tended him cautiously till he recovered or died. (Munster.) Irishscaílp[scolp].Scalteen: see Scolsheen.Scollagh-cree; ill-treatment of any kind. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishscallach-croidhe, same sound and meaning: a 'heart scald'; fromscalladh, scalding, andcroidhe, heart.Scollop; the bended rod pointed at both ends that a thatcher uses to fasten down the several straw-wisps. (General.) Irishscolb[scollub].Scolsheen or scalteen; made by boiling a mixture of whiskey, water, sugar, butter and pepper (or caraway seeds) in a pot: a sovereign cure for a cold. In the old mail-car days there was an inn on the road from Killarney to Mallow, famous for scolsheen, where a big pot of it was always kept ready for travellers. (Kinahan and Kane.) Sometimes the wordscalteenwas applied to unmixed whiskey burned, and used for the same purpose. From the Irishscall, burn, singe,scald.Sconce; to chaff, banter, make game of:—'None of your sconcing.' (Ulster.)Sconce; to shirk work or duty. (Moran: Carlow.)Scotch Dialect: influence of, on our Dialect,6,7.Scotch lick; when a person goes to clean up anything—a saucepan, a floor, his face, a pair of shoes, &c.—and only half does it, he (or she) has given it aScotch lick. General in South. In Dublin it would be called a 'cat's lick': for a cat has only a small tongue and doesn't do much in the way of licking.Scout; a reproachful name for a bold forward girl.Scouther; to burn a cake on the outside before it is fully cooked, by over haste in baking:—burned outside, half raw inside. Hence 'to scouther'means to do anything hastily and incompletely. (Ulster.)Scrab; to scratch:—'The cat near scrabbed his eyes out.' (Patterson: Ulster.) In the South it isscraub:—'He scraubed my face.'Scrab; to gather the stray potatoes left after the regular crop, when they are afterwards turned out by plough or spade.Scraddhin; a scrap; anything small—smaller than usual, as a small potato: applied contemptuously to a very small man, exactly the same as the Southernsprissaun. Irishscraidín, same sound and meaning. (East Ulster.)Scran; 'bad scran to you,' an evil wish like 'bad luck to you,' but much milder: English, in whichscranmeans broken victuals, food-refuse, fare—very common. (North and South.)Scraw; a grassy sod cut from a grassy or boggy surface and often dried for firing; also calledscrahoge(with diminutiveóg). Irishscrath,scrathóg, same sounds and meaning.Screenge; to search for. (Donegal and Derry.)Scunder or Scunner; a dislike; to take a dislike or disgust against anything. (Armagh.)Scut; the tail of a hare or rabbit: often applied in scorn to a contemptible fellow:—'He's just a scut and nothing better.' The word is Irish, as is shown by the following quotation:—'The billows [were] conversing with thescuds(sterns) and the beautiful prows [of the ships].' (Battle of Moylena: and note by Kuno Meyer in 'Rev. Celt.') (General.)Seeshtheen; a low round seat made of twisted straw.(Munster.) Irishsuidhistín, same sound and meaning: fromsuidhe[see], to sit, with diminutive.Set: all over Ireland they usesetinstead oflet[a house or lodging]. A struggling housekeeper failed to let her lodging, which a neighbour explained by:—'Ah she's no good atsetting.'Set; used in a bad sense, likegangandcrew:—'They're a dirty set.'Settle bed; a folding-up bed kept in the kitchen: when folded up it is like a sofa and used as a seat. (All over Ireland.)Seven´dable [accent onven], very great,mighty greatas they would say:—'Jack gave him asevendablethrashing.' (North.)Shaap [theaalong as incar]; a husk of corn, a pod. (Derry.)Shamrock or Shamroge; the white trefoil (Trifolium repens). The Irish name isseamar[shammer], which with the diminutive makesseamar-óg[shammer-oge], shortened toshamrock.Shanachus, shortened toshanaghin Ulster, a friendly conversation. 'Grandfather would like to have a shanahus with you.' ('Knocknagow.') Irishseanchus, antiquity, history, an old story.Shandradan´ [accented strongly on-dan]; an old rickety rattle-trap of a car. The first syllable is Irishsean[shan], old.Shanty: a mean hastily put up little house. (General.) Probably from Irishsean, old, andtigh[tee], a house.Shaugh; a turn or smoke of a pipe. (General.) Irishseach, same sound and meaning.Shaughraun; wandering about: to beon the shaughraunis to be out of employment and wandering idly about looking for work. Irishseachrán, same sound and meaning.Shebeen or sheebeen; an unlicensed public-house or alehouse where spirits are sold on the sly. (Used all over Ireland.) Irishsíbín, same sound and meaning.Shee; a fairy, fairies; also meaning the place where fairies live, usually a round green little hill or elf-mound having a glorious palace underneath: Irishsidhe, same sound and meanings.Sheeoften takes the diminutive form—sheeoge.Shee-geeha; the little whirl of dust you often see moving along the road on a calm dusty day: this is a band of fairies travelling from onelisor elf-mound to another, and you had better turn aside and avoid it. Irishsidhe-gaoithe, same sound and meaning, wheregaoitheis wind: 'wind-fairies': called 'fairy-blast' in Kildare.Sheehy, Rev. Father, of Kilfinane,147.Sheela; a female Christian name (as in 'Sheela Ni Gyra'). Used in the South as a reproachful name for a boy or a man inclined to do work or interest himself in affairs properly belonging to women. See 'Molly.'Sheep's eyes: when a young man looks fondly and coaxingly on his sweetheart he is 'throwing sheep's eyes' at her.Sherral; an offensive term for a mean unprincipled fellow. (Moran: South Mon.)Sheugh or Shough; a deep cutting, elsewhere called a ditch, often filled with water. (Seumas MacManus: N.W. Ulster.)Shillelah; a handstick of oak, an oaken cudgel for fighting. (Common all over Ireland.) From a district in Wicklow called Shillelah, formerly noted for its oak woods, in which grand shillelahs were plentiful.Shingerleens [shing-erleens]; small bits of finery; ornamental tags and ends—of ribbons, bow-knots, tassels, &c.—hanging on dress, curtains, furniture, &c. (Munster.)Shire; to pour or drain off water or any liquid, quietly and without disturbing the solid parts remaining behind, such as draining off the whey-like liquid from buttermilk.Shlamaan´ [aalikeaincar]; a handful of straw, leeks, &c. (Morris: South Monaghan.)Shoggle; to shake or jolt. (Derry.)Shoneen; agentlemanin a small way: a would-be gentleman who puts on superior airs. Always used contemptuously.Shook; in a bad way, done up, undone:—'I'm shook by the loss of that money': 'he was shook for a pair of shoes.'Shooler; a wanderer, a stroller, a vagrant, a tramp, a rover: often means a mendicant. (Middle and South of Ireland.) From the Irishsiubhal[shool], to walk, with the English terminationer: lit. 'walker.'Shoonaun; a deep circular basket, made of twisted rushes or straw, and lined with calico; it had a cover and was used for holding linen, clothes, &c. (Limerick and Cork.) From Irishsibhinn[shiven], a rush, a bulrush: of which the diminutivesiubhnán[shoonaun] is our word: signifying'made of rushes.' Many a shoonaun I saw in my day; and I remember meeting a man who was a shoonaun maker by trade.Short castle or short castles; a game played by two persons on a square usually drawn on a slate with the two diagonals: each player having three counters. See Mills.Shore; the brittle woody part separated in bits and dust from the fibre of flax by scutching orcloving. Calledshoresin Monaghan.Shraff, shraft; Shrovetide: on and about Shrove Tuesday:—'I bought that cow last shraff.'Shraums, singular shraum; the matter that collects about the eyes of people who have tender eyes: matter running from sore eyes. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishsream[sraum]. Same meaning.Shrule; to rinse an article of clothing by pulling it backwards and forwards in a stream. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishsrúil, a stream.Shrough; a rough wet place; an incorrect anglicised form of Irishsrath, a wet place, a marsh.Shuggy-shoo; the play of see-saw. (Ulster.)Shurauns; any plants with large leaves, such as hemlock, wild parsnip, &c. (Kinahan: Wicklow.)Sighth (for sight); a great number, a large quantity. (General.) 'Oh Mrs. Morony haven't you asighthof turkeys': 'Tom Cassidy has a sighth of money.' This is old English. Thus in a Quaker's diary of 1752:—'There was a great sight of people passed through the streets of Limerick.' This expression is I think still heard in England, and is very much in use in America. Very general in Ireland.Sign; a very small quantity—a trace. Used all over Ireland in this way:—'My gardens areevery signas good as yours': 'he had no sign of drink on him': 'there's no sign of sugar in my tea' (Hayden and Hartog): 'look out to see if Bill is coming': 'no—there's no sign of him.' This is a translation from the Irishrian, for which see next entry.Sign's on, sign is on, sign's on it; used to express the result or effect or proof of any proceeding:—'Tom Kelly never sends his children to school, and sign's on (or sign's on it) they are growing up like savages': 'Dick understands the management of fruit trees well, and sign's on, he is making lots of money by them.' This is a translation from Irish, in whichrianmeanstrack,trace,sign: and 'sign's on it' ista a rian air('its sign is on it').Silenced; a priest is silenced when he is suspended from his priestly functions by his ecclesiastical superiors: 'unfrocked.'Singlings; the weak pottheen whiskey that comes off at the first distillation: agreeable to drink but terribly sickening. Also called 'First shot.'Sippy; a ball of rolledsugans(i.e. hay or straw ropes), used instead of a real ball in hurling or football. (Limerick.) Irishsuipigh, same sound and meaning. A diminutive ofsop, a wisp.Skeeagh [2-syll.]; a shallow osier basket, usually for potatoes. (South.)Skeedeen; a trifle, anything small of its kind; a small potato. (Derry and Donegal.) Irishscídín, same sound and meaning.Skellig, Skellig List—On the Great Skellig rock in the Atlantic, off the coast of Kerry, are the ruins of a monastery, to which people at one time went on pilgrimage—and a difficult pilgrimage it was. The tradition is still kept up in some places, though in an odd form; in connection with the custom that marriages are not solemnised in Lent, i.e. after Shrove Tuesday. It is well within my memory that—in the south of Ireland—young persons who should have been married before Ash-Wednesday, but were not, were supposed to set out on pilgrimage to Skellig on Shrove Tuesday night: but it was all a make-believe. Yet I remember witnessing occasionally some play in mock imitation of the pilgrimage. It was usual for a local bard to compose what was called a 'Skellig List'—a jocose rhyming catalogue of the unmarried men and women of the neighbourhood who went on the sorrowful journey—which was circulated on Shrove Tuesday and for some time after. Some of these were witty and amusing: but occasionally they were scurrilous and offensive doggerel. They were generally too long for singing; but I remember one—a good one too—which—when I was very young—I heard sung to a spirited air. It is represented here by a single verse, the only one I remember. (See also 'Chalk Sunday,' p.234, above.)
Margamore; the 'Great Market' held in Derry immediately before Christmas or Easter. (Derry.) Irishmargadh[marga], a market,mór[more], great.
Martheen; a stocking with the foot cut off. (Derry.) Irishmairtín, same sound and meaning.Martheensare what they call in Munstertriheens, which see.
Mass, celebration of,144.
Mau-galore; nearly drunk: Irishmaith[mau], good:go leór, plenty: 'purty well I thank you,' as the people often say: meaning almost the same as Burns's 'I was na fou but just had plenty.' (Common in Munster.)
Mauleen; a little bag: usually applied in the South to the little sack slung over the shoulder of a potato-planter, filled with thepotato-sets(orskillauns), from which the setter takes them one by one to plant them. In Ulster and Scotland, the word ismailin, which is sometimes applied to a purse:—'Amailinplenished (filled) fairly.' (Burns.)
Maum; the full of the two hands used together(Kerry); the same asLyreandGopan, which see. IrishMám, same sound and meaning.
Mavourneen; my love. (Used all through Ireland.) IrishMo-mhúirnín, same sound and meaning. See Avourneen.
May-day customs,170.
Méaracaun [mairacaun]; a thimble. Merely the Irishméaracán, same sound and meaning: fromméar, a finger, with the diminutive terminationcán. Applied in the South to the fairy-thimble or foxglove, with usually a qualifying word:—Mearacaun-shee (shee, a fairy—fairy thimble) or Mearacaun-na-man-shee (where na-man-shee is the Irishna-mban-sidhe, of thebansheesor fairy-women). 'Lusmore,' another name, which see.
Mearing; a well-marked boundary—but not necessarily a raisedditch—a fence between two farms, or two fields, or two bogs. Old English.
Mease: a measure for small fish, especially herrings:—'The fisherman brought in ten mease of herrings.' Used all round the Irish coast. It is the Irish wordmías[meece], a dish.
Mee-aw; a general name for the potato blight. Irishmí-adh[mee-aw], ill luck: from Irishmí, bad, andádh, luck. Butmee-awis also used to designate 'misfortune' in general.
Meela-murder; 'a thousand murders': a general exclamation of surprise, alarm, or regret. The first part is Irish—míle[meela], a thousand; the second is of course English.
Meelcar´ [carlong like the English wordcar]; also calledmeelcartan; a red itchy sore on the sole of the foot just at the edge. It is believed by thepeople to be caused by a red little flesh-worm, and hence the namemíol[meel], a worm, andcearr[car], an old Irish word for red:—Meel-car, 'red-worm.' (North and South.)
Meeraw; ill luck. (Munster.) From Irishmí, ill, and ráth [raw], luck:—'There was somemeerawon the family.
Melder of corn; the quantity sent to the mill and ground at one time. (Ulster.)
Memory of History and of Old Customs,143.
Merrow; a mermaid. Irishmurrughagh[murrooa], frommuir, the sea. She dives and travels under sea by means of a hood and cape calledcohuleen-dru:cochall, a hood and cape (with diminutive termination);druádh, druidical: 'magical cape.'
Midjilinn or middhilin; the thong of a flail. (Morris: South Monaghan.)
Mihul or mehul [iandeshort]; a number of men engaged in any farm-work, especially corn-reaping, still used in the South and West. It is the very old Irish wordmeithel, same sound and meaning.
Mills. The old English game of 'nine men's morris' or 'nine men's merrils' ormillswas practised in my native place when I was a boy. We played it on a diagram of three squares one within another, connected by certain straight lines, each player having nine counters. It is mentioned by Shakespeare ('Midsummer-Night's Dream'). I learned to be a good player, and could play it still if I could meet an antagonist. How it reached Limerick I do not know. A few years ago I saw two persons playing mills in a hotel in Llandudno; and my heart went out to them.
Mind; often used in this way:—'Will you write that letter to-day?' 'No: I won't mind it to-day: I'll write it to-morrow.'
Minnikin; a very small pin.
Minister; always applied in Ireland to a Protestant clergyman.
Miscaun, mescaun, mescan, miscan; a roll or lump of butter. Irishmioscán[miscaun]. Used all over Ireland.
Mitch; to play truant from school.
Mitchelstown, Co. Cork,155.
Moanthaun; boggy land. Moantheen; a little bog. (Munster.) Both dims. of Irishmóin, a bog.
Molly; a man who busies himself about women's affairs or does work that properly belongs to women. (Leinster.) Same assheelain the South.
Moneen; a littlemoanor bog; a green spot in a bog where games are played. Also a sort of jig dance-tune: so called because often danced on a greenmoneen. (Munster.)
Month's Mind; Mass and a general memorial service for the repose of the soul of a person, celebrated a month after death. The term was in common use in England until the change of religion at the Reformation; and now it is not known even to English Roman Catholics. (Woollett.) It is in constant use in Ireland, and I think among Irish Catholics everywhere. But the practice is kept up by Catholics all over the world. Mind, 'Memory.'
Mootch: to move about slowly and meaninglessly: without intelligence. A mootch is a slow stupid person. (South.)
Moretimes; often used as corresponding tosometimes: 'Sometimes she employs herself at sewing, and moretimes at knitting.'
Mor-yah; a derisive expression of dissent to drive home the untruthfulness of some assertion or supposition or pretence, something like the English 'forsooth,' but infinitely stronger:—A notorious schemer and cheat puts on airs of piety in the chapel and thumps his breast in great style; and a spectator says:—Oh how pious and holy Joe is growing—mar-yah! 'Mick is a great patriot, mor-yah!—he'd sell his country for half a crown.' Irishmar-sheadh[same sound], 'as it were.'
Mossa; a sort of assertive particle used at the opening of a sentence, like the Englishwell,indeed: carrying little or no meaning. 'Do you like your new house?'—'Mossa I don't like it much.' Another form ofwisha, and both anglicised from the Irishmá'seadh, used in Irish in much the same sense.
Mountain dew; a fanciful and sort of pet name for pottheen whiskey: usually made in themountains.
Mounthagh, mounthaun; a toothless person. (Munster.) From the Irishmant[mounth], the gum, with the terminations. Both words are equivalent togummy, a person whose mouth isall gums.
Moutre. In very old times a mill-owner commonly received as payment for grinding corn one-tenth of the corn ground—in accordance with the Brehon Law. This custom continued to recent times—and probably continues still—in Ulster,where the quantity given to the miller is calledmoutre, ormuter, ormooter.
Mulharten; a flesh-worm: a form of meelcartan. See Meelcar.
Mullaberta; arbitration. (Munster.) Merely the Irishmoladh-beirte, same sound and meaning: in whichmoladh[mulla] is 'appraisement'; andbeirtĕ, gen. ofbeart, 'two persons':—lit. 'appraisement of two.' The word mullaberta has however in recent times drifted to mean a loose unbusinesslike settlement. (Healy.)
Mummers,171.
Murray, Mr. Patrick, schoolmaster of Kilfinane,153,154, and under 'Roasters,' below.
Murrogh O'Brien, Earl of Inchiquin,165.
Musicianer for musician is much in use all over Ireland. Of English origin, and used by several old English writers, among others by Collier.
Nab; a knowing old-fashioned little fellow. (Derry.)
Naboc´lesh; never mind. (North and South.) Irishná-bac-leis(same sound), 'do not stop to mind it,' or 'pass it over.'
Nail, paying on the nail,183.
Naygur; a form ofniggard: a wretched miser:—
'I certainly thought my poor heart it would bleedTo be trudging behind that old naygur.'(Old Munster song; 'The Spalpeen's Complaint':from 'Old Irish Folk Music and Songs.')
'I certainly thought my poor heart it would bleedTo be trudging behind that old naygur.'
'I certainly thought my poor heart it would bleed
To be trudging behind that old naygur.'
(Old Munster song; 'The Spalpeen's Complaint':from 'Old Irish Folk Music and Songs.')
(Old Munster song; 'The Spalpeen's Complaint':
from 'Old Irish Folk Music and Songs.')
'In all my ranging and serenading,I met no naygur but humpy Hyde.'(See 'Castlehyde' in my 'Old Irish Music and Songs.')
'In all my ranging and serenading,I met no naygur but humpy Hyde.'
'In all my ranging and serenading,
I met no naygur but humpy Hyde.'
(See 'Castlehyde' in my 'Old Irish Music and Songs.')
(See 'Castlehyde' in my 'Old Irish Music and Songs.')
Nicely: often used in Ireland as shown here:— 'Well, how is your [sick] mother to-day?' 'Oh she's nicely,' or 'doing nicely, thank you'; i.e. getting on very well—satisfactorily. A still stronger word isbravely. 'She's doing bravely this morning'; i.e. extremely well—better than was expected.
Nim or nym; a small bit of anything. (Ulster.)
Noggin; a small vessel, now understood to hold two glasses; also called naggin. Irishnoigín.
Nose; to pay through the nose; to pay and be made to pay, against your grain, the full sum without delay or mitigation.
Oanshagh; a female fool, corresponding with omadaun, a male fool. Irishóinseach, same sound and meaning: fromón, a fool, andseach, the feminine termination.
Offer; an attempt:—'I made an offer to leap the fence but failed.'
Old English, influence of, on our dialect,6.
Oliver's summons,184.
On or upon; in addition to its functions as explained at pp.27,28, it is used to express obligation:— 'Now I put ituponyou to give Bill that message for me': one person meeting another on Christmas Day says:—'My Christmas boxonyou,' i.e. 'I put it as an obligation on you to give me a Christmas box.'
Once; often used in this manner:—'Once he promises he'll do it' (Hayden and Hartog): 'Once you pay the money you are free,' i.e.iforwhenyou pay.
O'Neills and their war-cry,179.
Oshin [sounded nearly the same as the English word ocean]; a weakly creature who cannot do his fair share of work. (Innishowen, Donegal.)
Out; used, in speaking of time, in the sense ofdownorsubsequently:—'His wife led him a mighty uneasy life from the day they marriedout.' (Gerald Griffin: Munster.) 'You'll pay rent for your house for the first seven years, and you will have it free from thatout.'
Out; to call a personout of his nameis to call him by a wrong name.
Out; 'be off out of that' means simplygo away.
Out; 'I am out with him' means I am not on terms with him—I have fallen out with him.
Overright; opposite, in front of: the same meaning asforenenst; butforenenstis English, while overright is a wrong translation from an Irish word—ós-cómhair.Osmeans over, andcomhairopposite: but this last word was taken by speakers to becóir(for both are sounded alike), and ascóirmeansrightor just, so they translatedos-comhairas if it wereós-cóir, 'over-right.' (Russell: Munster.)
Paddhereen; a prayer: dim. of LatinPater(Pater Noster).Paddereen Paurtagh, the Rosary: from Irishpáirteach, sharing or partaking: because usually several join in it.
Páideóge [paudh-yoge]; a torch made of a wick dipped in melted rosin (Munster): what they call aslutin Ulster.
Paghil or pahil; a lump or bundle,108. (Ulster.)
Palatines,65.
Palleen; a rag: a torn coat is 'all inpaleens.' (Derry.)
Palm; the yew-tree,184.
Pampooty; a shoe made of untanned hide. (West.)
Pandy; potatoes mashed up with milk and butter. (Munster.)
Pannikin; now applied to a small tin drinking-vessel: an old English word that has fallen out of use in England, but is still current in Ireland: applied down to last century to a small earthenware pot used for boiling food. These little vessels were made at Youghal and Ardmore (Co. Waterford). The earthenware pannikins have disappeared, their place being supplied by tinware. (Kinahan.)
Parisheen; a foundling; one brought up in childhood by theparish. (Kildare.)
Parson; was formerly applied to a Catholic parish priest: but in Ireland it now always means a Protestant minister.
Parthan; a crab-fish. (Donegal.) Merely the Irishpartan, same sound and meaning.
Parts; districts, territories:—'Prince and plinnypinnytinshary of these parts' (King O'Toole and St. Kevin): 'Welcome to these parts.' (Crofton Croker.)
Past; 'I wouldn't put itpasthim,' i.e. I think him bad or foolish enough (to do it).
Past; more than: 'Our landlord's face we rarely see past once in seven years'—Irish Folk Song.
Pattern (i.e.patron); a gathering at a holy well or other relic of a saint on his or her festival day, to pray and performroundsand other devotional acts in honour of the patron saint. (General.)
Pattha; a pet, applied to a young person who is brought up over tenderly and indulged toomuch:—'What apatthayou are!' This is an extension of meaning; for the Irishpeata[pattha] means merely apet, nothing more.
Pelt; the skin:—'He is in his pelt,' i.e. naked.
Penal Laws,144, and elsewhere through the book.
Personable; comely, well-looking, handsome:—'Diarmid Bawn the piper, as personable a looking man as any in the five parishes.' (Crofton Croker: Munster.)
Pickey; a round flat little stone used by children in playingtranseor Scotch-hop. (Limerick.)
Piggin; a wooden drinking-vessel. It is now calledpigínin Irish; but it is of English origin.
Pike; a pitchfork; commonly applied to one with two prongs. (Munster.)
Pike or croppy-pike; the favourite weapon of the rebels of 1798: it was fixed on a very long handle, and had combined in one head a long sharp spear, a small axe, and a hook for catching the enemy's horse-reins.
Pillibeen or pillibeen-meeg; a plover. (Munster.) 'I'm king of Munster when I'm in the bog, and thepillibeenswhistling about me.' ('Knocknagow.') Irishpilibín-míog, same sound and meaning.
Pindy flour; flour that has begun to ferment slightly on account of being kept in a warm moist place. Cakes made from it were uneatable as they were soft and clammy and slightly sour. (Limerick.)
Pinkeen; a little fish, a stickleback: plentiful in small streams. Irishpincín, same sound and meaning. See Scaghler.
Piper's invitation; 'He came on the piper's invitation,' i.e. uninvited. (Cork.) A translation ofIrishcuireadh-píobaire[curra-peebara]. Pipers sometimes visited the houses of well-to-do people and played—to the great delight of the boys and girls—and they were sure to be well treated. But that custom is long since dead and gone.
Pishminnaan´ [theaalong asaincar]; common wild peas. (Munster.) They are much smaller—both plant and peas—than the cultivated pea, whence the above anglicised name, which has the same sound as the Irishpise-mionnáin, 'kid's peas.'
Pishmool; a pismire, an ant. (Ulster.)
Pishoge, pisheroge, pishthroge; a charm, a spell, witchcraft:—'It is reported that someone took Mrs. O'Brien's butter from her bypishoges.'
Place; very generally used for house, home, homestead:—'If ever you come to Tipperary I shall be very glad to see you atmy place.' This is a usage of the Irish language; for the wordbaile[bally], which is now used forhome, means also, and in an old sense, a place, a spot, without any reference to home.
Plaikeen; an old shawl, an old cloak, any old covering or wrap worn round the shoulders. (South.)
Plantation; a colony from England or Scotland settled down orplantedin former times in a district in Ireland from which the rightful old Irish owners were expelled,7,169,170.
Plaumause [to rhyme withsauce]; soft talk, plausible speech, flattery—conveying the idea of insincerity. (South.) Irishplámás, same sound and meaning.
Plauzy; full of soft, flattering,plausibletalk. Hencethe nounpláusoge[plauss-oge], a person who is plauzy. (South.)
Plerauca; great fun and noisy revelry. Irishpléaráca, same sound and meaning.
Pluddogh; dirty water. (MacCall: Wexford.) From Irishplod[pludh], a pool of dirty water, with the terminationach.
Pluvaun; a kind of soft weed that grows excessively on tilled moory lands and chokes the crop. (Moran: Carlow.)
Poll-talk; backbiting: from thepollof the head: the idea being the same as inbackbiting.
Polthogue; a blow; a blow with the fist. Irishpalltóg, same sound and meaning.
Pooka; a sort of fairy: a mischievous and often malignant goblin that generally appears in the form of a horse, but sometimes as a bull, a buck-goat, &c. The great ambition of the pooka horse is to get some unfortunate wight on his back; and then he gallops furiously through bogs, marshes, and woods, over rocks, glens, and precipices; till at last when the poor wretch on his back is nearly dead with terror and fatigue, the pooka pitches him into some quagmire or pool or briar-brake, leaving him to extricate himself as best he can. But the goblin does not do worse: he does not kill people. Irishpúca. Shakespeare has immortalised him as Puck, the goblin of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream.'
Pookapyle, also called Pookaun; a sort of large fungus, the toadstool. Called alsocausha pooka. All these names imply that the Pooka has something to do with this poisonous fungus. See Causha-pooka (pooka's cheese).
Pookeen; a play—blindman's buff: from Irishpúic, a veil or covering, from the covering put over the eyes. Pookeen is also applied in Cork to a cloth muzzle tied on calves or lambs to prevent sucking the mother. The face-covering for blindman's buff is calledpookoge, in which the dim.ógis used instead ofínoreen. The old-fashionedcoal-scuttlebonnets of long ago that nearly covered the face were often calledpookeenbonnets. It was of a bonnet of this kind that the young man in Lover's song of 'Molly Carew' speaks:—
Oh,laveoff that bonnet or else I'lllaveon itThe loss of my wandering sowl:—
Oh,laveoff that bonnet or else I'lllaveon itThe loss of my wandering sowl:—
Oh,laveoff that bonnet or else I'lllaveon it
The loss of my wandering sowl:—
because it hid Molly's face from him.
Poor mouth; making the poor mouth is trying to persuade people you are very poor—making out or pretending that you are poor.
Poor scholars,151,157.
Poreens; very small potatoes—merecrachauns(which see)—any small things, such as marbles, &c. (South:porransin Ulster.)
Porter-meal: oatmeal mixed with porter. Seventy or eighty years ago, the carters who carried bags of oatmeal from Limerick to Cork (a two-day journey) usually rested for the night at Mick Lynch's public-house in Glenosheen. They often took lunch or dinner of porter-meal in this way:—Opening the end of one of the bags, the man made a hollow in the oatmeal into which he poured a quart of porter, stirring it up with a spoon: then he ate an immense bellyful of the mixture. But those fellows could digest like an ostrich.
In Ulster, oatmeal mixed in this manner with buttermilk, hot broth, &c., and eaten with a spoon, is calledcroudy.
Potthalowng; an awkward unfortunate mishap, not very serious, but coming just at the wrong time. When I was a boy 'Jack Mullowney'spotthalowng' had passed into a proverb. Jack one time wentcourting, that is, to spend a pleasant evening with the young lady at the house of his prospective father-in-law, and to make up the match with the old couple. He wore his best of course, body-coat, white waistcoat, caroline hat (tall silk), andducks(ducks, snow-white canvas trousers.) All sat down to a grand dinner given in his honour, the young couple side by side. Jack's plate was heaped up with beautiful bacon and turkey, and white cabbage swimming in fat, that would make you lick your lips to look at it. Poor Jack was a bit sheepish; for there was a good deal of banter, as there always is on such occasions. He drew over his plate to the very edge of the table; and in trying to manage a turkey bone with knife and fork, he turned the plate right over into his lap, down on the ducks.
The marriage came off all the same; but the story went round the country like wildfire; and for many a long day Jack had to stand the jokes of his friends on thepotthalowng. Used in Munster. The Irish ispatalong, same sound and meaning; but I do not find it in the dictionaries.
Pottheen; illicit whiskey: always distilled in some remote lonely place, as far away as possible from the nose of a gauger. It is the Irish wordpoitín[pottheen], little pot. We have partly the same term still; for everyone knows the celebrity ofpot-still whiskey: but this isParliamentwhiskey, notpottheen, see p.174.
Power; a large quantity, a great deal: Jack Hickey has a power of money: there was apower of cattle in the fair yesterday: there's a power of ivy on that old castle. Miss Grey, a small huckster who kept a little vegetable shop, was one day showing off her rings and bracelets to our servant. 'Oh Miss Grey,' says the girl, 'haven't you a terrible lot of them.' 'Well Ellen, you see I want them all, for I go intoa power of society.' This is an old English usage as is shown by this extract from Spenser's 'View':—'Hee also [Robert Bruce] sent over his said brother Edward, with a power of Scottes and Red-Shankes into Ireland.' There is a corresponding Irish expression (neart airgid, a power of money), but I think this is translated from English rather than the reverse. The same idiom exists in Latin with the wordvis(power): but examples will not be quoted, as they would take up a power of space.
Powter [tsounded likethinpith]; to root the ground like a pig; to root up potatoes from the ground with the hands. (Derry.)
Prashagh, more commonly called prashagh-wee; wild cabbage with yellow blossoms, the rape plant. Irishpraiseach-bhuidhe[prashagh-wee], yellow cabbage.Praiseachis borrowed from Latinbrassica.
Prashameen; a little group all clustered together:—'The children sat in a prashameen on the floor.' I have heard this word a hundred times in Limerickamong English speakers: its Irish form should bepraisimín, but I do not find it in the dictionaries.
Prashkeen; an apron. Common all over Ireland. Irishpraiscín, same sound and meaning.
Prawkeen; raw oatmeal and milk (MacCall: South Leinster.) See Porter-meal.
Prepositions, incorrect use of,26,32,44.
Presently; at present, now:—'I'm living in the country presently.' A Shakespearian survival:—Prospero:—'Go bring the rabble.' Ariel:—'Presently?' [i.e. shall I do so now?] Prospero:—'Ay, with a wink.' Extinct in England, but preserved and quite common in Ireland.
Priested; ordained: 'He was priested last year.'
Priest's share; the soul. A mother will say to a refractory child:—'I'll knock the priest's share out of you.' (Moran: Carlow.)
Professions hereditary,172.
Pronunciation,2,91to104.
Protestant herring: Originally applied to a bad or a stale herring: but in my boyhood days it was applied, in our neighbourhood, to almost anything of an inferior quality:—'Oh that butter is a Protestant herring.' Here is how it originated:—Mary Hewer of our village had been for time out of mind the only huckster who sold salt herrings, sending to Cork for a barrel from time to time, and making good profit. At last Poll Alltimes sent for a barrel and set up an opposition shop, taking away a large part of Mary's custom. Mary was a Catholic and Poll a Protestant: and then our herrings became sharply distinguished as Catholic herrings and Protestant herrings: each party eating herringsof their own creed. But after some time a horrible story began to go round—whispered at first under people's breath—that Poll foundthe head of a blackwith long hair packed among the herrings half way down in her barrel. Whether the people believed it or not, the bare idea was enough; and Protestant herrings suddenly lost character, so that poor Poll's sale fell off at once, while Mary soon regained all her old customers. She well deserved it, if anyone ever deserved a reward for a master-stroke of genius. But I think this is all 'forgotten lore' in the neighbourhood now.
Proverbs,105.
Puck; to play the puck with anything: a softened equivalent ofplaying the devil.Puckhere means the Pooka, which see.
Puck; a blow:—'He gave him a puck of a stick on the head.' More commonly applied to a punch or blow of the horns of a cow or goat. 'The cow gave him a puck (or pucked him) with her horns and knocked him down.' The blow given by a hurler to the ball with hiscamanor hurley is always called apuck. Irishpoc, same sound and meaning.
Puckaun; a he-goat. (South.) Irishpoc, a he-goat, with the diminutive.
Puke; a poor puny unhealthy-looking person.
Pulling a cord (orthe cord); said of a young man and a young woman who are courting:—'Miss Anne and himself that's pulling the cord.' ('Knocknagow.')
Pulloge; a quantity of hidden apples: usually hidden by a boy who steals them. (Limerick.) Diminutive of the Irishpoll, a hole.
Pusheen; the universal word for a kitten in Munster: a diminutive of the English wordpuss; exactly equivalent topussy.
Puss [usounded as infull]; the mouth and lips, always usedin dialectin an offensive or contemptuous sense:—'What an uglypussthat fellow has.' 'He had a puss on him,' i.e. he looked sour or displeased—with lips contracted. I heard one boy say to another:—'I'll give you askelp(blow) on the puss.' (General.) Irishpus, the mouth, same sound.
Pusthaghaun; a puffed up conceited fellow. The corresponding word applied to a girl ispusthoge(MacCall: Wexford): the diminutive terminationaunorchaunbeing masculine andógfeminine. Both are frompusthe mouth, on account of the consequential way a conceited person squares up the lips.
Quaw or quagh; aquagor quagmire:—'I was unwilling to attempt thequagh.' (Maxwell: 'Wild Sports': Mayo, but used all over Ireland.) Irishcaedh[quay], for which and for the names derived from it, see 'Irish Names of Places': II. 396.
Quality; gentlemen and gentlewomen as distinguished from the common people. Out of use in England, but general in Ireland:—'Make room for the quality.'
Queer, generally pronouncedquare; used as an intensive in Ulster:—This day is quare and hot (very hot); he is quare and sick (very sick): likefine and fatelsewhere (see p.89).
Quin or quing; the swing-tree, a piece of wood usedto keep the chains apart in ploughing to prevent them rubbing the horses. (Cork and Kerry.) Irishcuing[quing], a yoke.
Quit: in Ulster 'quit that' meanscease from that:—'quit your crying.' In Queen's County they sayrise out of that.
Rabble; used in Ulster to denote a fair where workmen congregate on the hiring day to be hired by the surrounding farmers. See Spalpeen.
Rack. In Munster an ordinary comb is called arack: the wordcombbeing always applied and confined to a small close fine-toothed one.
Rackrent; an excessive rent of a farm, so high as to allow to the occupier a bare and poor subsistence. Not used outside Ireland except so far as it has been recently brought into prominence by the Irish land question.
Rag on every bush; a young man who is caught by and courts many girls but never proposes.
Raghery; a kind of small-sized horse; a name given to it from its original home, the island of Rathlin or Raghery off Antrim.
Rake; to cover up with ashes the live coals of a turf fire, which will keep them alive till morning:—'Don't forget to rake the fire.'
Randy; a scold. (Kinahan: general.)
Rap; a bad halfpenny: a bad coin:—'He hasn't a rap in his pocket.'
Raumaush or raumaish;romanceor fiction, but now commonly applied to foolish senseless brainless talk. Irishrámásorrámáis, which is merely adapted from the wordromance.
Raven's bit; a beast that is going to die. (Kinahan.)
Rawney; a delicate person looking in poor health; a poor sickly-looking animal. (Connaught.) Irishránaidhe, same sound and meaning.
Reansha; brown bread: sometimes corrupted torange-bread. (MacCall: Wexford.)
Red or redd; clear, clear out, clear away:—Redd the road, the same as the IrishFág-a-ballagh, 'clear the way.' If a girl's hair is in bad tangles, she uses aredding-combfirst to open it, and then a finer comb.
Redden; to light: 'Take the bellows and redden the fire.' An Irishman hardly everlightshis pipe: hereddensit.
Redundancy,52,130.
Ree; as applied to a horse means restive, wild, almost unmanageable.
Reek; a rick:—A reek of turf: so the Kerry mountains, 'MacGillicuddy's Reeks.'
Reel-foot; a club-foot, a deformed foot. (Ulster.) 'Reel-footed and hunch-backed forbye, sir.' (Old Ulster song.)
Reenaw´lee; a slow-going fellow who dawdles and delays and hesitates about things. (Munster.) Irishríanálaidhe, same sound and meaning: fromrían, a way, track, or road:ríanalaidhe, a person who wanders listlessly along theway.
Reign. This word is often used in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, in the sense of to occupy, to be master of: 'Who is in the Knockea farm?' 'Mr. Keating reigns there now.' 'Who is your landlord?' 'The old master is dead and his son Mr. William reigns over us now.' 'Long mayyour honour [the master] reign over us.' (Crofton Croker.) In answer to an examination question, a young fellow from Cork once answered me, 'Shakespeare reigned in the sixteenth century.' This usage is borrowed from Irish, in which the verbriaghail[ree-al] means both to rule (as a master), and to reign (as a king), and as in many other similar cases the two meanings were confounded in English. (Kinahan and myself.)
Relics of old decency. When a man goes down in the world he often preserves some memorials of his former rank—a ring, silver buckles in his shoes, &c.—'the relics of old decency.'
Revelagh; a long lazy gadding fellow. (Morris: Monaghan.)
Rib; a single hair from the head. A poet, praising a young lady, says that 'every goldenribof her hair is worth five guineas.' Irishruibe[ribbe], same meaning.
Rickle; a little heap of turf peats standing on ends against each other. (Derry.) Irishricil, same sound and meaning.
Riddles,185.
Ride and tie. Two persons set out on a journey having one horse. One rides on while the other sets out on foot after him. The first man, at the end of a mile or two, ties up the horse at the roadside and proceeds on foot. When the second comes to the horse he mounts and rides till he is one or two miles ahead of his comrade and then ties. And so to the end of the journey. A common practice in old times for courier purposes; but not in use now, I think.
Rife, a scythe-sharpener, a narrow piece of board punctured all over and covered with grease on which fine sand is sprinkled. Used before the present emery sharpener was known. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishríabh[reev], a long narrow stripe.
Right or wrong: often heard forearnestly: 'he pressed me right or wrong to go home with him.'
Ringle-eyed; when the iris is light-coloured, and the circle bounding it is very marked, the person isringle-eyed. (Derry.)
Rings; often used as follows:—'Did I sleep at all?' 'Oh indeed you did—youslept rings round you.'
Rip; a coarse ill-conditioned woman with a bad tongue. (General.)
Roach lime; lime just taken from the kiln, burnt,beforebeing slaked and while still in the form of stones. This is old English from Frenchroche, a rock, a stone.
Roasters; potatoes kept crisping on the coals to be brought up to table hot at the end of the dinner—usually the largest ones picked out. But the wordroasterwas used only among the lower class of people: the higher classes considered it vulgar. Here is how Mr. Patrick Murray (see p.154) describes them about 1840 in a parody on Moore's 'One bumper at parting' (alumper, in Mr. Murray's version, means a big potato):—
'Onelumperat parting, though manyHave rolled on the board since we met,The biggest the hottest of anyRemains in the round for us yet.'
'Onelumperat parting, though manyHave rolled on the board since we met,The biggest the hottest of anyRemains in the round for us yet.'
'Onelumperat parting, though many
Have rolled on the board since we met,
The biggest the hottest of any
Remains in the round for us yet.'
In the higher class of houses they were peeled and brought up at the end nice and brown ina dish. About eighty years ago a well-known military gentleman of Baltinglass in the County Wicklow—whose daughter told me the story—had on one occasion a large party of friends to dinner. On the very day of the dinner the waiter took ill, and the stable boy—a big coarse fellow—had to be called in, after elaborate instructions. All went well till near the end of the dinner, when the fellow thought things were going on rather slowly. Opening the diningroom door he thrust in his head and called out in the hearing of all:—'Masther, are ye ready for theroasthers?' A short time ago I was looking at the house and diningroom where that occurred.
Rocket; a little girl's frock. (Very common in Limerick.) It is of course an old application of the English-Frenchrochet.
Rodden; abohereenor narrow road. (Ulster.) It is the Irishróidín, little road.
Roman; used by the people in many parts of Ireland forRoman Catholic. I have already quoted what the Catholic girl said to her Protestant lover:—'Unless that you turn aRomanyou ne'er shall get me for your bride.' Sixty or seventy years ago controversial discussions—between a Catholic on the one hand and a Protestant on the other—were very common. I witnessed many when I was a boy—to my great delight. Garrett Barry, a Roman Catholic, locally noted as a controversialist, was arguing with Mick Cantlon, surrounded by a group of delighted listeners. At last Garrett, as a final clincher, took up the Bible, opened it at a certain place, and handed it to his opponent,with:—'Read that heading out for us now if you please.' Mick took it up and read 'St. Paul's Epistle to theRomans.' 'Very well,' says Garrett: 'now can you show me in any part of that Bible, 'St. Paul's Epistle to theProtestants'? This of course was a down blow; and Garrett was greeted with a great hurrah by the Catholic part of his audience. This story is in 'Knocknagow,' but the thing occurred in my neighbourhood, and I heard about it long before 'Knocknagow' was written.
Rookaun; great noisy merriment. Also a drinking-bout. (Limerick.)
Room. In a peasant's house theroomis a special apartment distinct from the kitchen or living-room, which is not a 'room' in this sense at all. I slept in the kitchen and John slept in the 'room.' (Healy and myself: Munster.)
Round coal; coal in lumps as distinguished from slack or coal broken up small and fine.
Ruction, ructions; fighting, squabbling, a fight, a row. It is a memory of theInsurrectionof 1798, which was commonly called the 'Ruction.'
Rue-rub; when a person incautiously scratches an itchy spot so as to break the skin: that isrue-rub. (Derry.) Fromrue, regret or sorrow.
Rury; a rough hastily-made cake or bannock. (Morris: Monaghan.)
Rut; the smallest bonnive in a litter. (Kildare and Carlow.)
Saluting, salutations,14.
Sapples; soap suds:sapple, to wash in suds. (Derry.)
Saulavotcheer; a person havinglark-heels. (Limerick.) The first syll. is Irish;sál[saul], heel.
Sauvaun; a rest, a light doze or nap. (Munster.) Irishsámhán, same sound and meaning, fromsámh[sauv], pleasant and tranquil.
Scagh; a whitethorn bush. (General.) Irishsceach, same sound and meaning.
Scaghler: a little fish—the pinkeen or thornback: Irishsceach[scagh], a thorn or thornbush, and the English terminationler.
Scald: to bescaldedis to be annoyed, mortified, sorely troubled, vexed. (Very general.) Translated from one or the other of two Irish words,loisc[lusk], to burn; andscall, toscald. Finn Bane says:—'Guary being angry with me he scorched me (romloisc), burned me,scaldedme, with abuse.' ('Colloquy.') 'I earned that money hard and 'tis a greatheart-scald(scollach-croidhe) to me to lose it.' There is an Irish air called 'TheScaldedpoor man.' ('Old Irish Music and Songs.')
Scalder, an unfledged bird (South):scaldieandscaulthogein the North. From the Irishscal(bald), from which comes the Irishscalachán, an unfledged bird.
Scallan; a wooden shed to shelter the priest during Mass,143,145.
Scalp, scolp, scalpeen; a rude cabin, usually roofed withscalpsor grassy sods (whence the name). In the famine times—1847 and after—a scalp was often erected for any poor wanderer who got stricken down with typhus fever: and in that the people tended him cautiously till he recovered or died. (Munster.) Irishscaílp[scolp].
Scalteen: see Scolsheen.
Scollagh-cree; ill-treatment of any kind. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishscallach-croidhe, same sound and meaning: a 'heart scald'; fromscalladh, scalding, andcroidhe, heart.
Scollop; the bended rod pointed at both ends that a thatcher uses to fasten down the several straw-wisps. (General.) Irishscolb[scollub].
Scolsheen or scalteen; made by boiling a mixture of whiskey, water, sugar, butter and pepper (or caraway seeds) in a pot: a sovereign cure for a cold. In the old mail-car days there was an inn on the road from Killarney to Mallow, famous for scolsheen, where a big pot of it was always kept ready for travellers. (Kinahan and Kane.) Sometimes the wordscalteenwas applied to unmixed whiskey burned, and used for the same purpose. From the Irishscall, burn, singe,scald.
Sconce; to chaff, banter, make game of:—'None of your sconcing.' (Ulster.)
Sconce; to shirk work or duty. (Moran: Carlow.)
Scotch Dialect: influence of, on our Dialect,6,7.
Scotch lick; when a person goes to clean up anything—a saucepan, a floor, his face, a pair of shoes, &c.—and only half does it, he (or she) has given it aScotch lick. General in South. In Dublin it would be called a 'cat's lick': for a cat has only a small tongue and doesn't do much in the way of licking.
Scout; a reproachful name for a bold forward girl.
Scouther; to burn a cake on the outside before it is fully cooked, by over haste in baking:—burned outside, half raw inside. Hence 'to scouther'means to do anything hastily and incompletely. (Ulster.)
Scrab; to scratch:—'The cat near scrabbed his eyes out.' (Patterson: Ulster.) In the South it isscraub:—'He scraubed my face.'
Scrab; to gather the stray potatoes left after the regular crop, when they are afterwards turned out by plough or spade.
Scraddhin; a scrap; anything small—smaller than usual, as a small potato: applied contemptuously to a very small man, exactly the same as the Southernsprissaun. Irishscraidín, same sound and meaning. (East Ulster.)
Scran; 'bad scran to you,' an evil wish like 'bad luck to you,' but much milder: English, in whichscranmeans broken victuals, food-refuse, fare—very common. (North and South.)
Scraw; a grassy sod cut from a grassy or boggy surface and often dried for firing; also calledscrahoge(with diminutiveóg). Irishscrath,scrathóg, same sounds and meaning.
Screenge; to search for. (Donegal and Derry.)
Scunder or Scunner; a dislike; to take a dislike or disgust against anything. (Armagh.)
Scut; the tail of a hare or rabbit: often applied in scorn to a contemptible fellow:—'He's just a scut and nothing better.' The word is Irish, as is shown by the following quotation:—'The billows [were] conversing with thescuds(sterns) and the beautiful prows [of the ships].' (Battle of Moylena: and note by Kuno Meyer in 'Rev. Celt.') (General.)
Seeshtheen; a low round seat made of twisted straw.(Munster.) Irishsuidhistín, same sound and meaning: fromsuidhe[see], to sit, with diminutive.
Set: all over Ireland they usesetinstead oflet[a house or lodging]. A struggling housekeeper failed to let her lodging, which a neighbour explained by:—'Ah she's no good atsetting.'
Set; used in a bad sense, likegangandcrew:—'They're a dirty set.'
Settle bed; a folding-up bed kept in the kitchen: when folded up it is like a sofa and used as a seat. (All over Ireland.)
Seven´dable [accent onven], very great,mighty greatas they would say:—'Jack gave him asevendablethrashing.' (North.)
Shaap [theaalong as incar]; a husk of corn, a pod. (Derry.)
Shamrock or Shamroge; the white trefoil (Trifolium repens). The Irish name isseamar[shammer], which with the diminutive makesseamar-óg[shammer-oge], shortened toshamrock.
Shanachus, shortened toshanaghin Ulster, a friendly conversation. 'Grandfather would like to have a shanahus with you.' ('Knocknagow.') Irishseanchus, antiquity, history, an old story.
Shandradan´ [accented strongly on-dan]; an old rickety rattle-trap of a car. The first syllable is Irishsean[shan], old.
Shanty: a mean hastily put up little house. (General.) Probably from Irishsean, old, andtigh[tee], a house.
Shaugh; a turn or smoke of a pipe. (General.) Irishseach, same sound and meaning.
Shaughraun; wandering about: to beon the shaughraunis to be out of employment and wandering idly about looking for work. Irishseachrán, same sound and meaning.
Shebeen or sheebeen; an unlicensed public-house or alehouse where spirits are sold on the sly. (Used all over Ireland.) Irishsíbín, same sound and meaning.
Shee; a fairy, fairies; also meaning the place where fairies live, usually a round green little hill or elf-mound having a glorious palace underneath: Irishsidhe, same sound and meanings.Sheeoften takes the diminutive form—sheeoge.
Shee-geeha; the little whirl of dust you often see moving along the road on a calm dusty day: this is a band of fairies travelling from onelisor elf-mound to another, and you had better turn aside and avoid it. Irishsidhe-gaoithe, same sound and meaning, wheregaoitheis wind: 'wind-fairies': called 'fairy-blast' in Kildare.
Sheehy, Rev. Father, of Kilfinane,147.
Sheela; a female Christian name (as in 'Sheela Ni Gyra'). Used in the South as a reproachful name for a boy or a man inclined to do work or interest himself in affairs properly belonging to women. See 'Molly.'
Sheep's eyes: when a young man looks fondly and coaxingly on his sweetheart he is 'throwing sheep's eyes' at her.
Sherral; an offensive term for a mean unprincipled fellow. (Moran: South Mon.)
Sheugh or Shough; a deep cutting, elsewhere called a ditch, often filled with water. (Seumas MacManus: N.W. Ulster.)
Shillelah; a handstick of oak, an oaken cudgel for fighting. (Common all over Ireland.) From a district in Wicklow called Shillelah, formerly noted for its oak woods, in which grand shillelahs were plentiful.
Shingerleens [shing-erleens]; small bits of finery; ornamental tags and ends—of ribbons, bow-knots, tassels, &c.—hanging on dress, curtains, furniture, &c. (Munster.)
Shire; to pour or drain off water or any liquid, quietly and without disturbing the solid parts remaining behind, such as draining off the whey-like liquid from buttermilk.
Shlamaan´ [aalikeaincar]; a handful of straw, leeks, &c. (Morris: South Monaghan.)
Shoggle; to shake or jolt. (Derry.)
Shoneen; agentlemanin a small way: a would-be gentleman who puts on superior airs. Always used contemptuously.
Shook; in a bad way, done up, undone:—'I'm shook by the loss of that money': 'he was shook for a pair of shoes.'
Shooler; a wanderer, a stroller, a vagrant, a tramp, a rover: often means a mendicant. (Middle and South of Ireland.) From the Irishsiubhal[shool], to walk, with the English terminationer: lit. 'walker.'
Shoonaun; a deep circular basket, made of twisted rushes or straw, and lined with calico; it had a cover and was used for holding linen, clothes, &c. (Limerick and Cork.) From Irishsibhinn[shiven], a rush, a bulrush: of which the diminutivesiubhnán[shoonaun] is our word: signifying'made of rushes.' Many a shoonaun I saw in my day; and I remember meeting a man who was a shoonaun maker by trade.
Short castle or short castles; a game played by two persons on a square usually drawn on a slate with the two diagonals: each player having three counters. See Mills.
Shore; the brittle woody part separated in bits and dust from the fibre of flax by scutching orcloving. Calledshoresin Monaghan.
Shraff, shraft; Shrovetide: on and about Shrove Tuesday:—'I bought that cow last shraff.'
Shraums, singular shraum; the matter that collects about the eyes of people who have tender eyes: matter running from sore eyes. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishsream[sraum]. Same meaning.
Shrule; to rinse an article of clothing by pulling it backwards and forwards in a stream. (Moran: Carlow.) Irishsrúil, a stream.
Shrough; a rough wet place; an incorrect anglicised form of Irishsrath, a wet place, a marsh.
Shuggy-shoo; the play of see-saw. (Ulster.)
Shurauns; any plants with large leaves, such as hemlock, wild parsnip, &c. (Kinahan: Wicklow.)
Sighth (for sight); a great number, a large quantity. (General.) 'Oh Mrs. Morony haven't you asighthof turkeys': 'Tom Cassidy has a sighth of money.' This is old English. Thus in a Quaker's diary of 1752:—'There was a great sight of people passed through the streets of Limerick.' This expression is I think still heard in England, and is very much in use in America. Very general in Ireland.
Sign; a very small quantity—a trace. Used all over Ireland in this way:—'My gardens areevery signas good as yours': 'he had no sign of drink on him': 'there's no sign of sugar in my tea' (Hayden and Hartog): 'look out to see if Bill is coming': 'no—there's no sign of him.' This is a translation from the Irishrian, for which see next entry.
Sign's on, sign is on, sign's on it; used to express the result or effect or proof of any proceeding:—'Tom Kelly never sends his children to school, and sign's on (or sign's on it) they are growing up like savages': 'Dick understands the management of fruit trees well, and sign's on, he is making lots of money by them.' This is a translation from Irish, in whichrianmeanstrack,trace,sign: and 'sign's on it' ista a rian air('its sign is on it').
Silenced; a priest is silenced when he is suspended from his priestly functions by his ecclesiastical superiors: 'unfrocked.'
Singlings; the weak pottheen whiskey that comes off at the first distillation: agreeable to drink but terribly sickening. Also called 'First shot.'
Sippy; a ball of rolledsugans(i.e. hay or straw ropes), used instead of a real ball in hurling or football. (Limerick.) Irishsuipigh, same sound and meaning. A diminutive ofsop, a wisp.
Skeeagh [2-syll.]; a shallow osier basket, usually for potatoes. (South.)
Skeedeen; a trifle, anything small of its kind; a small potato. (Derry and Donegal.) Irishscídín, same sound and meaning.
Skellig, Skellig List—On the Great Skellig rock in the Atlantic, off the coast of Kerry, are the ruins of a monastery, to which people at one time went on pilgrimage—and a difficult pilgrimage it was. The tradition is still kept up in some places, though in an odd form; in connection with the custom that marriages are not solemnised in Lent, i.e. after Shrove Tuesday. It is well within my memory that—in the south of Ireland—young persons who should have been married before Ash-Wednesday, but were not, were supposed to set out on pilgrimage to Skellig on Shrove Tuesday night: but it was all a make-believe. Yet I remember witnessing occasionally some play in mock imitation of the pilgrimage. It was usual for a local bard to compose what was called a 'Skellig List'—a jocose rhyming catalogue of the unmarried men and women of the neighbourhood who went on the sorrowful journey—which was circulated on Shrove Tuesday and for some time after. Some of these were witty and amusing: but occasionally they were scurrilous and offensive doggerel. They were generally too long for singing; but I remember one—a good one too—which—when I was very young—I heard sung to a spirited air. It is represented here by a single verse, the only one I remember. (See also 'Chalk Sunday,' p.234, above.)