Faces glued to Tarrant’s window
This man had a lovely young donkey to sell.
Some Faces at the Fair
You could buy a dog kennel at the fair.
or a saddle for your horse.
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I took this photo on Upper Church St. on Saturday morning as the council were doing an early morning sweep of our streets.
What odds? An interesting piece of graffiti on Ladbrokes’ shutter.
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This man’s Listowel connection?
He is my nephew, Philip, former amateur cyclist now amateur marathon runner, who completed the Chicago Marathon in 3.38. I’m as proud as if it was Olympic Gold! Roll on New York.
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I was very sad to hear of the passing of Tim Griffin. Tim was a Christian gentleman who loved nature and was really knowledgeable about holy wells, grottos, convents, old dwellings and local history generally. May he rest in peace. He will be missed.
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Some great examples of Hiberno -English from the new dictionary of same:
act the maggot, to / tə ækt d̪ə ʹmægət̪/ phr., (figurative) to behave in an irritating manner, perhaps resembling the wriggling of a maggot. O’Connor, Ghost Light, 78: “It’s not that any of us would want to be acting the maggot”.
bawsy /ʹbauzi:/ n., drunken, ill-mannered person. K. Bielenberg, Sunday Independent, 12 June, 2010, 5: “The same half-cut bawsies will discover a hitherto hidden passion for the mysterious Asian tyranny”.
bejaysus /bɪʹʤe:zʌs/ int. (colloq.), from the exclamation of surprise “By Jesus”, with HE pronunciation of the letter e, as in tay/tea, /e:/ instead of /i:/. See JAYSUS.
Bertie Speak /ʹbɛrt ̪i: spi:k/ n. phr., an idiosyncratic mode of speech practised by the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, referred to on RTE Radio1, 2009: “The most famous example of which was his immortal statement, ‘it took Ireland thirty years to become an overnight success’ ”.
blooter /ʹblu: t̪ər/ n. ‘a clumsy, blundering person. blootered exhausted; incapable of further exertion; helplessly drunk < Scots bluiter orig. obsc.’ (Fenton, Ulster-Scots).
blow-in /ʹblo: ɪn/ n., ‘a term meaning someone living in an area, who did not originate there’ (Brewer).
Bord Snip Nua /bo:rd snɪp ʹnuə/ n. phr., < Ir bord < E board; < Du snippen; < Ir nua < E new, slang term for the committee which reduced government expenditure, Irish Daily Mail, 21 July, 2009, 15: “Bord Snip Nua attitude towards state-spending is nothing new in politics”; Ross and Webb, Wasters (2010), 206: “This quango was also targeted by An Bord Snip Nua”.
circling Shannon /ʹsɛrklɪŋ ʹʃænən/ phr. pej. (colloq.), a euphemism for being unwell and incapable of action, arising from an incident which took place at Shannon airport in 1994 when the Russian President Boris Yeltsin was unable to leave the plane, while the Irish TAOISEACH, Albert Reynolds, waited. ‘Paddy was certainly circling Shannon that night’ (CS, Mayo).
conniption /ʹkʌnəpʃɪn/ n. (colloq.), hysterics, ‘She nearly had a conniption (fit)’ (SC, Wexford).
coolaboola /ʹku:læbu:læ/ adj., term of approval, derived from American slang ‘cool’ with boola borrowed from the second term in Ir ruaille buaille, ‘Everything is coolaboola’ (DD, Dublin).
cow’s lick¹ /kauz lɪk/ n. phr., ‘when the hair in front over the forehead turns at the roots upwards and backwards’ (PWJ).
craw-sick /krᴐ: ʹsɪk/ adj., ‘ill in the morning after a drunken bout’ (PWJ) < MDu craghe, throat, gullet.
D4 /di: fᴐ:r/ n. phr., adj., (colloq.), a term used to describe the variety of HE that originated in the fashionable Dublin 4 postal district, but which has now become a phenomenon encountered throughout Ireland. It is on the one hand seen as a marker of social aspiration and alternatively derided as an affectation. The variety employs features of Home Counties British English and, latterly, American English. The phonetic alterations and vocabulary were humorously depicted by Paul Howard, in the speech of his alter-ego Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, in his popular Irish Times columns and series of novels, e.g. “cor-pork” (car-park), “roysh” (right), the quotative “like”, “I’m like, I’m sure I’ll bump into you again”, and the High Rising Terminal, which makes declarative statements sound like questions, “I think the whole economic thing may also have helped?” (Howard, Irish Times, 14/11/09).
dogs in the street /dɑgz ɪn ðɛ st̪ri:t̪/ n. phr. (colloq.), used to refer to common sense knowledge or a collectively agreed opinion, George Hook, Newstalk, 13 November, 2009: “The dogs in the street know that”.
dose /do:s/ n. pejor. (colloq.), ‘a common pejorative HE term, meaning a ‘tedious or gloomy’ person: ‘She stayed all morning to complain and she’s a dose,’ or a person who looks gloomy, tired or sick: ‘You look a right dose today.’ The word also means a bout of illness such as flu: ‘I got a funny dose while I was on holidays.’ In all its senses it is often used with the intensifier ‘right’ ’ (Brewer).
drink taken, to have /t̪ə hæv drɪnk ʹt̪e:kən/ phr., ‘a phrase often used comically or euphemistically to mean really drunk, and featuring in rural courts as a plea for mitigation: ‘My client had drink taken, Your Honour’ ’ (Brewer)
dubes /du:bz/ n. (colloq.), Dubarry brand deck shoes, Irish Daily Mail, 8 July, 2010, p. 9: “Dubes are as much part of the South Dublin uniform as a Leinster jersey with the collar turned up and a Starbucks latte”.
Galway Tent /ʹgᴐ:lwe: tɛnt/ n. phr., marquee set up by the Fianna Fail political party at the Galway Races to entertain its supporters.
ghost estate /go:st ɛste:t/ n. phr., unoccupied or unfinished housing estate, deserted because of the collapse of the construction industry as a result of the recession, graphically described by Michael Lewis, ‘When Irish Eyes are Crying’, Vanity Fair, March 2011, 112-131.
jaysus /ʹʤe:zʌs/ int., adj., a colloquial HE pronunciation of the expletive interjection, ‘Jesus’, demonstrating the HE preservation of the archaic Elizabethan English vowel, the ‘tay/tea’ variation, for which see TEA. In HE, the word also has an adjectival usage. Joyce, Ulysses (1922) 9. lines 59-60: “She gets you a job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus”; Behan, The Hostage (1962), p. 157: “So open the window softly. For Jaysus sake, now hang the latch”; McDonagh, A Skull in Connemara (1997), p. 105 (1999 Ed.): “Seeing as you’re as drunk as Jaysus”; McPherson, The Weir (1998), p. 33: “Jaysus, Jim. That’s a terrible story, to be telling”. The expression is sometimes rendered in HE asbejaysus /beʹʤe: zʌs/ ‘by Jesus’, as an interjection which serves the same function as the original, Behan, Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1965) p. 77 : “And be jaysus, not the first nor last of many apologies I’ve had to make subsequently”; Plunkett, Strumpet City (1969), p. 314: “ ‘Bejaysus’, one of the men told the group, ‘but it put the wind up me’ ”; Carr, Portia Coughlan (1998), p. 36: “And you’ve a tongue on ya, that if I owned ya, I’d mow the big-shot, stuck-up bejaysus out of”. The Slieve Bloom Hotel, Cavan which, set in a relatively remote location, dazzles passers-by when they catch sight of it because of its magnificent appearance is known locally as ‘the bejaysus hotel’ (GG, Dublin).
jig-time /ʤɪgʹ t̪aim/ n. phr., (colloq.), in the time it takes to dance a jig, i.e. briefly. ‘Will do it in jig-time’ (GK, Dublin).
marry in /ʹmæri: ɪn/ v., ‘the term used to describe the phenomenon whereby the groom moved into the bride’s house and took over the bride’s farm rather than vice versa, < Ir cliamhain isteach which refers to the man in such a marriage, from the same root as < Ir cleamhnas, match’ (Brewer).
peann luaidhe /pjaun ʹƖu:i:/ n., Irish for ‘lead pencil’, as used in polling booths. ‘He said “get rid of those stupid peann luaidhes and use the electronic machines instead”’ (JF, Dublin).
sheep-shagger /ʹʃi:p ʹʃægər/ n. pejor. (colloq.), < OE scep sceacga, disparaging term for a country person (MK, Dublin).
stroke politics /stro:k ʹpᴐ:lətəks/ n. phr., HE term for political practice in which voters are coaxed with empty promises > OE stracian v., rub softly with the hand or an implement (ODEE).
tinkers /ʹt̪ɪnkərz/ n. (colloq.), members of the Traveller Community, O’Connor, Ghost Light, 57: “You seem fond of tinkers”.
Tube in the Cube /t̪u:b ən d̪ə kub/ n. phr. (colloq.), idiosyncratic nickname for the new convention centre on the banks of the Liffey in Dublin, RTE 6.01 News, 6 Sept., 2010.
what’s the story /ʍᴐt̪s d̪ə ʹstᴐ:ri:/ phr. (colloq), ‘what’s the latest news?’ (MK, Dublin).
woke up dead /wo:k ʌp dɛd/ phr., HE, imaginative reference for sudden death.
yay-high /je: hai/ adj., equivalent to knee-high, in examples such as ‘When I was yay-high, I would walk to school’ (MD, Monaghan).
The Third Edition of the renowned Dictionary of Hiberno-English will be published by Gill & Macmillan on 28 October, priced at €24.99. Compiled and edited by Terence Patrick Dolan, the new issue covers such phrases as Bertie Bowl, Bertie Speak, D4, circling Shannon, An Bord Snip Nua, chancer,dig-out, dubes and ghost estate…
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Jer was at the All Ireland Ladies Football final and he shot this video
http://youtu.be/WwY0kjcuVmA
Commiserations to my past pupil, Louise Galvin and all of the gallant Kerry ladies.
