English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

the bush next to him.' The original sayings are in Irish, of which these are translations, which however are now heard oftener than the Irish.

In Armagh where Murrogh is not known they say in a similar sense, 'You'll catch Lanty,' Lanty no doubt being some former local bully.

When one desires to give another a particularly evil wish he says, 'The curse of Cromwell on you!' So that Cromwell's atrocities are stored up in the people's memories to this day, in the form of a proverb.

In Ulster they say 'The curse of Crummie.'

'Were you talking to Tim in town to-day?' 'No, but I saw him from me as the soldier saw Bunratty.' Bunratty a strong castle in Co. Clare, so strong that besiegers often had to content themselves with viewing it from a distance. 'Seeing a person from me' means seeing him at a distance. 'Did you meet your cousin James in the fair to-day?' 'Oh I just caught sight of him from me for a second, but I wasn't speaking to him.'

Sweating-House.—We know that the Turkish bath is of recent introduction in these countries. But the hot-air or vapour bath, which is much the same thing, was well known in Ireland from very early times, and was used as a cure for rheumatism down to a few years ago. The structures in which these baths were given are known by the name of tigh 'n alluis [teenollish], or in English, 'sweating-house' (allus, 'sweat'). They are still well known in the northern parts of Ireland—small houses entirely of stone, from five to seven feet long inside, with a low little door through which one must creep:

always placed remote from habitations: and near by was commonly a pool or tank of water four or five feet deep. They were used in this way. A great fire of turf was kindled inside till the house became heated like an oven; after which the embers and ashes were swept out, and water was splashed on the stones, which produced a thick warm vapour. Then the person, wrapping himself in a blanket, crept in and sat down on a bench of sods, after which the door was closed up. He remained there an hour or so till he was in a profuse perspiration: and then creeping out, plunged right into the cold water; after emerging from which he was well rubbed till he became warm. After several baths at intervals of some days he commonly got cured. Persons are still living who used these baths or saw them used. (See the chapter on 'Ancient Irish Medicine' in 'Smaller Soc. Hist. of Anc. Ireland,' from which the above passage is taken.)

The lurking conviction that times long ago were better than at present—a belief in 'the good old times'—is indicated in the common opening to a story:—'Long and merry ago, there lived a king,' &c.

'That poor man is as thin as a whipping post': a very general saying in Ireland. Preserving the memory of the old custom of tying culprits to a firm post in order to be whipped. A whipping post received many of the slashes, and got gradually worn down.

The hardiness of the northern rovers—the Danes—who made a great figure in Ireland, as in England and elsewhere, is still remembered, after nine or ten centuries, in the sayings of our people. Scores of