English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

To see one magpie or more is a sign of bad or good luck, viz.:—'One for sorrow; two for mirth; three for a wedding; four for a birth.' (MacCall: Wexford.)

The war-cry of the great family of O'Neill of Tyrone was Lauv-derg-aboo (the Red Hand to Victory: the Red Hand being the cognisance of the O'Neills): and this cry the clansmen shouted when advancing to battle. It is many a generation since this same cry was heard in battle; and yet it is remembered in popular sayings to this day. In Tyrone when a fight is expected one man will say to another 'there will be Dergaboos to-day': not that the cry will be actually raised; but Dergaboo has come to be a sort of symbolic name for a fight.

In and around Ballina in Mayo, a great strong fellow is called an allay-foozee, which represents the

sound of the French Allez-fusil (musket or musketry forward), preserving the memory of the landing of the French at Killala (near Ballina) in 1798.

When a person looks as if he were likely to die soon:—'He's in the raven's book.' Because when a person is about to die, the raven croaks over the house. (MacCall: Wexford.)

A 'cross' was a small old Irish coin so called from a figure of St. Patrick stamped on it with a conspicuous cross. Hence a person who has no money says 'I haven't a cross.' In Wexford they have the same saying with a little touch of drollery added on:—'There isn't as much as a cross in my pocket to keep the devil from dancing in it.' (MacCall.) For of course the devil dare not come near a cross of any shape or form.

A keenoge (which exactly represents the pronunciation of the Irish cíanóg) is a very small coin, a farthing or half a farthing. It was originally applied to a small foreign coin, probably Spanish, for the Irish cían is 'far off,' 'foreign': óg is the diminutive termination. It is often used like 'cross': 'I haven't as much as a keenoge in my pocket.' 'Are you not going to lend me any money at all?' 'Not a keenoge.'

A person not succeeding in approaching the house or spot he wants to reach; hitting wide of the mark in shooting; not coming to the point in argument or explanation:—'Oh you didn't come within the bray of an ass of it.' This is the echo of a very old custom. More than a thousand years ago distance was often vaguely measured in Ireland by sound. A man felling a tree was 'bound by the Brehon Law

to give warning as far as his voice could reach,' so as to obviate danger to cattle or people. We find a like measure used in Donegal to this day:—[The Dublin house where you'll get the book to buy is on the Quays] 'about a mountain man's call below the Four Courts.' (Seumas MacManus.) The crow of a cock and the sound of a bell (i.e. the small hand-bell then used) as measures of distances are very often met with in ancient Irish writings. An old commentator on the Brehon Laws defines a certain distance to be 'as far as the sound of the bell or the crow of a barn-door cock could be heard. This custom also prevailed among other ancient nations. (See my 'Smaller Soc. Hist. of Anc. Ireland,' p. 473.)

The 'Duty'. Formerly all through Ireland the tenants were obliged to work for their landlords on a certain number of days free, except that they generally got food. Such work was commonly called in English the 'duty.' In Wicklow for example—until very recently—or possibly still—those who had horses had to draw home the landlord's turf on certain days. In Wexford they had in a similar way to draw stones for the embankments on the Barrow. The tenants commonly collected in numbers on the same day and worked all together. The Irish word used to designate such gatherings was bal—still so called in Connaught. It was usual to hear such English expressions as—'Are you going to the duty?' or 'Are you going to the bal?' (Kinahan.)