English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

'I wouldn't be sorry to get a glass of wine, meaning, 'I would be glad.'

An unpopular person is going away:—

'Joy be with him and a bottle of moss,

And if he don't return he's no great loss.'

'How are you to-day, James?'

'Indeed I can't say that I'm very well': meaning 'I am rather ill.'

'You had no right to take that book without my leave'; meaning 'You were wrong in taking it—it was wrong of you to take it.' A translation of the Irish ní cóir duit. 'A bad right' is stronger than 'no right.' 'You have no right to speak ill of my uncle' is simply negation:—'You are wrong, for you have no reason or occasion to speak so.' 'A bad right you have to speak ill of my uncle:' that is to say, 'You are doubly wrong' [for he once did you a great service]. 'A bad right anyone would have to call Ned a screw' [for he is well known for his generosity]. ('Knocknagow.') Another way of applying the word—in the sense of duty—is seen in the following:—A member at an Urban Council

meeting makes an offensive remark and refuses to withdraw it: when another retorts:—'You have a right to withdraw it'—i.e. 'it is your duty.' So:—'You have a right to pay your debts.'

'Is your present farm as large as the one you left?' Reply:—'Well indeed it doesn't want much of it.' A common expression, and borrowed from the Irish, where it is still more usual. The Irish beagnach ('little but') and acht ma beag ('but only a little') are both used in the above sense ('doesn't want much'), equivalent to the English almost.

A person is asked did he ever see a ghost. If his reply is to be negative, the invariable way of expressing it is: 'I never saw anything worse than myself, thanks be to God.'