English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

The little phrase 'the way' is used among us in several senses, all peculiar, and all derived from Irish. Sometimes it is a direct translation from amhlaidh ('thus,' 'so,' 'how,' 'in a manner'). An old example of this use of amhlaidh in Irish is the following passage from the Boroma (Silva Gadelica):—Is amlaid at chonnaic [Concobar] Laigin ocus Ulaid mán dabaig ocá hól: 'It is how (or 'the way') [Concobar] saw the Lagenians and the Ulstermen [viz. they were] round the vat drinking from it.' Is amhlaidh do bhi Fergus: 'It is thus (or the way) Fergus was [conditioned; that his shout was heard over three cantreds].'

This same sense is also seen in the expression, 'this is the way I made my money,' i.e. 'this is how I made it.'

When this expression, 'the way,' or 'how,' introduces a statement it means ''tis how it happened.' 'What do you want, James?' ''Tis the way ma'am, my mother sent me for the loan of the

shovel.' This idiom is very common in Limerick, and is used indeed all through Ireland.

Very often 'the way' is used in the sense of 'in order that':—'Smoking carriages are lined with American cloth the way they wouldn't keep the smell'; 'I brought an umbrella the way I wouldn't get wet'; 'you want not to let the poor boy do for himself [by marrying] the way that you yourself should have all.' (Ir. Pen. Mag.) You constantly hear this in Dublin, even among educated people.

Sometimes the word way is a direct translation from the Irish caoi, 'a way,' 'a road'; so that the common Irish salutation, Cad chaoi bh-fuil tu? is translated with perfect correctness into the equally common Irish-English salute, 'What way are you?' meaning 'How are you?'

'This way' is often used by the people in the sense of 'by this time':—'The horse is ready this way,' i.e. 'ready by this time.' (Gerald Griffin, 'Collegians.')

The word itself is used in a curious way in Ireland, which has been something of a puzzle to outsiders. As so used it has no gender, number, or case; it is not in fact a pronoun at all, but a substitute for the word even. This has arisen from the fact that in the common colloquial Irish language the usual word to express both even and itself, is féin; and in translating a sentence containing this word féin, the people rather avoided even, a word not very familiar to them in this sense, and substituted the better known itself, in cases where even would be the correct word, and itself would be incorrect. Thus da mbeith an meud sin féin agum is correctly rendered 'if I had

even that much': but the people don't like even, and don't well understand it (as applied here), so they make it 'If I had that much itself.' This explains all such Anglo-Irish sayings as 'if I got it itself it would be of no use to me,' i.e. 'even if I got it': 'If she were there itself I wouldn't know her'; 'She wouldn't go to bed till you'd come home, and if she did itself she couldn't sleep.' (Knocknagow.) A woman is finding some fault with the arrangements for a race, and Lowry Looby (Collegians) puts in 'so itself what hurt' i.e. 'even so what harm.' (Russell and myself.)

The English when is expressed by the Irish an uair, which is literally 'the hour' or 'the time.' This is often transplanted into English; as when a person says 'the time you arrived I was away in town.'