English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

'Wisha my bones are exhausted, and there's no use in talking,

My heart is scalded, a wirrasthru.'

(Old Song.)

'Where is my use in staying here, so there's no use in talking, go I will.' ('Knocknagow.') Often the expression takes this form:—'Ah 'tis a folly to talk, he'll never get that money.'

Sometimes the original Irish is in question form. Cid tracht ('what talking?' i.e. 'what need of talking?') which is Englished as follows:—'Ah what's the use of talking, your father will never consent.' These expressions are used in conversational Irish-English, not for the purpose of continuing a narrative as in the original Irish, but—as appears from the above examples—merely to add emphasis to an assertion.

'It's a fine day that.' This expression, which is common enough among us, is merely a translation from the common Irish phrase is breagh an lá é sin, where the demonstrative sin (that) comes last in the proper Irish construction: but when imitated in English it looks queer to an English listener or reader.

'There is no doubt that is a splendid animal.' This expression is a direct translation from the Irish Ní'l contabhairt ann, and is equivalent to the English 'doubtless.' It occurs often in the Scottish dialect also:—'Ye need na doubt I held my whisht' (Burns).

You are about to drink from a cup. 'How much shall I put into this cup for you?' 'Oh you may give me the full of it.' This is Irish-English: in England they would say—'Give it to me full.' Our expression is a translation from the Irish language. For example, speaking of a drinking-horn, an old writer says, a lán do'n lionn, literally, 'the full of it of ale.' In Silva Gadelica we find lán a ghlaice deise do losaibh, which an Irishman translating literally would render 'the full of his right hand of herbs,' while an Englishman would express the same idea in this way—'his right hand full of herbs.'

Our Irish-English expression 'to come round a person' means to induce or circumvent him by coaxing cuteness and wheedling: 'He came round me by his sleudering to lend him half a crown, fool that I was': 'My grandchildren came round me to give them money for sweets.' This expression is borrowed from Irish:—'When the Milesians reached Erin tanic a ngáes timchioll Tuathi De Danand, 'their cuteness circumvented (lit. 'came round') the Dedannans.' (Opening sentence in Mesca Ulad in Book of Leinster: Hennessy.)