English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

'I would hush my lovely laddo

In the green arbutus shadow.'

(A. P. Graves: 'Irish Songs and Ballads.')

This is found in Irish also, as in 'a vick-o' ('my boy,' or more exactly 'my son,' where vick is mhic, vocative of mac, son) heard universally in Munster: 'Well Billy a vick-o, how is your mother this morning?' I suppose the English practice is borrowed from the Irish.

In Irish there is only one article, an, which is equivalent to the English definite article the. This article (an) is much more freely used in Irish than the is in English, a practice which we are inclined to imitate in our Anglo-Irish speech. Our use of the

often adds a sort of emphasis to the noun or adjective:—'Ah John was the man,' i.e. the real man, a man pre-eminent for some quality—bravery, generosity, &c. 'Ah that was the trouble in earnest.' The Irish chiefs of long ago 'were the men in the gap' (Thomas Davis):—i.e. the real men and no mistake. We often use the article in our speech where it would not be used in correct English:—'I am perished with the cold.' 'I don't know much Greek, but I am good at the Latin.'

'That was the dear journey to me.' A very common form of expression, signifying that 'I paid dearly for it'—'it cost me dear.' Hugh Reynolds when about to be hanged for attempting the abduction of Catherine McCabe composes (or is supposed to compose) his 'Lamentation,' of which the verses end in 'She's the dear maid to me.' (See my 'Old Irish Folk Music and Songs,' p. 135.) A steamer was in danger of running down a boat rowed by one small boy on the Shannon. 'Get out of the way you young rascal or we'll run over you and drown you!' Little Jacky looks up defiantly and cries out:—'Ye'll drownd me, will ye: if ye do, I'll make it the dear drownding to ye!' In such expressions it is however to be observed that the indefinite article a is often used—perhaps as often as the:—'That was a dear transaction for me.' 'Oh, green-hilled pleasant Erin you're a dear land to me!' (Robert Dwyer Joyce's 'Ballads of Irish Chivalry,' p. 206.)

In Ulster they say:—'When are you going?' 'Oh I am going the day,' i.e. to-day. I am much better the day than I was yesterday. In this the day

is merely a translation of the Irish word for to-day—andiu, where an is 'the' and diu a form of the Irish for 'day.'

The use of the singular of nouns instead of the plural after a numeral is found all through Ireland. Tom Cassidy our office porter—a Westmeath man—once said to me 'I'm in this place now forty-four year': and we always use such expressions as nine head of cattle. A friend of mine, a cultivated and scholarly clergyman, always used phrases like 'that bookcase cost thirteen pound.' This is an old English survival. Thus in Macbeth we find 'this three mile.' But I think this phraseology has also come partly under the influence of our Gaelic in which ten and numerals that are multiples of ten always take the singular of nouns, as tri-caogad laoch, 'thrice fifty heroes'—lit. 'thrice fifty hero.'