English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

We in Ireland are rather prone to exaggeration, perhaps more so than the average run of peoples. Very often the expressions are jocose, or the person is fully conscious of the exaggeration; but in numerous cases there is no joke at all: but downright seriousness: all which will be seen in the following examples.

A common saying about a person of persuasive tongue or with a beautiful voice in singing:—'He would coax the birds off the bushes.' This is borrowed from the Irish. In the 'Lament of Richard Cantillon' (in Irish) he says that at the musical voice of the lady 'the seals would come up from the deep, the stag down from the mist-crag, and the thrush from the tree.' (Petrie: 'Anc. Mus. of Ireland.')

Of a noted liar and perjurer it was said 'He would swear that a coal porter was a canary.'

A man who is unlucky, with whom everything goes wrong:—'If that man got a hen to hatch duck eggs, the young ducks would be drowned.' Or again, 'If that man sowed oats in a field, a crop of turnips would come up.' Or: 'He is always in the field when luck is on the road.'

The following expression is often heard:—'Ah, old James Buckley is a fine piper: I'd give my eyes to be listening to him.'

That fellow is so dirty that if you flung him against a wall he'd stick. (Patterson: Ulster.)

Two young men are about to set off to seek their fortunes, leaving their young brother Rory to stay with their mother. But Rory, a hard active merry cute little fellow, proposes to go with them:—'I'll follow ye to the world's end.' On which the eldest says to him—a half playful threat:—'You presumptious little atomy of a barebones, if I only see the size of a thrush's ankle of you follyin' us on the road, I'll turn back and bate that wiry and freckled little carcase of yours into frog's-jelly!' (Robert Dwyer Joyce: 'The Building of Mourne.')

'Did Johnny give you any of his sugar-stick?' 'Oh not very much indeed: hardly the size of a thrush's ankle.' This term is often used.

Of a very morose sour person you will hear it said:—'If that man looked at a pail of new milk he'd turn it into curds and whey.'