Patrick Sarsfield, a man with God you are,
Blessed the country that you walk upon,
Blessing of sun and shining moon on you,
Since from William you took the day with you.
Och, och hone.
This would have made her point just as well. Unfortunately, Lady Wilde is always equally extraordinary or unhappy in her informants where Irish is concerned. Thus, she informs us that bo-banna (meant for bo-bainne, a milch cow) is a “white cow”; that tobar-na-bo (the cow’s well) is “the well of the white cow”; that Banshee comes from van “the woman”—(bean means “a woman”); that Leith Brogan—i.e., leprechaun—is “the artificer of the brogue,” while it really means the half or one-shoe, or, according to Stokes, is merely a corruption of locharpan; that tobar-na-dara (probably the “oak-well”) is the “well of tears,” etc. Unfortunately, in Ireland it is no disgrace, but really seems rather a recommendation, to be ignorant of Irish, even when writing on Ireland.
[2] Thus he over and over again speaks of a slumber-pin as bar an suan, evidently mistaking the an of bioran, “a pin,” for an the definite article. So he has slat an draoiachta for slaitin, or statán draoigheachta. He says innis caol (narrow island) means “light island,” and that gil an og means “water of youth!” &c.; but, strangest of all, he talks in one of his stories of killing and boiling a stork, though his social researches on Irish soil might have taught him that that bird was not a Hibernian fowl. He evidently mistakes the very common word sturc, a bullock, or large animal, or, possibly, torc, “a wild boar,” for the bird stork. His interpreter probably led him astray in the best good faith, for sturck is just as common a word with English-speaking people as with Gaelic speakers, though it is not to be found in our wretched dictionaries.
[3] Thus: “Kill Arthur went and killed Ri Fohin and all his people and beasts—didn’t leave one alive;” or, “But that instant it disappeared—went away of itself;” or, “It won all the time—wasn’t playing fair,” etc., etc.
[4] Campbell’s “Popular Tales of the West Highlands.” Vol. iv. p. 327.
[5] Father O’Growney has suggested to me that this may be a diminutive of the Irish word fathach, “a giant.” In Scotch Gaelic a giant is always called “famhair,” which must be the same word as the fomhor or sea-pirate of mythical Irish history.