mickey-take

mickey-takes (plural)
mickey take (alternative)

Occasionally they perform in a club act, which is a mickey-take of The Chippendales. They do a strip routine and call themselves The Chipolatas.

2010, Paul Hendy, The Diary Of A C-List Celeb, →ISBN, page 13:

The crowd were packed round the front of the small stage like sardines and the reaction was superb, with the band responding accordingly, especially Tim who was on top form, leaping ups and down on the makeshift stage which was threatening to give way any minute, charging around wielding his guitar in a guitar-hero mickey-take, abusing the audience, hammering Dominic's cymbals, pouring gallons of water over himself and his guitar... brilliant.

2011, Adrian Bell, Aylesbury Bolton Wolverhampton Hove, →ISBN:

If this article is going to be a mickey-take of Barnsley, let's forget the whole thing.

2012, Martin Wainwright, True North: In Praise of England's Better Half, →ISBN:

(UK, Ireland) An act of mockery or parody; a piss-take.


cockwomble

en-noun

cockwomble (countable and uncountable, plural cockwombles)

Cockwomble An American lad was annoying the tits off me once so I called him the first thing that came to mind, which was 'cockwomble'. The insult was effective because he did stop winding me up but only to ask me what a cockwomble actually was. I then had to give a detailed explanation about what wombles were and admit that I hadn't really thought that insult through.

2007 October 4, gypsy turnips, “Home » Question of the Week » Insults”, in b3ta.com, archived from the original on 3333-10-10:

They even made the mistaken assumption, mainly from the title, that the song had some kind of lesbian message. As Heike put it: 'You can't expect the subliterate cockwombles on the Daily Heil showbiz and gossip desks to have read Orwell.'

2015, Chris Brookmyre, Dead Girl Walking:

Though the clinic alleges that they are devoted to "service to the community", this little cockwomble allowed his bruised arrogance to bother a woman infinitely superior to him just because she was smarter and better than he.

2019, Jennifer S. Chesler, David C. McLean, The Philosophy of Extremism, volume III, page 40:

(UK, Ireland, slang, humorous) A foolish or obnoxious person.


arse over tip

An unlucky camel increased the confusion by firing one of the many Turkish trip-mines as it entered the yard. The explosion blew it arse over tip, and caused a panic.

1935, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Wordsworth Editions, published 1997, →ISBN, pages 517-518:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, idiomatic, vulgar) Tumbling or falling; upside-down.


tallywoman

(Ireland, politics) A female counting agent.


cop oneself on

en-verb

cop oneself on (third-person singular simple present cops oneself on, present participle copping oneself on, simple past and past participle copped oneself on)

cops oneself on (present singular third-person)
copping oneself on (participle present)
copped oneself on (participle past)
copped oneself on (past)

2016 January 13, Robert Mulhern, "British Army GAA team debate: ‘Croke Park have more or less told London to cop themselves on’ Cork Examiner

(Ireland, informal, idiomatic) to cop on, stop behaving immaturely


jakers

* minced oath from Jaysus. Compare jeepers.

Be jakers, what are they hushing at—and staring at me as if I wor a Roschicrucian.

1838, Charles Dance, “The Irish Lion”, in The Acting National Drama, volume 4, Chapman & Hall, page 75:

O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is!

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

"Jakers, but we worked." With a long breath she shut her eyes. "But it was too much for one woman and a half-grown girl […]"

2013, Nora Roberts, Irish Thoroughbred, Little, Brown, →ISBN, page 25:

(Ireland, colloquial, dated) An expression of surprise or emotion


thing of nothing

en-noun

thing of nothing (plural things of nothing)

shall then that thing that honours thee―
how miserable a Thing soever, yet a Thing still ;
and though a Thing of nothing, thy Thing ever

1625 Beaumont & Fletcher The Humorous Lieutenant, IV, vi

All the arguments I can use to induce you to take notice of this thing of nothing is that it had the luck to tumble last of all in the epidemical ruin of the scene, and now limps hither with a wooden leg to beg an alms at your hands.

1652, Richard Brome, A Jovial Crew, Dedication:

A good Christian has no business with such things of nothing, or worse.

1844 June, "Traditions and Tales of Upper Lusatia; I: The Fairies' Sabbath" Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol.55, No.344, p.681

Mind you, I was more prophetic than I thought when I asserted that these millions were nothing to a Government like Fianna Fáil, but the Taoiseach came out in Fermoy on the next Sunday and said that the £22,000,000 was only the remnants of Marshall Aid—the tailor's clippings, only a thing of nothing.

1953 June 11, Seán MacEoin, Dáil debates Vol.139 No.8 p.23 c.1237

You which rejoice in a thing of nothing, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

1999, Michael Peter Engelbrite, American King James Version, Amos 6, section 31:

2009 July 23, "Lynnie" "Sisley Instant Perfect: Meh. Whelming." beaut.ie
My foundation might have lasted fractionally longer than usual, but honestly it was a thing of nothing.

It was only a five-second delay, a thing of nothing in the wider scheme of things, but it was one of those moments you wished would last forever.

2015 September 19, Brendan Lawrence, “A Wicklow hurling dream come true”, in Irish Independent:

(Ireland or archaic) Something trivial, of no importance.


niff

Whew, there's a bit of a niff in here. Is that your socks?

Police helicopters blared loudspeaker warnings about the smelly man. Soon afterwards, a nosy motel receptionist noticed a nasty niff from a new guest.

2014, Nick Arnold, Horrible Science: Body Owner's Handbook, page 159:

(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, informal) A bad smell.


coalitionology

During the working lunch "between Old Danish [well known aquavit] and matured cheese," as Carl Bildt put it, "comparative coalitionology" was discussed.

1991 October 25, Daily Report. West Europe (United States. Foreign Broadcast Information Service) FBIS-WEU-91-207 p.17

But, surely, we and all other media organisations allowed the poll numbers to infect our thinking: there was too much ‘coalitionology’ as a result. The BBC did better than others on this, but, with the benefit of hindsight, we would all have been better off with less discussion of deals and allowed the dissection of policy - that we did from defence to social care, housing to education - to speak for itself.

2015 June 2, James Harding, Speech at VLV Conference:

It led to an explosion of coalitionology, debating hung parliaments, possible coalitions, constitutional process and the 'legitimacy' of various outcomes, as everyone prepared for post-election deals.

2015 December 16, Philip Cowley, Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2015, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 297:

But his advice was for the party to major on policy issues and avoid what he called "coalitionology".

2016 January 18, Tim Bale, quoted in "'Grand coalition' option cannot be ruled out" Irish Independent

Speaking on the same programme, Harry McGee, Political Correspondent of the Irish Times, said it was all about "coalitionology", with much speculation about combinations.

2016 January 18, Latest polls suggest current Coalition will fall short of majority, RTÉ

It’s been called “coalitionology”: the new parlour and parliamentary game being played all over the country. Leaving aside internal divisions within parties as to whom they would prefer as part[n]ers, here are the combinations that would work mathematically.

2020 February 12, Senan Molony, "Election 2020: ‘Coalitionology’ — your guide to possible partners for a majority" The Times [Ireland edition]

2020 February 15, Pat Leahy, “Coalitionology: Sinn Féin’s most realistic route to power is closed. What now?”, in The Irish Times:

(British, Ireland, politics) (excessive) speculation around the time of a general election about possible coalition governments that might ensue


girleen

They see us shout girleens, girleens! Decide they're coming down to sit by us in our hidey hole.

2013, Eimear McBride, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, Faber & Faber, published 2014, page 67:


GUBU

An acronym for grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre, unbelievable, all words used by Taoiseach Charles Haughey to describe the discovery of a murderer as a guest in the house of Patrick Connolly, Attorney General of Ireland in 1982.

The problem for the taoiseach is that he is increasingly being called on to defend his administration as the GUBUs loom before it.

In one handwritten memo, the writer refers to the Garda report in a scathing and sarcastic manner and calls it 'a hysterical attempt to cover up a GUBU'.

2006, Gerry O'Carroll, The Sheriff: A Detective's Story, Mainstream Publishing Company:

The GUBU had been a GUBU alright, no doubt about that, but Mr Haughey was there and the GUBU was taken care of […]

2013, John Horgan, Great Irish Reportage, Penguin UK, →ISBN:

(Ireland, politics) A political scandal.


sandwich cake

sandwich cake (countable and uncountable, plural sandwich cakes)


bejaysus

Bejaysus, I wish I didn’t have to go back and face what I have to face but c’est le vie.

2016 March 15, Philip Ryan, quoting Enda Kenny, “Enda Kenny tells Irish embassy in Washington: ‘Bejaysus, I wish I didn’t have to go back and face what I have to face’”, in Irish Independent:


stepmam

(Ireland, Northern England, Wales, informal) Stepmother.


bring centre

People are reminded again, as before, please do not leave plastic bottles, milk containers or otherwise at the Bring Centre – there are no plastic containers there any longer for such recyclable materials.

2005 March 25, “Collooney: Bring centre: another plea”, in Sligo Champion:

Some authorities supply different coloured bins for kerbside paper and other types of rubbish collection, but in most cases you will have to bring bottles, cans, paper and other recyclable waste to a bring centre or civic amenity centre.

2008, Cathy Gerrard, Joseph McArdle, Buying a Property Ireland, New Holland Publishers, →ISBN, page 216:

A temporary bring centre for 'hazardous agricultural waste' will be set up beside the Old Dublin Road on Thursday, November 27.

2011 November 11, “Old doses and spray - at last disposed of”, in Gorey Guardian:

Bring centres have set opening and closing times similar to Recycling Centres but are smaller in size and serve a smaller community.

2014, Dublin City Council, Community Bring Centres:

(chiefly Ireland) A place, especially one provided by a local authority, to which members of the public may bring waste for recycling elsewhere.


ADRIC

(historical, Ireland) Initialism of Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary.


tithead

From tit + head, in the police-officer sense referring to the helmets they wear.

(UK, Ireland, slang, derogatory) A fool; an idiot.

(UK, Ireland, slang, derogatory) A police officer.


arsefucker

arsefucker (countable and uncountable, plural arsefuckers)

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) Alternative form of assfucker.


strong enough to trot a mouse on

en-adj

strong enough to trot a mouse on (not comparable)

Suggesting that the tea is dense enough for a mouse to walk across without sinking.

(Ireland, humorous) Of tea: made very strong.


faggot voter

(UK, Ireland, historical) A person who qualified to vote in an election with a restricted suffrage only by the exploitation of loopholes in the regulations, typically by holding the title to a subdivision of property.


nabocklish

From Irish ná bac leis (don't bother with it).

Nabocklish. Run, Pat, and hurry the car. Sure we're to go round by the gaol to take Macarthy up.

1862, Henry Robert Addison, Recollections of an Irish Police Magistrate:

An it's little O'Malley cares for the law—bad luck to it; it's himself can laugh at judge and jury. Arrest him—nabocklish —catch a weasel asleep,” &c.

1879, Harry Lorrequer, Charles O'Malley, the Irish dragoon:

Deuce take them, they should come to spoil our fun ; but if they don't go back quicker than they come, nabocklish.

1881, David Power Conyngham, The O'Donnells of Glen Cottage: A Tale of the Famine Years in Ireland:

"Oh, but Bessy and I are old acquaintances," replied Hugh, laughing. " Nabocklish !" returned Mat.

2002, Charles Joseph Kickham, Knocknagow, or, The homes of Tipperary, page 227:

(Ireland) Don't worry about it; never mind.


nabocklesh

Can nature men thus reconcile To misrule which doth most beguile? Nabocklesh! how did Tiger home return? Return? quite easy with young

1837, Thomas O. McLoughlin, The Works of Thomas M'Loughlin, page 160:

I feel it borne in upon my heart some way, that that man can't have luck — Nabocklesh !

1851, William Joseph O'Neill Daunt, The gentleman in debt, page 10:

Is it thrue, 'Paddy,' that you wor sint down to Errigle Keerogue to kill the clocks for 'Dan' McMahon? But nabocklesh!

1913, Francis O'Neill, Irish Minstrels and Musicians:

(Ireland) Alternative form of nabocklish.


slag tag

Our man knew her enough to know she was a sea of flesh, unsightly badly drawn slag tags and a cheap dress two sizes too small.

(UK, Ireland, derogatory, slang) A tattoo on a woman's lower back.


Loyalist

Patriot

antonym(s) of “person during the American Revolution”

republican

antonym(s) of “supporter of Irish unification”

(UK, Ireland) A supporter of keeping Northern Ireland under British rule instead of unification with Ireland, usually from a Protestant background.

Orange

a supporter of keeping Northern Ireland under British rule


NTPF

National Treatment Purchase Fund
w:National Treatment Purchase Fund

(Ireland) Initialism of National Treatment Purchase Fund.


high doh

en-noun

high doh (countable and uncountable, plural high dohs)

high dohs (plural)
high doe (alternative)

Youve been on the ran dan you couple of wee tinkers and your mother's up to high doe.

1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 27:

(Scotland, Ireland, colloquial, uncountable) A state of great agitation.


leisure centre

leisure centres (plural)
leisure center (alternative)

(UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada) A building or site open to the public for fitness and sporting activities.


triple lock

(Ireland, informal) The requirement for approval by the Irish government, the Dáil (parliament), and the United Nations prior to any overseas military action by Irish defence forces.


senior infant

(Ireland) A child in the second year of primary school.


junior infant

(Ireland) A child in the first year of primary school.


city and county

city and county (plural cities and counties)

every county (other than the Dublin counties) and city and county will be divided into municipal districts

2013 October 15, Government of Ireland, Local Government Bill 2013; Explanatory Memorandum Chapter Two, Section 24

The State stands divided into local government areas to be known as—
(a) counties,
(b) cities, and
(c) cities and counties,
each of which shall be known as a county, a city or a city and county as provided for and set out in columns 1 of Parts 1, 2 and 3, respectively, of Schedule 5.

2014 Local Government Reform Act 2014, section 12 insertion of section 10(2) into principal act

2016 September 9, "WLR live from the heart of the 8th annual Waterford Harvest Festival" WLR FM
As a city and county that takes huge pride in its food producers, this year’s festival will also shine the spotlight on its 'food heroes', the people who grow, cultivate, harvest, produce, prepare, promote and serve some of the country’s best food.

(Ireland, law) a local authority area formed by uniting the territory of a county and a city


swaddler

(Ireland, historical) Synonym of souper (“Catholic who converted to Protestantism to receive food aid”).


monocolour

Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and UK standard spelling of monocolor.


webshite

(UK, Ireland, slang, vulgar, derogatory) A bad website.


wage packet

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) An envelope or similar package in which a salary is given to a worker


latesome

en-adj

latesome (comparative more latesome, superlative most latesome)

more latesome (comparative)
most latesome (superlative)

From Middle English latesom, latsom, latsum, from Old English lætsum (“slow; late”), equivalent to late + -some.

"By gane Times and latesome Changes," [...]

1818, Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review:

[...] but if I should take of your cattle, and so I think for to do; for I have no oxen to get your corn with, nor none I cannot get carried, for every man is so busy with their own (21st August); for weather is so latesome in this country (Kinalton, Notts) that men can neither well get com nor hay-[...]

1843, The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge:

(chiefly UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, Ireland) Marked by lateness; characteristically late


registration county

en-noun

registration county (plural registration counties)

(UK, Ireland, historical) A statistical unit used for the registration of births, deaths and marriages, for the output of census information.


chocolate digestive

chocolate digestive (plural chocolate digestives)

(UK, Ireland, Canada) A digestive biscuit with a chocolate coating on one side.


Leaving Certificate

Leaving Certificate (countable and uncountable, plural Leaving Certificates)

(Ireland) The certificate awarded to Irish students who pass the state examinations at the end of secondary school.


hubbuboo

(Ireland, archaic) A hubbub; a noisy disturbance.


monged out

en-adj

monged out (comparative more monged out, superlative most monged out)

more monged out (comparative)
most monged out (superlative)


make the road shorter

en-verb

make the road shorter (third-person singular simple present makes the road shorter, present participle making the road shorter, simple past and past participle made the road shorter)

makes the road shorter (present singular third-person)
making the road shorter (participle present)
made the road shorter (participle past)
made the road shorter (past)

Well, it's almost ten o'clock. I should be making the road shorter.

(Ireland, colloquial) To get going; to make a start on one's journey.


arse-fuck

arse-fuck (third-person singular simple present arse-fucks, present participle arse-fucking, simple past and past participle arse-fucked)

arse-fucks (present singular third-person)
arse-fucking (participle present)
arse-fucked (participle past)
arse-fucked (past)

You gotta write about sweet, tender, little girlies getting arsefucked like cheap little whores!!

1998, Sick Puppy Comix, number 8, Sydney, page 21:

I tried to clear my mind as I was sure that he had just admitted to being arse fucked and he wasn't stopping there[.]

2006, Dean Riley, The Reveller: Every Lie has Eighty Percent Truth, →ISBN, page 399:

These girls go into porn the minute they turn eighteen, believing it'll be all glitz and glamour, then get arse-fucked by the director at their first gonzo shoot.

2016, Ava Marsh, Exposure: The Most Provocative Thriller You’ll Read All Year, →ISBN, page 149:

(slang, vulgar, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) To perform anal sex (on another).


national insurance

Introduced by the National Insurance Act 1911.

(UK, Ireland) A system of taxes paid by workers and employers, used primarily to fund state benefits.


Ivy Day

(Ireland) October 6, a day that commemorates the nationalist politician Charles Stewart Parnell.


long bullets

(Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland) the game of road bowling


miwadi

From MiWadi (originally Mineral Waters Distributors), the original manufacturers.

(Ireland, trademark erosion) Cordial syrup, or a drink made from this syrup.


not a bother on someone

He spent no more than a couple of hours in hospital, not a bother on him.

2005, Mary T. O'Connor, On the beat: a woman's life in the Gárda Síochána, page 112:

(UK, Ireland, regional) Someone is fine; all is well with someone.


sneaking regarder

en-noun

sneaking regarder (plural sneaking regarders)

We have had to endure the 'sneaking regarder' version of events, whereby every waver of a green flag is sanctified and those who tried to do something as boring as maintain the integrity and stability of the state and the rule of law are vilified.

2014, Demond O'Malley, Conduct Unbecoming, Gill & Macmillan, →ISBN:

Here's a question about Clare Daly, Eamon O Cuiv, Thomas Pringle, Maureen O'Sullivan and Mick Wallace. Are they useful idiots (exploited for propaganda purposes by cynics) or sneaking regarders (the kind of people who were against terrorism, but had "a sneaking regard for the lads in the IRA")?

2016 December 11, Ruth Dudley Edwards, “It would appear the useful idiots and sneaking regarders haven't gone away”, in Sunday Independent:

(Ireland, derogatory) With regard to physical force Irish republicanism: someone who sympathizes with it without actively supporting it; someone whose opposition to it is equivocal or less than wholehearted.


Peeler

The rest, on the contrary, the rather congratulated themselves on having parted with such suspicious company; -- and the little tailor had scarcely time to enunciate his advice, "to be chatting and walking on, as if they weren't thinking of or minding them at all," — when the sergeant of the party coolly took his little self by the collar, while the remaining Peelers, surrounding the others, made them severally captives.

1839, Dennis Burrowes Kelly, The manor of Glenmore; or, The Irish peasant, by a member of the Irish bar:

It at once became abundantly manifest, that those six Peelers had arrived with some object in view; and before the Sovereign People had time even to guess what that object might be, one of the Peelers very coolly depreived the horse of his nose-bag; another just as coolly returned the bit to his mouth; and a third, with equal coolness, go hold of the reins, when a fourth, who was certainly not quite so cool, did, by virtue of the application of a short round truncheon, persuade the passive animal to move on.

1840, Henry Cockton, The life and adventures of Valentine Vox, the ventriloquist, page 159:

The Peelers in their searches were always threatening, abusive, bad mannered and even threatened to shoot the women and were very disrespectful.

2008, Fionnuala Maccurtain, Remember It's for Ireland: A Family Memoir of Tomas Maccurtain, →ISBN:

(Ireland, slang) Alternative form of peeler (policeman).


parish pump politics

Never avoid bars or smoke-rooms, because in the former case you miss the chance of marrying a flirt, and in the latter of having your mind improved by local parish-pump politics, and your head broken by a fool in his cups.

[1875?], Thomas Bardel Brindley, chapter I, in Hints, Humorous and Satirical, to All the World and His Wife. […], 3rd edition, London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. […], →OCLC, paragraph 7, page 6:

Unfortunately, the parish-pump politics this perpetuates is congenitally unsuited to deal with the demands of a modern European society.

1981, Electoral Politics in Ireland: Party and Parish Pump, page 144:

Where others looked at Canadian regionalism and saw a fruitful and admirable diversity of human experience, Laskin saw petty fiefdoms, parish pump politics, and constricted horizons.

2005, Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life, University of Toronto Press, page 22:

(Ireland, UK, politics, derogatory, informal) Political activity that is more evidently concerned with addressing the immediate needs of the local electorate than with strategy that might affect the national interest.

местни интереси

political activity concerned with addressing the immediate needs of the local electorate than with strategy that might affect the national interest


gobaloon

gobaloons (plural)
gobbaloon (alternative)

/ˌɡɒbəˈluːn/

* Diarmuid Ó Muirthile says it derives from gobbalew, southwest England dialect for a coastguard exciseman, from French gobe-a-l'eau "one who seizes things on water".

For quotations using this term, see Citations:gobaloon.

(Ireland, slang, rare) A frightening or terrible thing.


gobaloon

/ˌɡɒbəˈluːn/


piseog

piseogs (plural)
pisheog (alternative)
pishoge (alternative)
pishogue (alternative)

From Irish. Doublet of box, pyx, and pyxis.


wind-grass

Any of a number of grasses:
(UK, Ireland) Apera spica-venti

Any of a number of grasses:
Apera spica-venti


Gaeilgeoir

Gaeilgeoir (plural Gaeilgeoirs or Gaeilgeoirí)

Gaeilgeoirs (plural)
Gaeilgeoirí (plural)
gaeilgeoir (alternative)

Unadapted borrowing from Irish Gaeilgeoir

ubor

Another remarkable development is the way Gaeilgeoirí have made their own of the new social media – they’ve taken to Facebook and Twitter like ducks to water.

2014 February 1, Seán Mag Leannáin, “We'll soon find out whether we lose our native language forever”, in The Journal:

Tate Donnelly, a Gaeilgeoir from Co Monaghan who was, at 21, the youngest candidate in the 2020 general election, running for the Green Party, admits these younger speakers are not using the language of the Gaeltacht, but argues that we need “a new colloquialism”.

2022 January 23, Victoria White, “The New Gaeilgeoirs: Forecasts of the Irish language’s demise are greatly exaggerated”, in Irish Independent:

Brendan Gleeson, a well-known Gaeilgeoir, or fluent Irish speaker, also gave an interview in Irish, while Colin Farrell, his co-star in “Banshees of Inisherin,” slowly backed away and was relieved to quickly find someone who would ask him questions in English.

2023 February 24, Claire Fahy, “‘Bursting Proud’: Ireland Cheers Paul Mescal for Embracing Irish Language”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(Ireland) Someone who speaks Irish fluently or often.


SNA

Schools will retain their existing allocation of 18,000 special needs assistants (SNAs) for mainstream classes in the coming academic year, while an extra 1,100 posts will be allocated for special classes, special schools and developing schools. […] Mr Pike said education authorities must find a different way of managing SNA allocations to provide certainty and job security.

2022 May 31, Carl O'Brien, “Number of special needs assistants in mainstream classes to be maintained”, in The Irish Times:

“From day one it was all wrong. They wouldn’t use his PECS book which had been his way to communicate. The Special Needs Assistants (SNA) were holding their hands. But that wasn’t in their assessment of need. They were fully capable of walking around themselves.” […] Gemma said it was especially difficult as the SNA had a close relationship with a member of the board.

2022 September 12, Jennifer Morgan, “An autism class opens. What happens then?”, in Irish Examiner:

(Ireland, education) Initialism of special needs assistant.


bugger me backwards

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, vulgar, slang) Expression of surprise or amazement.


ekker

The dog ate my ekker.

2015 September 19, hinault, “Chirch membership discussion”, in Boards.ie, retrieved 2017-06-13:

(by extension, Ireland and Australia, school slang) Homework.


identity parade

en-noun

identity parade (plural identity parades)

He moved through the circle and sat down on Cost’s left like a criminal taking his place in an identity parade.

1943, Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, London: Heinemann, published 1950, Book 1, Chapter 4, p. 61:

‘I deny it, I utterly deny it, my movements were those I’ve given you.’
‘Yet you refuse to take part in an identity parade?’

1984, Alan Hunter, chapter 6, in The Unhanged Man, New York: Walker, pages 87–88:

(UK, Ireland, law enforcement) A process by which a witness confirms the identity of a criminal suspect, by viewing the suspect together with other people who were not involved in the crime.


April shower

Holsom as the Aprile shower fallying on the herbes newe.

c. 1430, John Lydgate, Reason and Sensuality:

That pleaſing Shade they ſought, a ſoft retreat / From ſudden April''' Show'rs, a Shelter from the Heat.

1700, [John] Dryden, “The Flower and the Leaf: Or, The Lady in the Arbour. A Vision.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 395:

2017 April 5, Harriet Walker, “How to look stylish in an April shower”, in The Times, Fashion:

(UK and Ireland) A sporadic burst of light rain in the spring season, especially in the month of April.


pruck

pruck (countable and uncountable, plural prucks)

We were moochin' some pruck in a Pollock Dock shed, when he crashed to the ground and in minutes was dead.

1997, John Campbell, The rose and the blade: new & selected poems, 1957-1997, →ISBN, page 105:

I also knew that when I was back home and lit my own votive candle in the recess of the clay figure, the hollow of its eyes would glow softly like the inscrutable stare of the living creature and I would know again the lure and pull of Patagonia. 'More pruck,' said John as we hurried back to catch Tren 010 to Santiago.

2011, Brian Keenan, John McCarthy, Between Extremes, →ISBN, page 378:

Remember that wee shop in Dublin sold the great yellowman? We always bought some forthe train journey home. Look, there's a photo of us all in the station. Laden with pruck.

2013, Christina Reid, Reid Plays, →ISBN:

(Ireland, uncountable) A collection of items that are attractive but useless.


shant

If yez is smart yer will take out enough for a shant and some fun, enough to buy yer missus or yer tart a new dress, enough to put shoes on yer sister's weans, even, but leave the rest under yer feet for the next day, an' the day arter that.

2013, Richard James Bentley, Greenbeard, →ISBN:

Welcoming Captain St Claire, Prince Rupert ordered him a shant of dark porter and called upon him to speak of his travels.

2015, Michael Moorcock -, The Whispering Swarm, →ISBN:

Well, if you're willing to sub me a shant of bivvy, then I'll tell ya

2016, Christopher James, Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants, →ISBN:

(UK, Ireland, slang) A drink, usually a pint.

Why, I wouldn't swap this old wrack of a shant , ez I've called it, with the treasures it contains to-day, for al the bloomin'est bloomed mansions that ever stood on the face of the earth.

1889, David Hill, Out of His Sphere: A Drama in Three Acts, page 33:

I clapped Ehren on the shoulder and went away to stare broodingly upon that cramph of a shant.

2009, Alan Burt Akers, The Havilfar Cycle II, →ISBN, page 148:

I'd rather deliver in the Glossop Grubber than that apology for a shant.

2014, Alexander Cordell, Tunnel Tigers, →ISBN:


come here to me

“Come here to me,” said yer man, leaning conspiratorially closer, the smell of turf smoke and poteen potent in the air. “Have ye been up to see the Magic Road?”

2014 February 24, Conor Hallahan, “Ireland's magic roads - what they are and how to find them”, in BreakingNews.ie:

“Come here to me,” said one local radio broadcaster, beckoning a nearby steward, “could ye gather up the names of all the Galway supporters and I’ll give them a shout out?”

2017 July 24, Neil Loughran, “Goals galore for Galway as Donegal are sent tumbling out of Championship”, in Irish News:

(Ireland, colloquial) Introduces a topic which is (actually or jocularly) grave or sensitive; listen up; I wanted to tell/ask you


rubbish dump

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) Synonym of landfill.


on the dry

I bumped into an old mate of mine, Bill, the other day whom I was banged up with in 1972 in St Bernard's Hospital. He's on the dry now but he told me he has had several lapses since we left muttering that it was all going to be different tomorrow.

1985 August 24, Jeffrey Bernard, “Low life: High and dry”, in The Spectator, page 34:

Then, maybe two weeks before cameras rolled, he'd put the blinkers on again and totally focus on it, and that included staying off the booze. 'I'm on the dry,' he'd announce.

2013, Robert Sellers, “A Date with Cronenburg”, in What Fresh Lunacy is This?: The Authorized Biography of Oliver Reed, Little, Brown Book Group, →ISBN, page 175:

Jessie J hasn't had an alcoholic drink since October 15, 2012. The 'Wild' singer can remember the exact date she last touched booze and claims she only ever drinks on very special occasions because alcohol leaves her lethargic and she worries it might ruin her career.

2013 July 13, “Jessie J on the dry since last October”, in Irish Examiner:

(idiomatic, informal, British, Ireland) temporarily refraining from drinking alcohol


day dot

I've always said right from day dot that New Zealand and Perth are going to be the teams to beat, because they have been there and done that.

2017, “Basketball: Beware the Breakers in ANBL playoffs”, in New Zealand Herald:

From day dot, Walsh has had a master plan.

2016, John Bailey, “Is art really just about bonking? MONA's David Walsh ruffles feathers (again)”, in The Sydney Morning Herald:

(slang, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) A very long time ago; as far back as one can remember.


ould fella

ould fellas (plural)
oul' fella (alternative)
oul fella (alternative)

There were a load of ould fellas in the pub.

(colloquial, Ireland, literally) old man

Me ould fella wants me to study business but I want to study music.

(colloquial, Ireland, figuratively) father


oul'

en-adj

oul' (comparative more oul', superlative most oul')

more oul' (comparative)
most oul' (superlative)


ould one

ould ones (plural)
oul' one (alternative)
oul one (alternative)
ould wan (alternative)
oul' wan (alternative)
oul wan (alternative)

The ould ones were praying in church.

(colloquial, Ireland, literally) old woman

Me ould one gave out to me for failing my Leaving Cert.

(colloquial, Ireland, figuratively) mother


shillig-a-booka

shillig-a-bookas (plural)
shellika pooka (alternative)

/ˈʃɪlɪɡaˌbuːkə/

After the rain, a load of shillig-a-bookas came out.


arseways

(Ireland, vulgar, slang) Badly or wrongly; in the wrong position.


bockety

From Irish bacaidí, from bacach (“lame”).

Don't sit on that chair, it has bockety legs.

The baby smiled happily as he was pushed along in the bockety pram.

(Ireland) unsteady, wobbly, tottering, rickety (likely to fall over)


dubes

From the name of the Irish shoe company, Dubarry.

Siobhan wore black dubes with her school uniform.

(Ireland) Dubarry boat shoes (associated with affluent areas of Dublin)


have drink taken

en-verb

have drink taken (third-person singular simple present has drink taken, present participle having drink taken, simple past and past participle had drink taken)

has drink taken (present singular third-person)
having drink taken (participle present)
had drink taken (participle past)
had drink taken (past)

My client had drink taken when he vandalised that wall, Your Honour.

The coroner wanted to know where the hell he thought he was going, and the Sheep explained that he was “going behind”, for he had drink taken and his bladder was weak.

1970, Eric Cross, The Tailor and Ansty, page 106:

Next day on the Earl's Court Road I had drink taken and they said, rather unkindly, that I was seen running down the center of the street swinging an umbrella and that I attacked poor MacDoon who only asked that I desist.

(UK, Ireland, colloquial, humorous) To be (extremely) drunk.


livery yard

(UK, Ireland) A stable where horse owners pay a regular fee to keep their horses.


blow me tight

Puss 'unting is werry well for cripples, and those that keep donkeys (renewed cheers from the blues, with angry looks from the green-coated gentry)—Blow me tight, but I never sees a chap a trudging along the turnpike, with a thick stick in his 'and, and a pipe in his mouth, but I says to myself, there goes a man well-mounted for 'arriers!

1838 December 10, “The Handley-Cross Hounds”, in The New Sporting Magazine, volume 15, number 92, page 346:

"Wallingford lock!" they answered. "Lor' love you, sir, that’s been done away with for over a year. There ain't no Wallingford lock now, sir. You’re close to Cleeve now. Blow me tight if 'ere ain't a gentleman been looking for Wallingford lock, Bill!"

1889, Jerome K. Jerome, chapter 9, in Three Men in a Boat […] :

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang, archaic) An expression of surprise.


semi-state

semi state (alternative)
semi-State (alternative)

I think it would be agreed by all that in the last ten or 15 years we have seen a remarkable growth of these State and semi-State companies, by which I mean companies in which our Minister for Finance holds shares and very often holds the dominating number of shares.

1950 March 2, Edward Richards-Orpen, State and Semi-State Companies—Motion. Seanad Éireann debates Vol.37 No.9 p.5 c.692

TAXPAYERS are shelling out more than €2m annually to pay for the salaries of 10 high-profile CEOs employed in commercial semi-state bodies.

2007 October 29, Patricia McDonagh, “Top 10 bosses in semi-state firms cost total of €2m a year”, in Irish Independent:

(Ireland) state-owned but managed independently along commercial lines


gombeenman

(Ireland, historical) A gombeen, or money-lender.


non-inscrit

From French non (“not”) inscrit (“registered”).

A non inscrit can produce amendments but he cannot be a rapporteur.

1972, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Papers by Command:

Lastly, a pair of moves that are invisible in Table 17-4 involves one non-inscrit who affiliated with the Gaullist group only to return to the ranks of the non-inscrits one week later.

1986, Philip E. Converse, Roy Pierce, Political Representation in France, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 548:

The vice-presidents are members, along with the chairs of the six permanent commissions, the rapporteur général of the finance commission, the presidents of the political groups (including a delegate representing the non-inscrits) [...]

2009, P. Smith, The Senate of the Fifth French Republic, Springer, →ISBN, page 178:

(politics, especially in France and UK, Ireland) An independent politician.


bowsie

(Ireland) Alternative spelling of bowsy (“lout”).


cold iron

(slang, fishing, Scotland, Ireland) A bad omen.


shitcunt

(chiefly Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang, vulgar, derogatory, offensive) A term of abuse.


polisman

The march turned out not te be a real march at all on account of the fact that as soon as we tried te move aff from the Waterside station, all two thousand of us, we foun' our way blocked be a cordon of polismen lookin' wile fierce.

2009, Sarah O’Connor, Christopher C. Shepard, Women, Social and Cultural Change in Twentieth Century Ireland, page 83:

They wint again polismen, mostly. Mebbe that's because polismen's th' nearest things to kings they cud find.

2020, Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War, page 97:

Now all we need to establish is what a shooter belonging to one of Maitland's goons is doing in a polisman's locker.

2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 188:


bainin

en-noun

bainin (countable and uncountable, plural bainins)

Borrowed from Irish báinín, from bán (“white”) + -ín (diminutive suffix).

For many years I developed my own variations on an Aran Fisherman theme, intricately patterned, using the wonderful, cream-colored yarn called “bainin” with the sheep’s lanolin still in it, which makes the garment naturally waterproof.

2003, Madeleine L'Engle, Luci Shaw, Friends for the Journey:

(Ireland) undyed white homespun woolen yarn or cloth

By the time it had some of the dirt and grease removed (part scouring) it had become the creamy natural colour (bainin) with which we are all familiar, and although the patterns are worked in other fashion colours and yarns, the true Aran is only made from the thickish bainin woolen yarn.

2012, Shelagh Hollingworth, Traditional Aran Knitting, page 14:

(Ireland) the creamy white colour of such yarn or cloth

It was an instinctive gesture that made him reach then for the bainin of Uncle James. […] The soused white bainin with Uncle James came up beside him.


wigs on the green

In reference to the wigs that gentlemen used to wear, which might fall to the ground during a fight.

“I am sorry to perceive, sir, as you say; but you have been in some hot work, sir! I'll engage you have seen some wigs on the green?”
“Wigs on the green!” exclaimed the elegant stranger, with a very cold, aristocratical stare.
“Beg pardon, sir!” said Mr. Brown, when he became conscious of his vulgarity. “'Tis our Irish mode of expression, sir, when we speak of a row, or a skrimmage! I dare say you have been in many a skrimmage, Sir John![”]

1853 October 22, Captain Michael Rafter, “Done Brown”, in The London Journal, vol.XVIII no.452 p.119:

She says, If ye don't fix yeer brother's shoes an' I have to get out of this bed there will be wigs on the green.

1998 Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes Ch.XII (Simon and Schuster) p.272

(dated, Ireland, as a formulaic threat) Big trouble.


spug

Apparently an alteration of sprug, spurg.

Birds on the ground. Birds of different varieties. Crows and gulls and spugs.

2017, Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published 2019, page 178:

(chiefly Ireland, Scotland, England regional) A sparrow.


prattie

Once I was in Ireland / Digging turf and pratties / And now I'm on a Yankee ship / Hauling on sheets and braces.

Haul Away Joe (sea shanty; Andrew Draskóy's version)

He was dressed in his best suit, looking well, his face brown from working in his potato patch. He grows five different varieties, still experimenting, trying to find a prattie that would resist the blight.


stravage

en-verb

stravage (third-person singular simple present stravages, present participle stravaging, simple past and past participle stravaged)

stravages (present singular third-person)
stravaging (participle present)
stravaged (participle past)
stravaged (past)
stravaig (alternative)

(Scotland, Ireland, Northern England) to wander aimlessly.


ciotóg

Borrowed from Irish ciotóg, from Proto-Celtic *(s)kīttos.

He was a ciotóg as well, and would sit at the head of that table like yourself with his hand curled above the page in a most awkward fashion.

2005, Kevin O'Hara, Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man's Journey Through Ireland, →ISBN, page 69:

Grimes, as a ciotóg (a left-hander) would defend his left side as a normal fighter would his right, and according to Walker, this would mean using the lower third of the stick to parry.

2007, John W. Hurley, Shillelagh: The Irish Fighting Stick, →ISBN, page 106:

I was a ciotóg in school but decided to shoot right-handed.

2017, Jason Sherlock, Jayo: The Jason Sherlock Story, →ISBN:


shamesome

en-adj

shamesome (comparative more shamesome, superlative most shamesome)

more shamesome (comparative)
most shamesome (superlative)

"Phew!" he thought, "it's all a notion of ye, man, and a shamesome notion. […]"

1908, The Irish Monthly, volume 36, page 157:

'And look where it's got you,' said Grumpa. 'Living next door to peeples! It's shamesome. […]

(chiefly Ireland, dialect) Deserving of shame; shameful.


bastard toadflax

en-noun

bastard toadflax (usually uncountable, plural bastard toadflaxes)

Any of several related hemiparasitic plants in the family Santalaceae.

(UK, Ireland) Any plant in the genus Thesium.


key stage

key stages (plural)
Key Stage (alternative)

(UK, Ireland, education) Any of the sequential stages of attainment in the state education system of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar, specifying the knowledge expected of students at various ages.


buzzie

Actually, the Irish don't trouble themselves with which is which, but you buzzies get mighty frustrated trying to figure it out.

2008, Suzanne Supplee, When Irish Guys Are Smiling, →ISBN, page 42:


lose the run of oneself

en-verb

lose the run of oneself (third-person singular simple present loses the run of oneself, present participle losing the run of oneself, simple past and past participle lost the run of oneself)

loses the run of oneself (present singular third-person)
losing the run of oneself (participle present)
lost the run of oneself (participle past)
lost the run of oneself (past)

Belief in a high incidence of mental illness, as well as beliefs in high rates of alcoholism and suicide, may be metaphors for a culturally understandable and excusable `losing the run' of oneself.

1986 Winter, Eileen Kane, "Stereotypes and Irish Identity: Mental Illness as a Cultural Frame", Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review Vol.75 No.300 p.549

I think we have gone over the top on this, that we are losing the run of ourselves [...] and that it would be nice to see a little bit of common sense in the debate for a change.

1993 December 16, Seán Power, “[http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/takes/dail1993121600007#N68 Interpretation (Amendment) Bill, 1993 [ Seanad ]: Second Stage.]”, in Dáil debates:

2015 February 4, Paul Murphy "Personal Insolvency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Second Stage (Resumed)" Dáil debates
The vast majority of people who are in debt are not those who theoretically "lost the run of themselves" in the course of the boom. Their only crime was to provide for their very basic need to have a home.

In my opinion, Europe lost the run of itself. When we joined the EU and traded goods, it was a great thing, but it basically went from that to trying to own people.

2017 September 26, Michael Fitzmaurice, “UK Withdrawal from the EU: Statements”, in Dáil debates:

(Ireland, colloquial, figurative) get carried away; lose one's self-control; exceed one's limits or limitations


off-trade

Distribution networks are particularly chaotic in the ‘on’-trade which has steadily lost ground to the ‘off’-trade. Estimates for the volumes of wines consumed in public vary wildly but now usually point down towards to 25%.

1998, Pierre Spahni, Swiss Wine Market Report, Woodhead Publishing, page 56:

The off-trade has been growing at the expense of the on-trade. Traditionally, wide choices of wine have not been available through public houses in the UK. With the growing interest in wine, this absence of good wine in on-trade establishments may have aided the growth in off-trade sales.

2004, Kym Anderson, David Norman, The World's Wine Markets: Globalization at Work, Edward Elgar Publishing, page 133:

Lora Jones (2018 March 27) “Pubs in danger: Six charts on how the British drink”, in BBC News, BBC
The volume of beer sold in supermarkets and off-licences (off-trade) in the UK topped the volume sold in pubs, clubs and restaurants (on-trade) for the first time in 2014.

(Ireland, British) The sale of alcoholic drinks for consumption off the premises.


on-trade

(Ireland, British) The sale of alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises.


arsehat

arsehats (plural)
asshat (alternative US)

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, sometimes vulgar, often humorous, slang) British standard spelling of asshat.


grandfather shirt

en-noun

grandfather shirt (plural grandfather shirts)

I like nothing better than just to wear a grandfather shirt-- they are so big and comfortable.

2010, David Johns, Merger, →ISBN, page 46:

And here was Suggs decked out in oxblood Doctor Marten's boots, a collarless grandfather shirt, khaki combat trousers and a silver bomber jacket depicting mod iconography from The Who's 1973 album Quadrophenia on the rear.

2014, John Reed, House of Fun: The Story of Madness, →ISBN:

'I changed the sheets this morning,' she said, as she unbuttoned her grandfather shirt.

2016, Liz Nugent, Lying In Wait, →ISBN, page 34:

(Ireland) A band-collared shirt of flannel or brushed cotton.


kill-the-beggar

In your examination of Monday, you spoke of kill-the-beggar-whiskey; has any analysis been made of that whiskey?

1834 June 18, James Silk Buckingham, “Minutes of Evidence, Wednesday, the Eighteenth Day of June, 1834”, in Evidence on Drunkenness, London: British and Foreign Temperance Society, published 1834, page 98:

To men of common gumption, / Hot strange, besides, must seem / At this time any scheme / To put a check upon potheen's consumption, / When all are calling for Irish Poor Laws! / Instead of framing more laws, / To pauperism if you'd give a pegger, / Don't check, but patronise their "Kill-the-Beggar!" / If Pat is apt to go in Irish Linen, / (Buttoning his coat, with nothing but his skin in) / Would any Christian man -- that's quite himself, / His wits not floor'd, or laid upon the shelf --, While blaming Pat for raggedness, poor boy, / Would deprive him of his "Corduroy!"

1835, Thomas Hood, “Ode to J. S. Buckingham, Esq. M.P.”, in The Comic Annual, pages 135–136:

The quality of the liquor served in the spirit grocers was poor and often adulterated, said [John] Edgar. He gave an example of a whiskey known as 'kill the beggar' in Belfast because 'it first makes the beggar and then kills the beggar'. There was an even worse concoction called 'corduroy', so named because it gave a rough feeling on the tongue and palate.

2016, Kevin Martin, “Special Exemptions”, in Have Ye No Homes to Go To?: The History of the Irish Pub, Collins Press, →ISBN:

(obsolete, Ireland, slang) Cheap and poor-quality whiskey.


beour

beor (alternative)
beore (alternative)
beur (alternative)
beure (alternative)

There were clusters of other lads and beors all about the riverbank, drinking, laughing.

(Ireland, slang) An (often attractive) woman or girl.


potatoes and point

* Relates to pointing with the finger (see 1880 citation), but sources differ: perhaps pointing to the empty space where the meat/fish would be.
* Perhaps from point as the punctuation mark (period/full stop) marking termination.

I well remember partaking, when a child four or five years old, with other little ones, of the dish referred to, viz., "potatoes-and-point,"—and no meat at all entered into its composition—which consisted of boiled potatoes mashed up with a little milk. […] Every now and then, on the word of command—"Point!"—being given by the nurse, we all pointed our spoons to the ceiling and then fell to again. […] All parents also know how easily young children are enticed into anything like playing at a game, and this "potatoes-and-point" in our eyes almost amounted to one.

Many readers will be reminded of the Irish dish "Potatoes and point," consisting of a large supply of potatoes and of a very limited supply of meat, bacon, or even fish.

1883, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, volume 52, page 95:

(humorous, Ireland, obsolete) A simple meal of potatoes only, or very little else.


Dub

There is a distinction between Dubliners on the one hand and "rednecks" on the other. […] The Dubs historically went to Liverpool and Birmingham, so they don't have the connections.

1993, Mary P. Corcoran, Irish Illegals: Transients Between Two Societies, page 138:

I did the Pat Kenny show one night and talked about coming from the bottom up, and I got numerous letters, saying to hear somebody with a Dub accent running the brewery was unbelievable.

1994, Patrick O'Dea, A Class of Our Own: Conversations About Class in Ireland, page 51:

Eric released her, grinning. You're a Dub anyway, he said.

2018, Sally Rooney, “Three Months Later (March 2014)”, in Normal People:


docken

dockan (alternative)
Docken (alternative)

"But the docken, man," said I— "fusionless as a docken—how classic! what an exclamation to proceed from the mouth of a solemn Don!"
"No gibes regarding the docken," promptly chimed in Bang; "it is a highly respectable vegetable, let me tell you, and useful on occasion, which is more."

1834, Michael Scott, Tom Cringle's Log, Volume 1, Baudry's European Library, page 304:

The leaves are accounted an antidote for the pricking of a stinging nettle. Children rub the sting with a docken leaf, repeating the words, "Nettle oot; docken in."

1892, Oliver Heslop, Northumberland Words, Volume 1, English Dialect Society, page 240:

Rumex crispus
Rumex crispus#Translingual

(Scotland, Northern England, Ireland) A dock (plant); Rumex obtusifolius or Rumex crispus.


ree-raw

She was a complete bar to Harry's improvement; his room was no longer neat, as his English landlady had kept it: it was, to use an expressive Irish phrase, always "Ree-raw," and Mrs. O'Reardon herself was a source of perpetual amusement […]

1836, Mrs. S. C. Hall, Harry O'Reardon, Or, Illustrations of Irish Pride, page 113:

The Captain John Kelly here named also owned Mount Pelia and Castle Kelly, in the county of Dublin, and afterwards had a fine ree-raw Irish place, called Larch Hill, […]

1857, Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal:

There was something cynical in his ree-raw independence. It was unlike what he had been used to, and its savagery suited with his bitter and unsociable mood of late.

1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:


spice bag

(Ireland) A fast food dish consisting of various Asian-inspired foods accompanied by chips.


horseshite

(UK, Ireland) Alternative form of horseshit.


buckeen

From Irish boicín, the diminutive of boc. Equivalent to buck + -een.

Probably no other country could produce such a degraded type as the squireen or buckeen, the drunken, gambling, profligate descendant of the Cromwellian or Williamite settler.

1917, William Francis Thomas Butler, Confiscation in Irish history, page 248:

(Ireland, historical) a poor young man of the lower Anglo-Irish gentry who aspires to the habits and dress of the wealthy.


make a show of oneself

en-verb

make a show of oneself (third-person singular simple present makes a show of oneself, present participle making a show of oneself, simple past and past participle made a show of oneself)

makes a show of oneself (present singular third-person)
making a show of oneself (participle present)
made a show of oneself (participle past)
made a show of oneself (past)

Will you stop singing, please? You're making a show of yourself.

(idiomatic, Ireland) To embarrass oneself or others in public.


yizzer

yisser (alternative)
yousser (alternative)

Come in for yizzer tea.

(Ireland, especially Dublin) Your (plural).


yisser

(Ireland, especially Dublin) Alternative form of yizzer.


atall

...he did banquett hym, so that after diner there was conference of both thair armes togethers in divers poyntes nothing atall discrepaunte.

1576, John Foxe, Contemporary Biographies of Archbishop Cranmer, Camden Soc.:

What business have you to come here? Go long wid ye — sure I don't want yer atall atall.

1858, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Hunt's Yachting Magazine:

...if i had done as i should of done i would not tuched the list atall you had no right to send the list where you did and the journals to me that is where I find fault i could do the dirty work someone else do the other is that using me right if it is then i will give in you had no right to send the journals to me atall...

1891, The Railroad Trainman, The Brotherhood, pages 390–:

(obsolete or Ireland) In any degree; at all.


stateship

en-noun

stateship (countable and uncountable, plural stateships)

(Ireland) The territory or district of a tribe, as a polity.


birth cert

birth certificate
birth certificate#English

(especially Ireland) Clipping of birth certificate.


sell the pass

en-verb

sell the pass (third-person singular simple present sells the pass, present participle selling the pass, simple past and past participle sold the pass)

sells the pass (present singular third-person)
selling the pass (participle present)
sold the pass (participle past)
sold the pass (past)

A respectable divine like Samual Torshell sold the pass when he wrote in 1645 that there was no difference between men and women in the state of grace.

1972, Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, Folio Society, published 2016, page 257:

In fact the officials in the Richmond Asylum had pre-empted Sinn Féin. They managed to sell the pass without losing their jobs in the process, unlike Henry Campbell or John Flood.

2012, Pádraig Yeates, A City in Turmoil:

(idiomatic, originally Ireland) To betray one's comrades or countrymen; to betray a cause.


borrowing days

(Ireland, Scotland) The last three days of March, supposed in Scottish and Irish folklore to have been borrowed by March from April, and to be especially stormy.


grawl

grawls (plural)
graul (alternative)
grall (alternative)
graulse (alternative Scotland)

Back-formation from grawls, a variant of graulse, mistaken as a plural. Ultimately, graulse is a variant of English grilse.

(Scotland, Ireland) A young salmon; grilse


bowsy

Probably from above, from being applied to drunkards.

—The mockery of it, he said contentedly, secondleg they should be. God knows what poxy bowsy left them off.

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

(Ireland, colloquial) an unsavoury and unreliable (usually male) layabout.


Mothers' Day

Mothering Sunday
Mothering Sunday#English

(UK and Ireland) Synonym of Mothering Sunday.


afforced council

en-noun

afforced council (plural afforced councils)

(Ireland, historical) An ad-hoc regional assembly summoned by the chief governor of Ireland, comprising members of the privy council supplemented by members representing localities within the relevant region.


slash hook

(especially Ireland) A sickle or grasshook: an agricultural tool for cutting away small vegetation.


Ulster custom

(Ireland, historical) A custom that gave tenants of Ulster in Ireland a reasonable expectation of security of tenure as long as they paid their rent, and allowed them to sell the right to occupy their holding to another tenant acceptable to the landlord.


duncher

The labourers wore dunchers and boiler-suits.


placcy

[…] why else would a normal-looking person carry a stripy pillow on her back in a placcy bag?

2005, Sarah Darmody, Ticket to Ride, page 318:


cruiskeen

cruiskeens (plural)
cruisken (alternative)


(British, Ireland, historical) Abbreviation of one penny (a coin with the value of 1 pence/penny; 1/240th of a pound, in pre-decimalisation currency, never used for 'one new penny').


h'on

We're not normally impressed by this kind of stuff but h'on the lads! This is pretty good.

2016 August 17, Jennifer Dollard "Seagulls cover Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage'" Today FM

(Ireland, slang); Alternative spelling of hon² (“come on, bravo”).


'hon

'Hon the Banner!

2015, Paul Moore, “The Clare hurling panel do the crossbar challenge and it's savage”, in Joe.ie:


direct provision

Direct Provision is being introduced by the Directorate for Asylum Seeker Services of the Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform for all asylum seekers who arrive in the State on or after 10th April 2000.

2000 April 10, Brian O Raghallaigh, "S.W.A. Circular No. 04/00", S. W. A. [Supplementary Welfare Allowance] section, Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs

There have been calls for the abolition of the Direct Provision system in which all essentials are provided to asylum seekers but they are given very little money and are not allowed to work.

2002 April 22, Deirdre MacCarthy, “Calls For Abolition Of Direct Provision”, in RTÉ News:

Deputy Seán Kyne asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of centres under the direct provision scheme, administered by the Reception and Integration Agency, for refugees or asylum applicants in Galway and nationwide; and the future plans for these centres in view of the reducing numbers of asylum seekers and the need to reconfigure spending at his Department in line with the EU/IMF/ECB deal.

2011 November 2, “Written Answers 366: Asylum Support Services”, in Dáil debates:

Your accommodation is full board, which includes bed, breakfast, lunch, and evening meal. This known as direct provision.

2018 July 4, Citizens Information Board, Services and entitlements for people seeking asylum:

(Ireland, politics) provision by the state of accommodation and living expenses to registered asylum seekers, who are not allowed to work for pay


Twenty-Six Counties

(Ireland, informal) The twenty-six counties that form the Republic of Ireland.

na Sé Chontae is Fiche

the 26 counties that comprise the Republic of Ireland


Holy Mary

(Ireland, informal) One who is extremely pious.


bastable

bastables (plural)
bastible (alternative)

Unknown. It is believed by some to be a corruption of Barnstaple, which was known for manufacturing metal pots. Compare Barnstaple oven.

There was no such thing as a bastable in those days.

1997, Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, A Word in Your Ear, →ISBN, page 61:

Erika cooked over a turf fire and roasted meat in a bastable perched over the flames.

2001, Trevor Norton, Reflections on a Summer Sea, page 70:

We'd always have it stewed in a bastable hung over the kitchen fire way back in those days.

2006, Carla Blake, The Irish Cookbook, →ISBN, page 12:

(Ireland) A cast iron pot that is suspended over an open fire, often with hot coals placed on the lid for more even cooking.


bastable cake

From bastable (“earthenware or (later) cast-iron pot with three short legs and a lid, used for baking over a fire”) + cake.

Sister Cornelia was in the corner puffing and blowing like a porpoise as she made a new bastable cake, that she, bein' a County Waterford woman, like the "blower" itself, had introduced into them parts.

1929, Shaw Desmond, Tales of the Little Sisters of Saint Francis, London: Grant Richards & Humphrey Toulmin at the Cayme Press, →OCLC, page 297:

There was no show but the heap of sweet cake, not to mention all the shop bread, he brought from town. Bastable cakes would be too common for the likes of such a grand dance, a mhic ó! There was enough there to feed half the parish.

1933 January 21, “Ballyvourney” [pseudonym], “Michileen: On ‘Shoneens’ and Their Select Dances”, in An Camán: The Organ of Irish Ireland, volume II, number 3, Dublin: Cumann nGaedealac, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-02-29, page 10, column 3:

The fact is that we have in this country today such inept people that they are not able to do what their grandmothers did; they cannot turn out a decent cake or a decent loaf of bread from wheat grown in this country. Their grandmothers were able to do that. What is wrong with those charged with manufacturing wheat into flour and flour into bread? Have they been so spoilt by alien trends and so trained in foreign habits and foreign manners that they have completely forgotten how to bake the old bastable cake and the loaf that was good enough a generation ago for the people of Cork city and the people of Dublin city?

1960 June 2, Martin John Corry, “Committee on Finance.—Vote 47—Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce (Resumed).”, in Díosbóireachtaí Párlaiminte: Tuairisc Oifigiúil [Parliamentary Debates: Official Report] (Dáil Éireann), volume 182, number 5, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-02-29, page 637, column 2:

A bastable cake! It was bread, really, but because it was baked in the three-legged iron pot, called a bastable oven, and because of its nice round shape, Ma called it bastable cake.

1979, Karen Branson, Jane Sterrett, The Potato Eaters, New York, N.Y.: Putnam, →ISBN, page 34:

On it, in front of the fire, would be placed the cake, and it would bake handsomely. However, the cake would have to be turned when one side was baked. That would be as good as any bastable cake.

1988, Tadhg Ó Buachalla, translated by Aindrias Ó Muimhneacháin, Stories from the Tailor, Cork, Munster: Mercier Press, →ISBN, page 38:

The Christmas pudding was boiled in it [a flour bag] and then wrapped in another, dry one for storage, and it was wrapped around the hot bastable cake to soften the crust.

1988 May, Alice Taylor, To School through the Fields: An Irish Country Childhood, Dingle, County Kerry: Brandon, →ISBN; republished as “Old Bags”, in Quench the Lamp, Dublin: O’Brien Press, 2014, →ISBN:

With each goose she placed a big brown bastable cake, and eventually everything, including my father's potatoes and turnips, was stored in the cart behind the jennet.

1994, Alice Taylor, “Bringing the Christmas”, in The Night Before Christmas, Dingle, County Kerry: Brandon, →ISBN; republished New York, N.Y.: O’Brien Press, 2014, →ISBN:

He hadn't a pleasant time and was quite ill one day and couldn't eat anything – sodden bastable cake and smoky butter and tea was what he got in one house for breakfast and dinner.

2008, Jasper Ungoed-Thomas, Jasper Wolfe of Skibbereen, Wilton, Cork, Munster: Collins Press, →ISBN, page 127:

(Ireland) A round loaf of soda bread that is baked in a bastable (“an earthenware or cast-iron pot used for baking over a fire”).


bunce

Costermonger jargon bunts, perhaps from bonus.

To steal a housewife's purse might mean that her children would have to go hungry; but what of that, if the flash young “dip” could gain admiration from his mates by boasting that he had “frisked a judy's cly and lifted a skinful of bunce”?

1959, Frank Clune, Murders on Maunga-tapu, page 10:

(UK, Ireland, regional) A bonus; additional pay; money.


yield sign

(Canada, US, Belize, Ireland, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Liberia, Namibia) a road sign which instructs road users to give right of way to other traffic


bolcane

From Fingallian bolcane, from Irish bolcán (“spirits, strong drink”). Doublet of volcano and Vulcan.

Sheela at her Prayers, and Nabla at her Sneezing, Dermot at his Beads, and Rory at his Bolcane and Usquebah

1683 Patrick Simmons "Strange and wonderful news from Ireland : of a whale of a prodigious size, being eighty two foot long, cast ashore on the third of this instant February, near Dublin, and there exposed to publick view" (London : broadsheet Printed for S. Kemp)

(Ireland, obsolete) Spirits; alcoholic drink; poteen.


emergency man

(historical, Ireland) A bailiff's officer or volunteer provided for a special service, especially one who was placed in charge of properties from which the tenants were evicted during the Land War, or who came to bring in the crops of men who were boycotted during that period.


capernosity

Coined by Brendan Behan, using the learned suffix -osity. Augustine Martin suggests Blend of capability + generosity. Barry Baldwin suggests a link with Scots capernoity (“befuddled”) or Latin caper (“goat”).

(humorous, literary, Ireland) The meaning of this term is uncertain. Possibilities include:

Besides, my grandmother, who lived at the top of the next house, was a lady of capernosity and function. She had money and lay in bed all day, drinking porter or malt, and taking pinches of snuff, and talking to the neighbours that would call up to tell her the news of the day.

1953 Easter, Brendan Behan, "The Confirmation Suit"; in The Standard p.5; reprinted in Brendan Behan's Island; An Irish Sketchbook, Hutchinson, (London), 1962, page 148

… in Howth they have a paper of their own, in which is reported the wedding of a girl from the Hill. The affair was carried out with function and capernosity, by all accounts …

1955 June 4, Brendan Behan, "It's Torca Hill for beauty" The Irish Press, reprinted in Hold your hour and have another (1963), pages 142-3

Myself and my brothers joined in this [singing], with function and capernosity, as true little Republicans …

1955 September 3, Brendan Behan, "Nuts from the Crimean War" The Irish Press, reprinted in Hold your hour and have another (1963) page 70

I would have liked to have helped him for he was a good skin and I knew his mother and father, brothers and sisters as well as I knew my own, and we fought the same battles together, on the playground and elsewhere, with great function and capernosity.

1965, Brendan Behan, Confessions of an Irish Rebel, Lancer, New York, page 60:

It is bad enough to listen to his putative successor and having serious doubts about him ... but to listen to a pretender from the Opposition benches must be frightful on the Taoiseach. [...] A man of his “capernosity” and function must be horrified to have to put up with me.

1990 January 31, Michael Noonan, “Financial Resolutions, 1990. - Financial Statement, Budget, 1990”, in Dáil Éireann Debates:

I knew if ever I was underneath I'd get it from you — it's the red hair and the awkward loins gúngaire they called us at home, the man with the flange in his hips but by the ghost of Mick Collins there's more function about me than capernosity!

1991, Sydney Bernard Smith, Flannery, Brandon, published 2004, →ISBN, page 47:

Full of capernosity and function at 6 p.m. Homeless at 8 p.m. And no insurance.

2004, Bryan MacMahon, Hero Town, page 137:

Ragged embers, horn of an anvil, hovering bellows, a tongs of function and capernosity.

2008, Tom MacIntyre, Find the Lady, page 18:

'And other forms of complaint more pernicious—'
'Deleterious—'
'More capricious—'
'Meretricious—'
'And if not done with capernosity and function, is it worth doing at all?'

2017, Neil Jordan, Carnivalesque, Bloomsbury USA, →ISBN, page 166:


senior hurling

In Gaelic games, including hurling, the "senior" grade is the highest level of competition. In 2007, the Green Party entered government for the first time in coalition with Fianna Fáil, and Séamus Brennan of Fianna Fáil quipped to the Green Party ministers, "you're playing senior hurling now".

I urge Sinn Féin and the DUP to come together to ensure they can address the problems that have arisen in regard to the Social Welfare Bill. … I remind our Sinn Féin colleagues that they are playing senior hurling now and the issue must be resolved if they are to aspire to being in government in both the North and the South of Ireland.

2015 March 10, Michael Mullins, "Order of Business" Seanad Éireann debates (Oireachtas)

Sinn Féin are 'spinning' an election disaster as a victory, while party president Gerry Adams needs to stop claiming he is being victimised by the media and realise "this is senior hurling", according to writer and former politician Eoghan Harris.

2016 February 29, '"Sinn Féin are spinning that they had a good election. They had an appalling election" - Eoghan Harris reviews #GE16' (Newstalk)

Brendan Howlin: I join with others in appealing to the Taoiseach, as Leader of this House, to forge a common view on the outrageous actions of the Trump Administration in its first ten days of office. … I would ask the Taoiseach to acknowledge that it is not business as usual. …
Enda Kenny: In respect of Deputy Howlin's remark, I agree it is not business as usual any more. It is not politics as usual anymore. Senior hurling has gone global. In that sense, we have got to stand up for what we believe in and politicians and leaders can differ.

2017 January 31, "Questions — Official Engagements" Dáil Éireann Debates (Oireachtas)

Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has weathered the storms of the last couple of months, showing a streak too tough to be pushed out by the politicians in Leinster House.
But when the ball was thrown in to commence a public session of the Policing Authority on Thursday, it was senior hurling all the way.

2017 April 28, Conor Lally, “Tough game of senior hurling at Policing Authority session”, in The Irish Times:

The question is how to make Brexit work for all of us. … Phase one was the easiest, if any of it could be called easy. Phase two is what will really be difficult. We are into senior hurling now, to use an Irish phrase. The British will understand that pretty soon.

2018 February 1, Darragh O'Brien, "Brexit Issues: British Irish Chamber of Commerce" Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence debate (Oireachtas)

(Ireland, politics, figurative) serious, difficult, important business; hardball


die on one's arse

en-verb

die on one's arse (third-person singular simple present dies on one's arse, present participle dying on one's arse, simple past and past participle died on one's arse)

dies on one's arse (present singular third-person)
dying on one's arse (participle present)
died on one's arse (participle past)
died on one's arse (past)
die on one's ass (alternative)

He explains: "Labour still has its historic competitive advantage – people. Tory party membership is dying on its arse and no one is joining the Liberal Democrats."

2013, Andrew Grice, “Michael Dugher on Labour's 2015 election strategy: This will be the most personal election ever”, in The Independent:

[...] the record failed miserably to chart. "That album died on its arse, to be honest," admits Shane.

2014, Ian Glasper, Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980–1984, PM Press, page 18:

(British, Ireland, idiomatic, vulgar slang) To fail completely.

[...] this was very far from being my best bits. It was me, in various venues, dying on my arse, over and over again.

2008, Frank Skinner, Frank Skinner on the Road: Love, Stand-up Comedy and The Queen Of The Night, Arrow Books, published 2009, page 55:

The worst thing you can say to a comedian right after they come off stage is: "Did you enjoy that?" If somebody says that, I know I’ve died on my arse.

2018, Romesh Ranganathan, “Romesh Ranganathan: 'If someone says "did you enjoy that?" I know I've died on my arse'”, in The Guardian:

KEY: I've been known to get up on that stage and deliver a bad, um...
HORNE: Poem. I've seen you deliver some bad poems...
KEY: Yeah, I've seen you die on your ass.

2021, 00:60 from the start, in No More Jockeys, season 4, episode 4, spoken by Tim Key:

(British, Ireland, idiomatic, vulgar slang, of a comedian) To be very poorly received by an audience.


curry chip

Now here I am, in my Ford Mondeo, having been abandoned by the theatre, eating a curry chip and going back to a B&B […]

2016, Aidan Dooley, Travels with Tom Crean:

(Ireland, colloquial) A serving of chips (fries) with curry sauce.


water of life

Chiefly a calque of Medieval Latin aqua vītae directly and via Scottish Gaelic uisge-beatha and Irish uisce beatha. Compare akvavit, aquavit, aqua vitae, eau de vie, whisky, and whiskey from the same sources.

(particularly Ireland, Scotland) Synonym of whiskey/whisky.


bugger me

bugger me backwards
bugger me backwards#English

(Commonwealth, UK, Ireland) Synonym of bugger me backwards.


thruppenny

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, informal, dated) threepence


whip-around

After revealing a bizarre money trail of whip-arounds from friends, unsolicited payment for a Manchester dinner, wins on the horses, cash savings for property investments, bags of cash and a lack of bank accounts, Mr Ahern’s evidence was turned on its head by his former secretary, Grainne Carruth.

2012 March 23, Sinead O'Carroll, “Gambling, lies, whip-arounds and the Teflon Taoiseach: how the world read Mahon”, in TheJournal.ie:

BERTIE Ahern's explanation that he received an envelope stuffed with £8,000 in cash following a whip-around by a group of Manchester-based businessmen was branded untrue by the Mahon Tribunal.

2012 March 23, Colm Kelpie, “Claim of 'whip-around' by friends rubbished”, in Irish Independent:

(Ireland, UK, Commonwealth) Alternative form of whip-round.


job's a good 'un

Attested in 1968, but probably popularised by footballer Robbie Fowler who, after scoring four goals in a Premier League match against Middlesbrough on 14 December 1996, revealed a T-shirt with the phrase written on it in marker pen. He explained to the press that it was Happy Mondays percussionist Bez's catchphrase in his segment "Science with Bez" on BBC Two's The Sunday Show (1995–97).

job's a good'un (alternative)
job's a goodun (alternative)
the job's a good 'un (alternative)

We've cracked it Ginge! Showed out for a cock and hen and drew for a flag. There’s one born every minute. Let this one go for now and the job’s a good un. Hello, there’s a jam role there. And diamonds is a roles best friend. They love em! See me cop off this.

1968, Robert Roberts, Imprisoned Tongues, Manchester University Press, page 210:

‘The job’s a good ’un. Ahm getting a word put in and it’ll all be fixed up.’

1975 August, Michael Foley, “The Wrassler: A Bit of Strange”, in Fortnight, number 109, →JSTOR, page 14:

‘Well, if that's what you want,’ he says, sounding a touch ratty, ‘I’ll stop everything else and you can have the entire A350 budget to turn up at the bookshop tomorrow.’ ‘Job's a good ’un,’ I tell him. ‘Oh, and one other thing. Cash, please.’

1998 October 16, "Darren Tackle" [Jim White], “Brought to book by the Fraud squad”, The Guardian, page 16

A traffic jam made up of normal cars will be twice as long as one made up of these Japanese “kei” cars. And a kei jam will clear more quickly, because in a car the size of a bacterium you don’t have to drive round and round the block looking for somewhere to park. You just pop it in your pocket and the job’s a good ’un.

2008, Jeremy Clarkson, “The problem is ... it's out of this world”, in The Sunday Times, page 20:

‘What do you need new stuff for? Just do the stuff you did on The T Factor – that had them rolling in the aisles! Bish bash bosh! Job’s a goodun’! You get paid! And more importantly so do I!’ said Dickie with a smirk.

2018, Harry Hill, Matt Millz Stands Up!, Faber & Faber:

(British, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, colloquial) Expresses satisfaction that a task has been or will be carried out successfully, often suggesting that the task is simple, or ironically implying that it has been completed in a cursory or slapdash manner.

BBC Two
Happy Mondays
Premier League
Robbie Fowler
Sunday Mirror
The Sunday Show


spicebox

spiceboxes (plural)
spice-box (alternative)
spice box (alternative)


archlector

archlectors (plural)
Archlector (alternative)
arch-lector (alternative)
Arch-lector (alternative)
Arch-Lector (alternative)
Arch Lector (alternative)

(historical, Ireland) eminent scholastic, used as a title.


porridge drawer

en-noun

porridge drawer (plural porridge drawers)

(Scotland, Ireland, historical) A drawer in which freshly cooked porridge was left to cool, to be served in hardened slices later on.


Auxie

(Ireland, slang, historical) A member of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary.


en-verb

think<,,thought> the sun shines<shines,shines,shone:shined> out of someone's arse

think the sun shines out of someone's arse (third-person singular simple present thinks the sun shines out of someone's arse, present participle thinking the sun shines out of someone's arse, simple past and past participle thought the sun shone out of someone's arse or thought the sun shined out of someone's arse)

(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, figuratively) To think so well of someone that one cannot imagine anything wrong with them.


boil someone's piss

boil someone's piss (third-person singular simple present boils someone's piss, present participle boiling someone's piss, simple past and past participle boiled someone's piss)

boils someone's piss (present singular third-person)
boiling someone's piss (participle present)
boiled someone's piss (participle past)
boiled someone's piss (past)

(UK, Ireland, slang, vulgar) To irritate someone very much; to make someone very annoyed.


mislest

mislest (third-person singular simple present mislests, present participle mislesting, simple past and past participle mislested)

mislests (present singular third-person)
mislesting (participle present)
mislested (participle past)
mislested (past)

Apparently an alteration of molest, after mis-.

“I'd scorn for to mislest a gentleman when he's taking his pleasure.”

1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, III.v.12:

(now Ireland, England regional) To molest, mistreat.


spag bog

en-noun

spag bog (usually uncountable, plural spag bogs)

Once the furore had been dampened, the minuscule snick on Billy's knee covered in a Superman plaster, black marks placed on Mabel's Consequences Chart, and spag bog placed in their stomachs, I found my mind flashing through multiple matters, like that of a drowning person, only more optimistic.

2013, Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, →ISBN:

(Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, South Africa, slang) Alternative form of spag bol.


in rag order

He looks to be in rag order, one hand on the wall to hold himself up, the other one on his trousers, to hold them up by the looks of it. It's fairly cold out and he's making slow progress to wherever he's headed.

2003, Donal Ruane, Tales in a Rearview Mirror, page 80:

We took over the plant in rag order but had to hand it over as per BAOR standards. So light bulbs that weren't working on the dashboard had to be replaced, an A type job, or Operator job.

2009, Julian Beirne, Diary of a Sapper, page 289:

Our parents left the world in reasonably good shape but I've a horrible feeling we'll be leaving it in rag order. And I'm in rag order, myself. I'm halfway down the stairs in the morning before I'm convinced that I'm awake, that I'm actually alive.

(UK, Ireland, military, slang) In a state of mess or chaos.


whatten

Originally a contraction of what kind (of) (the DSL traces the Scots cognate back to Middle English whatkin, whatkyn, but the MED's only example is of the two-word collocation what kyn), later used in place of bare what.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:whatten.

(Northern England, Scotland, Ireland, dialect, archaic) What.


stocious

en-adj

stocious (comparative more stocious, superlative most stocious)

more stocious (comparative)
most stocious (superlative)
stotious (alternative)
stoshious (alternative)

Uncertain. The ending -ious appears to be a mock-Latinate jocular formation. Suggestions for the initial sto- or stot- include:
* Arbitrary
* From an unidentified Irish word
** David Crystal doubtfully suggests Irish stuagach "pitcher" or Irish stab "stoup".
* Jonathon Green suggests Scots stot "totter"
* Tony Thorne suggests "a dialect word meaning waterlogged or muddy" (?stodge)
Green distinguishes this word from stocious, Caribbean slang for "stylish; good-looking; arrogant", a corruption of ostentatious.

By contrast they have a whole flock of words to discriminate the various degrees of intoxication. Beginning with the delightful “Drink-taken,” you have half-towed, sizzled, flukaw, flutered, spifflu, langers, and stocious. The last word rhymes with atrocious and means thickly speaking drunk. Anybody who is stocious ought to be taken home before he starts fighting—unless he is already past it, which he probably is.

1949, Charles Graves, Ireland Revisited, page 20:

Asked by the committee chairman, Mr Batt O'Keeffe, why young people were going out at night "to get absolutely stocious drunk", he suggested young people were influenced by what they saw around them, including the excesses of adults.

2003 January 24, Eithne Donnellan, “A&E doctors to be asked about young drinkers in hospitals”, in The Irish Times:

(Ireland, slang) very drunk, intoxicated


salesmaster

The practice of country gentlemen dealing through salesmasters is always to treat them just in the same manner as bankers, the salesmaster keeping a running debit and credit account, and paying over sums from time to time as his employer calls for them.

1847, Irish Equity Reports Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery, page 399:

His second wife was Maria Byme,4 one of the daughters of Joseph Byme, also a salesmaster of Smithfield, Dublin.

2004, Kaye Cole, The Germaines: A Huguenot Family from the Irish Midlands, page 13:

(Ireland, historical) One who sells goods on behalf of the owner.


Co-op mix

We found one once, 550lbs of Co-Op mix — and we found the firing position, on our side of the border. So I stood on this bloody thing […]

1985, Desmond Hamill, Pig in the Middle: The Army in Northern Ireland, 1969-1984, page 198:

Disrupting Co-op mix devices by burning off the mixture by the use of low-velocity bullets proved ineffective […]

2008, A. R. Oppenheimer, IRA, The Bombs and the Bullets: A History of Deadly Ingenuity:

(UK, Ireland) A mixture of sodium chlorate and nitrobenzene used in making improvised bombs during The Troubles in Northern Ireland.


salty liquorice

en-noun

salty liquorice (countable and uncountable, plural salty liquorices)

UK and Ireland standard spelling of salty licorice.


kyar

After passing through Newbridge, where the cavalry barracks are, a 'kyar' took us to the Curragh Camp, where two or three thousand men only were then in camp.

1874, The Oriental Sporting Magazine, page 383:

The first Bianconi Car started from Clonmel to Cahir, twelve miles, on the 5th of July, 1815, the fare was eighteenpence; but no one patronised it! Not a single passenger tried the car; the peasantry could walk gratis why pay for a "kyar"?

1892, Henry Frith, The Romance of Engineering, page 64:


NCTE

w:National Centre for Technology in Education

(Ireland) Initialism of National Centre for Technology in Education.


shirtlifter

(UK, Ireland) Alternative spelling of shirt lifter.


twat around

en-verb

twat around (third-person singular simple present twats around, present participle twatting around, simple past and past participle twatted around)

twats around (present singular third-person)
twatting around (participle present)
twatted around (participle past)
twatted around (past)

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang, vulgar) To mess around; to engage in idle foolish behaviour.


twat about

twat about (third-person singular simple present twats about, present participle twatting about, simple past and past participle twatted about)

twats about (present singular third-person)
twatting about (participle present)
twatted about (participle past)
twatted about (past)


nignay

nignays (plural)
nigg-nye (alternative)
nig-naye (alternative)

And if you were only to see the sums which those thoughtless young lads, who have ten times more money than wit to guide it, throw away on useless nigg-nyes, while thousands around them are pinched for the necessaries of life, it would make the very hair of your head, my dear Archy, stand up like the locks of Medusa.

1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 270:

He had a lot o' curious auld nig-nayes.

(Scotland, Ireland) Something trivial or worthless.


seatie

All those years of having Katie chase after him—please, Tommy, I want a seatie—with Mum's threats—you dare put her on that bike, Thomas, and so help me... But of course he'd never let his sister on his bike.

2015, Debbie McGowan, Raine O'Tierney, Christmas Craic and Mistletoe, page 302:

'It's not a fair race,' said Ibrahim. 'Because whoever gives you a seatie always loses.'

2017, Hayley Long, The Nearest Faraway Place:

(UK, Ireland, colloquial) Synonym of backie (“a ride on the back of a cycle”).


tooraloo

So long! See you soon! Too-ra-loo!

—Toraloo, Lenehan said. See you later.

1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

So poor Admiral Nelson, toora loo

1966, Joseph Dolan, “Nelson’s Farewell”, as covered by The Dubliners, Transatlantic Records

Tooraloo, must get at the new White Mule. […] I didn’t set out to write a letter as long as this. What the hell’s the matter with me?

1984, William Carlos Williams, The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams, New Directions,, →ISBN, page 184:


tura-lura

“Well, off with you then, and I’m off too. Sing tura la, tura la, tura lura la.”

1853, Frederick Marryat, Poor Jack, H.G. Bohn, page 213:

Over in Killarney, many years ago / My Mother sang a song to me in tones so sweet and low / Just a simple little ditty, in her good ould Irish way / And I’d give the world if she could sing / That song to me this day
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral / Too-ra-loo-ra-li / Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral / Hush now don’t you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral / Too-ra-loo-ra-li / Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral / That’s an Irish lullaby
Oft, in dreams I wander to that cot again / I feel her arms a huggin’ me as when she held me then / And I hear her voice a hummin’ to me as in days of yore / When she used to rock me fast asleep outside the cabin door

1913, James Royce Shannon, “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral”, “That’s an Irish Lullaby”, M.Witmark & Sons, New York

Bring your old iron, bits o’ brass / Tura-lura-laddi / Bring your old iron, bits o’ brass / Tura-lura-lido

1964, “Old Iron, Bits o’ Brass”, in Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, page 102:

Tur-a-lur-a-la, tur-a-lur-a-lae / A small bird sat on an ivy branch, and the song he sang was a Jug of Punch

1982 June, unattributed/traditional, “Jug of Punch”, Soodlum's Irish Ballad Book, Oak Publications, unpaged

Toora loora toora loo rye ay / And we can sing just like our fathers […]

1982 June 25, Kevin Rowland, “Come On Eileen”, Too-Rye-Ay, Mercury Records

Toora loora toora loo rye ay / And you’ll hum this toon forever


slowrie

...a pot of potatoes in their jackets which swung from the slowrie, the hook over the fire.

Fill the three-legged pot 3/4 full of water and hang it on the slowrie.

1908, Sophia Morrison, Manx Cookery Book:

(chiefly Isle of Man, also Scotland and Ireland) A chain or hook used for hanging a pot while cooking.


guggy egg

(Ireland) A dish for a young child consisting of a soft-to-medium boiled egg with butter, salt, and pepper, served mashed in a cup.


Mullingar heifer

en-noun

Mullingar heifer (plural Mullingar heifers)

(Ireland, slang, obsolete) A girl with thick ankles.


let-out

It has of course the brilliant let-out that it does not seek to prove that its statements are true, but only that they are “verifiable”. This principle is relatively weak: Wikipedists are supposed to be able to source their remarks.

2007, Richard D. North, “Scrap the BBC!”: Ten Years to Set Broadcasters Free, London: Social Affairs Unit, →ISBN, page 141:

(idiomatic, chiefly UK, Ireland) An opportunity to avoid or escape from a difficult or unpleasant situation.


licensed premises

(British, Ireland, law) a place which is licensed for the sale of alcoholic beverages to the public for consumption on the premises; a public house or bar


found-on

found-ons (plural)
found on (alternative)

Judge Devins convicted Mr Kilkenny of after-hours trading and imposed a fine of €1,500. She also fined each of the found-ons €85 each.

2003 May 24 "8 hid in toilet during Garda pub search" The Irish Times

Some Co Donegal gardaí tarnished after-hours drinking prosecutions against a Raphoe publican by planting a found-on in the pub, the Morris Tribunal heard today.

2005 July 27, “Morris: Gardaí 'tarnished pub prosecution by planting witness'”, in Irish Examiner:

2017 March 2, Denise McNamara, “‘Found-ons’ leave award-winning pub fearing forced closure”, in Connacht Tribune:

(Ireland, colloquial) A person found by the police consuming alcohol on licensed premises outside opening hours


talk the ears off a donkey

en-verb

talk the ears off a donkey (third-person singular simple present talks the ears off a donkey, present participle talking the ears off a donkey, simple past and past participle talked the ears off a donkey)

talks the ears off a donkey (present singular third-person)
talking the ears off a donkey (participle present)
talked the ears off a donkey (participle past)
talked the ears off a donkey (past)

talk the hind leg off a donkey
talk the hind leg off a donkey#English

(UK, Ireland, informal) Synonym of talk the hind leg off a donkey.


transfer test

(UK, Ireland, education) An examination administered to some students in their last year of primary education, governing admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools that use academic selection.


tripartite system

(UK, Ireland, education, historical) The division of state-funded secondary education into three types of school: grammar school, secondary technical school, and secondary modern school; used between 1945 and the 1970s in England and Wales, and from 1947 to 2009 in Northern Ireland. Performance in the 11-plus examination determined which type of school a student would attend.


Norwich Pharmacal order

en-noun

Norwich Pharmacal order (plural Norwich Pharmacal orders)

First granted in 1974 in the case of Norwich Pharmacal Co. v Customs and Excise Commissioners.

(UK, Ireland, law) A court order granted against a third party which has been innocently mixed up in wrongdoing, forcing the disclosure of documents or information.


racy of the soil

en-adj

racy of the soil (comparative more racy of the soil, superlative most racy of the soil)

more racy of the soil (comparative)
most racy of the soil (superlative)
racy of one's soil (alternative)

See racy senses 2 and 3. Popularised in Ireland in the slogan of The Nation (1842–1900) — "To create and foster public opinion in Ireland, and to make it racy of the soil" — adapted from a remark by Stephen Woulfe on the Irish Municipal Reform Bill. Similar earlier phrases were used by William Drennan in Letters of Orellana in 1785, and by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1831.

We have got such foreign and fantastic field sports as lawn-tennis, polo, croquet, cricket, and the like—very excellent, I believe, and health-giving exercises in their way, still not racy of the soil, but rather alien, on the contrary, to it, as are, indeed, for the most part the men and women who first imported and still continue to patronise them.

1884 December 24, Thomas Croke, “To Mr Michael Cusack, Honorary Secretary of the Gaelic Athletic Association”, in The Freeman’s Journal:

RTÉ pundit Joe Brolly echoed this concern from his racy-of-the soil redoubt in the weekend’s Mail on Sunday.

2014 April 19, Seán Moran, “Five-ish things the GAA can learn from the Sky television deal”, in The Irish Times:

(usually Ireland, dated) Deeply connected to a place, especially Ireland; indigenous.


shower of shite

en-noun

shower of shite (plural showers of shite)

(vulgar, chiefly UK, Ireland, very uncommon) Alternative form of shower of shit.


Jailtacht

(Ireland, slang) An area in a prison where Irish was spoken, particularly during the Troubles.


prat around

en-verb

prat around (third-person singular simple present prats around, present participle pratting around, simple past and past participle pratted around)

prats around (present singular third-person)
pratting around (participle present)
pratted around (participle past)
pratted around (past)

(British, Ireland, intransitive, informal) To behave foolishly.


extension lead

(electronics, UK, Ireland) extension cord


die roaring

die roaring (third-person singular simple present dies roaring, present participle dying roaring, simple past and past participle died roaring)

dies roaring (present singular third-person)
dying roaring (participle present)
died roaring (participle past)
died roaring (past)

May you die roaring like Doran's bull!

1910, Patrick Weston Joyce, “Comparisons”, in English as we speak it in Ireland, London: Longmans, Green, page 137:

"Did you ever see a fellow hanged?"
"I saw dozens of them," he assured me solemnly, "and they all died roaring."

1939 March, Frank O'Connor, “First Confession”, in Harper's Bazaar:

The genial, white-haired Malachy also enthralled the audience with grim jokes about how Henry VIII and Randolph Churchill died roaring from syphillis.

1997 September 13, “The court of Malachy”, in The Irish Times:

(Ireland, colloquial, dated) die in agony, especially as divine punishment for a wicked life


die roaring for a priest

die roaring for a priest (third-person singular simple present dies roaring for a priest, present participle dying roaring for a priest, simple past and past participle died roaring for a priest)

dies roaring for a priest (present singular third-person)
dying roaring for a priest (participle present)
died roaring for a priest (participle past)
died roaring for a priest (past)
die roaring for the priest (alternative)

Variation of die roaring; in Catholicism, without a priest a dying person cannot receive the sacraments of confession or extreme unction.

“God’s curse down on you, Burke; may you never lie quiet in bed; may your children wither and die; may your rooftree fall; may your seed and breed in every generation from this day forward bring forth a thief or a murderer of his own kind; may brother rise against brother in every generation; may you never see the face of God; may you live to see the ruin of your family; may you die roaring for the priest and him far away—”

1973, Eilís Dillon, Across the Bitter Sea, page 436:

Suffice it to say that the barman physically hustled him towards the door, as Gus struggled and shouted, "I hope you die roaring for a priest."

1996, Marian Keyes, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Poolbeg, →ISBN, page 654:

(Ireland, Catholicism, colloquial, dated) repent too late of one's sins; (hence) be damned


cushlamachree

cushlamachrees (plural)
cushlamochree (alternative)


ICLVR

w:Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains

(Ireland) Initialism of Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains.


pookaun

pookauns (plural)
pookhaun (alternative)
pookawn (alternative)

(Ireland) A kind of small fishing boat from the region of Galway in Ireland.


knobend

No, I'm fuckin ' delited dat meself an ' Derek leave youse two alone fer two bleedin' minits te go te de jax, an' wen we come back, yer givin' it lodes te some knobend ! ”

2003, Donal Ruane, Tales in a Rearview Mirror, page 170:

We'd bother beforehand when some knobend took exception to Fred's accent. Within seconds, a team of boys from Kelty was on the scene, and the knobend was removed.

2011, Adrian Searle, The Hope That Kills Us:

That isn't to say there aren't “knobends” in the voluntary sector – there are plenty of them. But the ethos of the sector is about positive social change for the better, and breaking taboos of all kinds is part of this.

2019, Jen Wight, Rattled: Overcoming Postpartum Psychosis:

(UK, Ireland) Alternative form of knob-end.


knob-end

knob-ends (plural)
knobend (alternative)
knob end (alternative)
nob end (alternative)
nob-end (alternative)

He appreciated a man giving head as much as anyone, and he was sure as hell gonna enjoy the feel of his knob-end slipping between Casey's hungry lips.

2006, Marc Holland, Mark Stone: Secret Agent, page 30:

Lenny Plant thought the world of his foreskin, appreciating the benefits it bestowed on his knob-end.

2014, Andrew Price, Poor Enid, page 343:

(UK, Ireland, slang, vulgar) The glans penis

Why did these knob-ends so much want us to fail?

2001, Hamish MacDonald, The Gravy Star, page 51:

Nothing ever sickened me more than pre-season friendlies, when English teams would come over and total knob-ends would actually show up at the matches to cheer on the foreign side.

2006, Johnny Fallon, Party Time: Growing Up in Politics, page 157:

That's it, you pair of knob-ends.

2010, Kimberley Chambers, The Betrayer, page 150:

(UK, Ireland, slang, offensive, vulgar) A stupid or contemptible person


WX

Possibly by analogy with single-word medical terms such as Hx (“history”) and Dx (“diagnosis”), which were patterned after the earlier Rx.


sevendible

en-adj

sevendible (comparative more sevendible, superlative most sevendible)

more sevendible (comparative)
most sevendible (superlative)
savendible (alternative)

Perhaps from seven double, i.e. sevenfold.

(Ireland, informal, obsolete) thorough; complete; utter.