English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 16

If you don't stop your abuse I'll give you a s.h.i.+rt full of sore bones.

Yes, poor Jack was once well off, but now he hasn't as much money as would jingle on a tombstone.

That cloth is very coa.r.s.e: why you could shoot straws through it.

Strong dislike:--I don't like a bone in his body.

'Do you know Bill Finnerty well?' 'Oh indeed I know every bone in his body,' i.e. I know him and all his ways intimately.

A man is low stout and very fat: if you met him in the street you'd rather jump over him than walk round him. {124}

He knew as much Latin as if he swallowed a dictionary. (Gerald Griffin.)

The word _destroy_ is very often used to characterize any trifling damage easily remedied:--That car splashed me, and my coat is all destroyed.

'They kept me dancin' for 'em in the kitchen,' says Barney Broderick, 'till I hadn't a leg to put under me.' ('Knocknagow.')

This farm of mine is as bad land as ever a crow flew over.

He's as great a rogue as ever stood in shoe-leather.

When Jack heard the news of the money that was coming to him he was _jumping out of his skin_ with delight.

I bought these books at an auction, and I got them for a song: in fact I got them for half nothing.

Very bad slow music is described as _the tune the old cow died of_.

A child is afraid of a dog: '_Yerra_ he won't touch you': meaning 'he won't bite you.'

A man having a very bad aim in shooting:--'He wouldn't hit a hole in a ladder.'

Carleton's blind fiddler says to a young girl: 'You could dance _the Colleen dhas dhown_ [a jig] upon a spider's cobweb without breaking it.'

An ill-conducted man:--'That fellow would shame a field of tinkers.' The tinkers of sixty years ago, who were not remarkable for their honesty or good conduct, commonly travelled the country in companies, and camped out in fields or wild places.

I was dying to hear the news; i.e. excessively anxious. {125}

Where an Englishman will say 'I shall be pleased to accept your invitation,' an Irishman will say 'I will be delighted to accept,' &c.

Mick Fraher is always eating garlick and his breath has a terrible smell--a smell of garlick strong enough to hang your hat on.

A mean thief:--He'd steal a halfpenny out of a blind beggarman's hat. (P.

Reilly: Kild.)

A dexterous thief:--He'd steal the sugar out of your punch.

An inveterate horse thief:--Throw a halter in his grave and he'll start up and steal a horse.

Of an impious and dexterous thief:--'He'd steal the cross off an a.s.s's back,' combining skill and profanation. According to the religious legend the back of the a.s.s is marked with a cross ever since the day of our Lord's public entry into Jerusalem upon an a.s.s.

A man who makes unreasonably long visits--who outstays his welcome:--'If that man went to a wedding he'd wait for the christening.'

I once asked a young Dublin lady friend was she angry at not getting an invitation to the party: 'Oh I was fit to be tied.' A common expression among us to express great indignation.

A person is expressing confidence that a certain good thing will happen which will bring advantage to everyone, but which after all is very unlikely, and someone replies:--'Oh yes: when the sky falls we'll all catch larks.'

A useless unavailing proceeding, most unlikely to be attended with any result, such as trying to persuade a person who is obstinately bent on having his {126} own way:--'You might as well be whistling jigs to a milestone' [expecting it to dance].

'Would you know him if you saw him?' 'Would I know him!--why I'd know his skin in a tan-yard'--'I'd know his shadow on a furze-bus.h.!.+'

A person considered very rich:--That man is _rotten with money_. He doesn't know what to do with his money.

You gave me a great start: you put the heart across in me: my heart jumped into my mouth. The people said that Miss Mary Kearney put the heart across in Mr. Lowe, the young Englishman visitor. ('Knocknagow.')

I heard Mat Halahan the tailor say to a man who had just fitted on a new coat:--That coat fits you just as if you were melted into it.

He is as lazy as the dog that always puts his head against the wall to bark. (Moran: Carlow.)

In running across the field where the young people were congregated Nelly Donovan trips and falls: and Billy Heffernan, running up, says:--'Oh Nelly did you fall: come here till I take you up.' ('Knocknagow.')

'The road flew under him,' to express the swiftness of a man galloping or running afoot.

Bessie Morris was such a flirt that Barney Broderick said she'd coort a haggard of sparrows. ('Knocknagow.')

I wish I were on yonder hill, 'Tis there I'd sit and cry my fill, Till ev'ry tear would turn a mill.

(_Shool Aroon_: 'Old Irish Folk Song.')

{127}

But after all this is not half so great an exaggeration as what the cultivated English poet wrote:--

I found her on the floor In all the storm of grief, yet beautiful, Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate, That were the world on fire it might have drowned The wrath of Heaven and quenched the mighty ruin.

A great dandy wears his hat on three hairs of his head.

He said such funny things that the company were _splitting their sides_ laughing.

Matt Donovan (in 'Knocknagow') says of his potatoes that had fine stalks but little produce--_desavers_ as he called them--Every stalk of 'em would make a rafter for a house. But put the best man in the parish to dig 'em and a duck would swallow all he'd be able to turn out from morning till night.

Sometimes distinct numbers come in where they hardly apply. Not long ago I read in an article in the 'Daily Mail' by Mr. Stead, of British 's.h.i.+ps all over the seven seas.' So also here at home we read 'round the four seas of Ireland' (which is right enough): and 'You care for nothing in the world but your own four bones' (i.e. nothing but yourself). 'Come on then, old beer-swiller, and try yourself against the four bones of an Irishman' (R.

D. Joyce: 'The House of Lisbloom.') _Four bones_ in this sense is very common.

A person meeting a friend for the first time after a long interval says 'Well, it's a cure for sore eyes to see you.' 'I haven't seen you now for a month of {128} Sundays,' meaning a long time. _A month of Sundays_ is thirty-one Sundays--seven or eight months.

Said jokingly of a person with very big feet:--He wasn't behind the door anyway when the feet were giving out.

When a man has to use the utmost exertion to accomplish anything or to escape a danger he says: 'That business put me to the pin of my collar.'

The allusion is to a fellow whose clothes are falling off him for want of b.u.t.tons and pins. At last to prevent the final catastrophe he has to pull out the bra.s.s pin that fastens his collar and pin waistcoat and trousers-band together.