English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 47

Prashameen; a little group all cl.u.s.tered together:--'The children sat in a prashameen on the floor.' I have heard this word a hundred times in Limerick {307} among English speakers: its Irish form should be _praisimin_, but I do not find it in the dictionaries.

Prashkeen; an ap.r.o.n. Common all over Ireland. Irish _praiscin_, same sound and meaning.

Prawkeen; raw oatmeal and milk (MacCall: South Leinster.) See Porter-meal.

Prepositions, incorrect use of, 26, 32, 44.

Presently; at present, now:--'I'm living in the country presently.' A Shakespearian survival:--Prospero:--'Go bring the rabble.'

Ariel:--'Presently?' [i.e. shall I do so now?] Prospero:--'Ay, with a wink.' Extinct in England, but preserved and quite common in Ireland.

Priested; ordained: 'He was priested last year.'

Priest's share; the soul. A mother will say to a refractory child:--'I'll knock the priest's share out of you.' (Moran: Carlow.)

Professions hereditary, 172.

p.r.o.nunciation, 2, 91 to 104.

Protestant herring: Originally applied to a bad or a stale herring: but in my boyhood days it was applied, in our neighbourhood, to almost anything of an inferior quality:--'Oh that b.u.t.ter is a Protestant herring.' Here is how it originated:--Mary Hewer of our village had been for time out of mind the only huckster who sold salt herrings, sending to Cork for a barrel from time to time, and making good profit.

At last Poll Alltimes sent for a barrel and set up an opposition shop, taking away a large part of Mary's custom. Mary was a Catholic and Poll a Protestant: and then our herrings became sharply distinguished as Catholic herrings and Protestant herrings: each party eating herrings {308} of their own creed. But after some time a horrible story began to go round--whispered at first under people's breath--that Poll found _the head of a black_ with long hair packed among the herrings half way down in her barrel. Whether the people believed it or not, the bare idea was enough; and Protestant herrings suddenly lost character, so that poor Poll's sale fell off at once, while Mary soon regained all her old customers. She well deserved it, if anyone ever deserved a reward for a master-stroke of genius. But I think this is all 'forgotten lore' in the neighbourhood now.

Proverbs, 105.

Puck; to play the puck with anything: a softened equivalent of _playing the devil_. _Puck_ here means the Pooka, which see.

Puck; a blow:--'He gave him a puck of a stick on the head.' More commonly applied to a punch or blow of the horns of a cow or goat. 'The cow gave him a puck (or pucked him) with her horns and knocked him down.' The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his _caman_ or hurley is always called a _puck_. Irish _poc_, same sound and meaning.

Puckaun; a he-goat. (South.) Irish _poc_, a he-goat, with the diminutive.

Puke; a poor puny unhealthy-looking person.

Pulling a cord (or _the cord_); said of a young man and a young woman who are courting:--'Miss Anne and himself that's pulling the cord.'

('Knocknagow.')

Pulloge; a quant.i.ty of hidden apples: usually hidden by a boy who steals them. (Limerick.) Diminutive of the Irish _poll_, a hole. {309}

Pusheen; the universal word for a kitten in Munster: a diminutive of the English word _puss_; exactly equivalent to _p.u.s.s.y_.

Puss [_u_ sounded as in _full_]; the mouth and lips, always used _in dialect_ in an offensive or contemptuous sense:--'What an ugly _puss_ that fellow has.' 'He had a puss on him,' i.e. he looked sour or displeased--with lips contracted. I heard one boy say to another:--'I'll give you a _skelp_ (blow) on the puss.' (General.) Irish _pus_, the mouth, same sound.

Pusthaghaun; a puffed up conceited fellow. The corresponding word applied to a girl is _pusthoge_ (MacCall: Wexford): the diminutive termination _aun_ or _chaun_ being masculine and _og_ feminine. Both are from _pus_ the mouth, on account of the consequential way a conceited person squares up the lips.

Quaw or quagh; a _quag_ or quagmire:--'I was unwilling to attempt the _quagh_.' (Maxwell: 'Wild Sports': Mayo, but used all over Ireland.) Irish _caedh_ [quay], for which and for the names derived from it, see 'Irish Names of Places': II. 396.

Quality; gentlemen and gentlewomen as distinguished from the common people. Out of use in England, but general in Ireland:--'Make room for the quality.'

Queer, generally p.r.o.nounced _quare_; used as an intensive in Ulster:--This day is quare and hot (very hot); he is quare and sick (very sick): like _fine and fat_ elsewhere (see p. 89).

Quin or quing; the swing-tree, a piece of wood used {310} to keep the chains apart in ploughing to prevent them rubbing the horses. (Cork and Kerry.) Irish _cuing_ [quing], a yoke.

Quit: in Ulster 'quit that' means _cease from that_:--'quit your crying.' In Queen's County they say _rise out of that_.

Rabble; used in Ulster to denote a fair where workmen congregate on the hiring day to be hired by the surrounding farmers. See Spalpeen.

Rack. In Munster an ordinary comb is called a _rack_: the word _comb_ being always applied and confined to a small close fine-toothed one.

Rackrent; an excessive rent of a farm, so high as to allow to the occupier a bare and poor subsistence. Not used outside Ireland except so far as it has been recently brought into prominence by the Irish land question.

Rag on every bush; a young man who is caught by and courts many girls but never proposes.

Raghery; a kind of small-sized horse; a name given to it from its original home, the island of Rathlin or Raghery off Antrim.

Rake; to cover up with ashes the live coals of a turf fire, which will keep them alive till morning:--'Don't forget to rake the fire.'

Randy; a scold. (Kinahan: general.)

Rap; a bad halfpenny: a bad coin:--'He hasn't a rap in his pocket.'

Raumaush or raumaish; _romance_ or fiction, but now commonly applied to foolish senseless brainless talk. Irish _ramas_ or _ramais_, which is merely adapted from the word _romance_. {311}

Raven's bit; a beast that is going to die. (Kinahan.)

Rawney; a delicate person looking in poor health; a poor sickly-looking animal. (Connaught.) Irish _ranaidhe_, same sound and meaning.

Reansha; brown bread: sometimes corrupted to _range_-bread. (MacCall: Wexford.)

Red or redd; clear, clear out, clear away:--Redd the road, the same as the Irish _f.a.g-a-ballagh_, 'clear the way.' If a girl's hair is in bad tangles, she uses a _redding-comb_ first to open it, and then a finer comb.

Redden; to light: 'Take the bellows and redden the fire.' An Irishman hardly ever _lights_ his pipe: he _reddens_ it.

Redundancy, 52, 130.

Ree; as applied to a horse means restive, wild, almost unmanageable.

Reek; a rick:--A reek of turf: so the Kerry mountains, 'MacGillicuddy's Reeks.'

Reel-foot; a club-foot, a deformed foot. (Ulster.) 'Reel-footed and hunch-backed forbye, sir.' (Old Ulster song.)

Reenaw'lee; a slow-going fellow who dawdles and delays and hesitates about things. (Munster.) Irish _ria.n.a.laidhe_, same sound and meaning: from _rian_, a way, track, or road: _ria.n.a.laidhe_ , a person who wanders listlessly along the _way_.

Reign. This word is often used in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, in the sense of to occupy, to be master of: 'Who is in the Knockea farm?'

'Mr. Keating reigns there now.' 'Who is your landlord?' 'The old master is dead and his son Mr. William reigns over us now.' 'Long may {312} your honour [the master] reign over us.' (Crofton Croker.) In answer to an examination question, a young fellow from Cork once answered me, 'Shakespeare reigned in the sixteenth century.' This usage is borrowed from Irish, in which the verb _riaghail_ [ree-al] means both to rule (as a master), and to reign (as a king), and as in many other similar cases the two meanings were confounded in English. (Kinahan and myself.)

Relics of old decency. When a man goes down in the world he often preserves some memorials of his former rank--a ring, silver buckles in his shoes, &c.--'the relics of old decency.'