English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 48

Revelagh; a long lazy gadding fellow. (Morris: Monaghan.)

Rib; a single hair from the head. A poet, praising a young lady, says that 'every golden _rib_ of her hair is worth five guineas.' Irish _ruibe_ [ribbe], same meaning.

Rickle; a little heap of turf peats standing on ends against each other. (Derry.) Irish _ricil_, same sound and meaning.

Riddles, 185.

Ride and tie. Two persons set out on a journey having one horse. One rides on while the other sets out on foot after him. The first man, at the end of a mile or two, ties up the horse at the roadside and proceeds on foot. When the second comes to the horse he mounts and rides till he is one or two miles ahead of his comrade and then ties.

And so to the end of the journey. A common practice in old times for courier purposes; but not in use now, I think. {313}

Rife, a scythe-sharpener, a narrow piece of board punctured all over and covered with grease on which fine sand is sprinkled. Used before the present emery sharpener was known. (Moran: Carlow.) Irish _riabh_ [reev], a long narrow stripe.

Right or wrong: often heard for _earnestly_: 'he pressed me right or wrong to go home with him.'

Ringle-eyed; when the iris is light-coloured, and the circle bounding it is very marked, the person is _ringle-eyed_. (Derry.)

Rings; often used as follows:--'Did I sleep at all?' 'Oh indeed you did--you _slept rings round you_.'

Rip; a coa.r.s.e ill-conditioned woman with a bad tongue. (General.)

Roach lime; lime just taken from the kiln, burnt, _before_ being slaked and while still in the form of stones. This is old English from French _roche_, a rock, a stone.

Roasters; potatoes kept crisping on the coals to be brought up to table hot at the end of the dinner--usually the largest ones picked out. But the word _roaster_ was used only among the lower cla.s.s of people: the higher cla.s.ses considered it vulgar. Here is how Mr. Patrick Murray (see p. 154) describes them about 1840 in a parody on Moore's 'One b.u.mper at parting' (a _lumper_, in Mr. Murray's version, means a big potato):--

'One _lumper_ at parting, though many Have rolled on the board since we met, The biggest the hottest of any Remains in the round for us yet.'

In the higher cla.s.s of houses they were peeled and brought up at the end nice and brown in {314} a dish. About eighty years ago a well-known military gentleman of Baltingla.s.s in the County Wicklow--whose daughter told me the story--had on one occasion a large party of friends to dinner. On the very day of the dinner the waiter took ill, and the stable boy--a big coa.r.s.e fellow--had to be called in, after elaborate instructions. All went well till near the end of the dinner, when the fellow thought things were going on rather slowly. Opening the diningroom door he thrust in his head and called out in the hearing of all:--'Masther, are ye ready for the _roasthers_?' A short time ago I was looking at the house and diningroom where that occurred.

Rocket; a little girl's frock. (Very common in Limerick.) It is of course an old application of the English-French _rochet_.

Rodden; a _bohereen_ or narrow road. (Ulster.) It is the Irish _roidin_, little road.

Roman; used by the people in many parts of Ireland for _Roman Catholic_. I have already quoted what the Catholic girl said to her Protestant lover:--'Unless that you turn a _Roman_ you ne'er shall get me for your bride.' Sixty or seventy years ago controversial discussions--between a Catholic on the one hand and a Protestant on the other--were very common. I witnessed many when I was a boy--to my great delight. Garrett Barry, a Roman Catholic, locally noted as a controversialist, was arguing with Mick Cantlon, surrounded by a group of delighted listeners. At last Garrett, as a final clincher, took up the Bible, opened it at a certain place, and handed it to his opponent, {315} with:--'Read that heading out for us now if you please.' Mick took it up and read 'St. Paul's Epistle to the _Romans_.' 'Very well,'

says Garrett: 'now can you show me in any part of that Bible, 'St.

Paul's Epistle to the _Protestants_'? This of course was a down blow; and Garrett was greeted with a great hurrah by the Catholic part of his audience. This story is in 'Knocknagow,' but the thing occurred in my neighbourhood, and I heard about it long before 'Knocknagow' was written.

Rookaun; great noisy merriment. Also a drinking-bout. (Limerick.)

Room. In a peasant's house the _room_ is a special apartment distinct from the kitchen or living-room, which is not a 'room' in this sense at all. I slept in the kitchen and John slept in the 'room.' (Healy and myself: Munster.)

Round coal; coal in lumps as distinguished from slack or coal broken up small and fine.

Ruction, ructions; fighting, squabbling, a fight, a row. It is a memory of the _Insurrection_ of 1798, which was commonly called the 'Ruction.'

Rue-rub; when a person incautiously scratches an itchy spot so as to break the skin: that is _rue-rub_. (Derry.) From _rue_, regret or sorrow.

Rury; a rough hastily-made cake or bannock. (Morris: Monaghan.)

Rut; the smallest bonnive in a litter. (Kildare and Carlow.)

Saluting, salutations, 14.

Sapples; soap suds: _sapple_, to wash in suds. (Derry.) {316}

Saulavotcheer; a person having _lark-heels_. (Limerick.) The first syll. is Irish; _sal_ [saul], heel.

Sauvaun; a rest, a light doze or nap. (Munster.) Irish _samhan_, same sound and meaning, from _samh_ [sauv], pleasant and tranquil.

Scagh; a whitethorn bush. (General.) Irish _sceach_, same sound and meaning.

Scaghler: a little fish--the pinkeen or thornback: Irish _sceach_ [scagh], a thorn or thornbush, and the English termination _ler_.

Scald: to be _scalded_ is to be annoyed, mortified, sorely troubled, vexed. (Very general.) Translated from one or the other of two Irish words, _loisc_ [lusk], to burn; and _scall_, to _scald_. Finn Bane says:--'Guary being angry with me he scorched me (_romloisc_), burned me, _scalded_ me, with abuse.' ('Colloquy.') 'I earned that money hard and 'tis a great _heart-scald_ (_scollach-croidhe_) to me to lose it.'

There is an Irish air called 'The _Scalded_ poor man.' ('Old Irish Music and Songs.')

Scalder, an unfledged bird (South): _scaldie_ and _scaulthoge_ in the North. From the Irish _scal_ (bald), from which comes the Irish _scalachan_, an unfledged bird.

Scallan; a wooden shed to shelter the priest during Ma.s.s, 143, 145.

Scalp, scolp, scalpeen; a rude cabin, usually roofed with _scalps_ or gra.s.sy sods (whence the name). In the famine times--1847 and after--a scalp was often erected for any poor wanderer who got stricken down with typhus fever: and in that the people tended him cautiously till he recovered or died. (Munster.) Irish _scailp_ [scolp]. {317}

Scalteen: see Scolsheen.

Scollagh-cree; ill-treatment of any kind. (Moran: Carlow.) Irish _scallach-croidhe_, same sound and meaning: a 'heart scald'; from _scalladh_, scalding, and _croidhe_, heart.

Scollop; the bended rod pointed at both ends that a thatcher uses to fasten down the several straw-wisps. (General.) Irish _s...o...b.. [scollub].

Scolsheen or scalteen; made by boiling a mixture of whiskey, water, sugar, b.u.t.ter and pepper (or caraway seeds) in a pot: a sovereign cure for a cold. In the old mail-car days there was an inn on the road from Killarney to Mallow, famous for scolsheen, where a big pot of it was always kept ready for travellers. (Kinahan and Kane.) Sometimes the word _scalteen_ was applied to unmixed whiskey burned, and used for the same purpose. From the Irish _scall_, burn, singe, _scald_.

Sconce; to chaff, banter, make game of:--'None of your sconcing.'

(Ulster.)

Sconce; to s.h.i.+rk work or duty. (Moran: Carlow.)

Scotch Dialect: influence of, on our Dialect, 6, 7.

Scotch lick; when a person goes to clean up anything--a saucepan, a floor, his face, a pair of shoes, &c.--and only half does it, he (or she) has given it a _Scotch lick_. General in South. In Dublin it would be called a 'cat's lick': for a cat has only a small tongue and doesn't do much in the way of licking.

Scout; a reproachful name for a bold forward girl.

Scouther; to burn a cake on the outside before it is fully cooked, by over haste in baking:--burned outside, half raw inside. Hence 'to scouther' {318} means to do anything hastily and incompletely.

(Ulster.)

Scrab; to scratch:--'The cat near scrabbed his eyes out.' (Patterson: Ulster.) In the South it is _scraub_:--'He scraubed my face.'

Scrab; to gather the stray potatoes left after the regular crop, when they are afterwards turned out by plough or spade.