English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 25

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'G.o.d help me this blessed night.' ('Mun Carberry and the Pooka' by Robert Dwyer Joyce.)

A man is on the verge of ruin, or in some other great trouble, and the neighbours will say, 'the Lord will open a gap for him': meaning G.o.d will find some means of extricating him. Father Higgins, who sent me this, truly remarks:--'This is a fine expressive phrase showing the poetical temperament of our people, and their religious spirit too.'

When anything happens very much out of the common:--'Glory be to G.o.d, isn't that wonderful.'

At the mention of the name of a person that is dead, the Roman Catholic people invariably utter the little prayer 'G.o.d rest his soul' or 'the Lord have mercy on him.'

The people thank G.o.d for everything, whatever it may be His will to send, good or bad. 'Isn't this a beautiful day, Mike.' ''Tis indeed, thank G.o.d.'

'This is a terrible wet day, William, and very bad for the crops.' 'It is indeed Tom, thanks be to G.o.d for all: He knows best.'

As might be expected where expressions of this kind are so constantly in the people's mouths, it happens occasionally that they come in rather awkwardly. Little Kitty, running in from the dairy with the eyes starting out of her head, says to her mother who is talking to a neighbour in the kitchen: 'Oh, mother, mother, I saw a terrible thing in the cream.' 'Ah, never mind, child,' says the mother, suspecting the truth and anxious to hush it up, 'it's nothing but the grace of G.o.d.' 'Oh but mother, sure the grace of G.o.d hasn't a long tail.'

The following story was current when I was a {198} child, long before Charles Kickham wrote 'Knocknagow,' in which he tells the story too: but I will give it in his words. A station is held at Maurice Kearney's, where the family and servants and the neighbours go to Confession and receive Holy Communion: among the rest Barney Broderick the stable boy. After all was over, Father MacMahon's driver provokes and insults Barney, who is kept back, and keeps himself back with difficulty from falling on him and 'knocking his two eyes into one' and afterwards 'breaking every tooth in his head.' 'd.a.m.n well the _blagard_ knows,' exclaims Barney, 'that I'm in a state of grace to-day. But'--he continued, shaking his fist at the fellow--'but, please G.o.d I won't be in a state of grace always.'

When a person is smooth-tongued, meek-looking, over civil, and deceitful, he is _plauzy_ [plausible], 'as mild as ever on stirabout smiled.' 'Oh she is sly enough; she looks as if _b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in her mouth_.'

(Charles Macklin--an Irish writer--in _The Man of the World_.) This last expression of Macklin's is heard everywhere here.

A person is in some sore fix, or there is trouble before him: 'I wouldn't like to be _in his shoes_ just now.'

A person falls in for some piece of good fortune:--'Oh you're _made up_, John: you're a _med_ man; you're _on the pig's back_ now.'

In a house where the wife is master--the husband henpecked:--'the grey mare is the better horse.' (General.)

He got the father of a beating; i.e. a great beating. {199}

'How did poor Jack get that mark on his face?' 'Oh he fell over his shadow': meaning he fell while he was drunk.

A good dancer 'handles his feet well.' (MacCall: Wexford.)

A pensioner, a loafer, or anyone that has nothing to do but walk about, is _an inspector of public buildings_.

Those who leave Ireland commonly become all the more attached to it: they get to love _the old sod_ all the more intensely. A poor old woman was dying in Liverpool, and Father O'Neill came and administered the last sacraments. He noticed that she still hesitated as if she wished to say something more; and after some encouragement she at length said:--'Well, father, I only wanted to ask you, _will my soul pa.s.s through Ireland on its journey?_' ('Knocknagow.') According to a religious legend in 'The Second Vision of Ad.a.m.nan' the soul, on parting from the body, visits four places before setting out for its final destination:--the place of birth, the place of death, the place of baptism, and the place of burial. So this poor old woman got her wish.

'Well, I don't like to say anything bad about you; and as for the other side, _the less I praise you the less I lie_.' (North.)

There is a touch of heredity in this:--'You're nothing but a schemer like your seven generations before you.' (Kildare.)

'Oh you need not be afraid: I'll call only very seldom henceforward.'

Reply:--'The seldomer the welcomer.' {200}

'Never dread the winter till the snow is on the blanket': i.e. as long as you have a roof over your head. An allusion to the misery of those poor people--numerous enough in the evil days of past times--who were evicted from house and home. (P. Reilly: Kildare.)

Of a lucky man:--'That man's ducks are laying.'

When a baby is born, the previous baby's 'nose is out of joint.' Said also of a young man who is supplanted by another in courtship.

A man who supplants another in any pursuit or design is said to 'come inside him.'

A person is speaking bitterly or uncharitably of one who is dead; and another says reprovingly--'let the dead rest.'

When it is proposed to give a person something he doesn't need or something much too good for him, you oppose or refuse it by saying:--'_c.o.c.k him up with it_--how much he wants it!--I'll do no such thing.' Two gentlemen staying for a night in a small hotel in a remote country town ordered toast for breakfast, which it seems was very unusual there. They sat down to breakfast, but there was no sign of the toast. 'What about the toast?' asks one. Whereupon the impudent waiter replies--'Ah, then c.o.c.k yez up with toast: how bad yez are for it.'

A very general form of expression to point to a person's ident.i.ty in a very vague way is seen in the following example:--'From whom did you buy that horse, James?' Reply:--'From _a man of the Burkes_ living over there in Ballinvreena': i.e. a man named Burke. Mr. Seumas MacMa.n.u.s has adopted {201} this idiom in the name of one of his books:--'A Lad of the O'Friels.'

'I never saw the froth of your pot or the bead of your naggin': i.e. you have never entertained me. _Bead_, the string of little bubbles that rise when you shake whiskey in a bottle. (Kildare.)

Of a man likely to die: 'he'll soon be a load for four': i.e. the four coffin-bearers. (Reilly: Kildare.)

When a person attempts to correct you when you are not in error:--'Don't take me up till I fall.'

When you make a good attempt:--'If I didn't knock it down, I staggered it.'

'Love daddy, love mammy, love yourself best.' Said of a very selfish person.

An odd expression:--'You are making such noise that _I can't hear my ears_.' (Derry; and also Limerick.)

Plato to a young man who asked his advice about getting married:--'If you don't get married you'll be sorry: and if you do you'll be sorry.'

Our Irish cynic is more bitter:--

If a man doesn't marry he'll rue it sore: And if he gets married he'll rue it more.

The children were great pets with their grandmother: 'She wouldn't let anyone _look crooked_ at them': i.e. she wouldn't permit the least unkindness.

'Can he read a Latin book?' 'Read one! why, he can write Latin books, _let alone_ reading them.' _Let alone_ in this sense very common all over Ireland.

A person offers to do you some kindness, and you accept it jokingly with 'Sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey.' (Crofton Croker.) {202}

When a man falls into error, not very serious or criminal--gets drunk accidentally for instance--the people will say, by way of extenuation:--''Tis a good man's case.'

You may be sure Tim will be at the fair to-morrow, _dead or alive or a-horseback_.

'You never spoke but you said something': said to a person who makes a silly remark or gives foolish advice. (Kinahan).

'He will never comb a grey hair': said of a young person who looks unhealthy and is likely to die early.

Two persons had an angry dispute; and _one word borrowed another_ till at last they came to blows. Heard everywhere in Ireland.

The robin and the wren are G.o.d's c.o.c.k and hen.

'I'll take the book _and no thanks to you_,' i.e. I'll take it in spite of you, whether you like or no, against your will--'I'll take it in spite of your teeth'--'in spite of your nose': all very common.

A person arrives barely in time for his purpose or to fulfil his engagement:--'You have just saved your distance.'

To _put a person off the walk_ means to kill him, to remove him in some way. (Meath.)

A man has had a long fit of illness, and the wife, telling about it, says:--'For six weeks coal nor candle never went out.' (Antrim.)