LITMIR.BIZ

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thinks no small beer of himself.'

      Mrs. Slattery gets a harmless fall off the form she is sitting on, and is so frightened that she asks of the person who helps her up, 'Am I killed?' To which he replies ironically—'Oh there's great fear of you.' ('Knocknagow.')

      [Alice Ryan is a very purty girl] 'and she doesn't want to be reminded of that same either.' ('Knocknagow.')

      A man has got a heavy cold from a wetting and says: 'That wetting did me no good,' meaning 'it did me great harm.'

      'There's a man outside wants to see you, sir,' says Charlie, our office attendant, a typical southern Irishman. 'What kind is he Charlie? does he look like a fellow wanting money?' Instead of a direct affirmative, Charlie answers, 'Why then sir I don't think he'll give you much anyway.'

      'Are people buried there now?' I asked of a man regarding an old graveyard near Blessington in Wicklow. Instead of answering 'very few,' he replied: 'Why then not too many sir.'

      When the roads are dirty—deep in mire—'there's fine walking overhead.'

      In the Irish Life of St. Brigit we are told of a certain chief:—'It was not his will to sell the bondmaid,' by which is meant, it was his will not to sell her.

      So in our modern speech the father says to the son:—'It is not my wish that you should go to America at all,' by which he means the positive assertion:—'It is my wish that you should not go.'

      Tommy says, 'Oh, mother, I forgot to bring you the sugar.' 'I wouldn't doubt you,' answers the mother, as much as to say, 'It is just what I'd expect from you.'

      When a message came to Rory from absent friends, that they were true to Ireland:—

      '"My sowl, I never doubted them" said Rory of the hill.' (Charles Kickham.)

      'It wouldn't be wishing you a pound note to do so and so': i.e. 'it would be as bad as the loss of a pound,' or 'it might cost you a pound.' Often used as a sort of threat to deter a person from doing it.

      'Where do you keep all your money?' 'Oh, indeed, it's not much I have': merely translated from the Gaelic, Ní mórán atâ agum.

      To a silly foolish fellow:—'There's a great deal of sense outside your head.'

      'The only sure way to conceal evil is not to do it.'

      'I don't think very much of these horses,' meaning 'I have a low opinion of them.'

      'I didn't pretend to understand what he said,' appears a negative statement; but it is really one of our ways of making a positive one:—'I pretended not to understand him.' To the same class belongs the common expression 'I don't think':—'I don't think you bought that horse too dear,' meaning 'I think you did not buy him too dear'; 'I don't think this day will be wet,' equivalent to 'I think it will not be wet.'

      Lowry Looby is telling how a lot of fellows attacked Hardress Cregan, who defends himself successfully:—'Ah, it isn't a goose or a duck they had to do with when they came across Mr. Cregan.' (Gerald Griffin.) Another way of expressing the same idea often heard:—'He's no sop (wisp) in the road'; i.e. 'he's a strong brave fellow.'

      'It was not too wise of you to buy those cows as the market stands at present,' i.e. it was rather foolish.

      'I wouldn't be sorry to get a glass of wine, meaning, 'I would be glad.'

      An unpopular person is going away:—

      'Joy be with him and a bottle of moss,

      And if he don't return he's no great loss.'

      'How are you to-day, James?'

      'Indeed I can't say that I'm very well': meaning 'I am rather ill.'

      'You had no right to take that book without my leave'; meaning 'You were wrong in taking it—it was wrong of you to take it.' A translation of the Irish ní cóir duit. 'A bad right' is stronger than 'no right.' 'You have no right to speak ill of my uncle' is simply negation:—'You are wrong, for you have no reason or occasion to speak so.' 'A bad right you have to speak ill of my uncle:' that is to say, 'You are doubly wrong' [for he once did you a great service]. 'A bad right anyone would have to call Ned a screw' [for he is well known for his generosity]. ('Knocknagow.') Another way of applying the word—in the sense of duty—is seen in the following:—A member at an Urban Council meeting makes an offensive remark and refuses to withdraw it: when another retorts:—'You have a right to withdraw it'—i.e. 'it is your duty.' So:—'You have a right to pay your debts.'

      'Is your present farm as large as the one you left?' Reply:—'Well indeed it doesn't want much of it.' A common expression, and borrowed from the Irish, where it is still more usual. The Irish beagnach ('little but') and acht ma beag ('but only a little') are both used in the above sense ('doesn't want much'), equivalent to the English almost.

      A person is asked did he ever see a ghost. If his reply is to be negative, the invariable way of expressing it is: 'I never saw anything worse than myself, thanks be to God.'

      A person is grumbling without cause, making out that he is struggling in some difficulty—such as poverty—and the people will say to him ironically: 'Oh how bad you are.' A universal Irish phrase among high and low.

      A person gives a really good present to a girl:—'He didn't affront her by that present.' (Patterson: Antrim and Down.)

      How we cling to this form of expression—or rather how it clings to us—is seen in the following extract from the Dublin correspondence of one of the London newspapers of December, 1909:—'Mr. ——is not expected to be returned to parliament at the general election'; meaning it is expected that he will not be returned. So also:—'How is poor Jack Fox to-day?' 'Oh he's not expected'; i.e. not expected to live—he is given over. This expression, not expected, is a very common Irish phrase in cases of death sickness.

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

      IDIOMS DERIVED FROM THE IRISH LANGUAGE.

      In this chapter I am obliged to quote the original Irish passages a good deal as a guarantee of authenticity for the satisfaction of Irish scholars: but for those who have no Irish the translations will answer equally well. Besides the examples I have brought together here, many others will be found all through the book. I have already remarked that the great majority of our idiomatic Hibernian-English sayings are derived from the Irish language.

      When existence or modes of existence are predicated in Irish by the verb tá or atá (English is), the Irish preposition in (English in) in some of its forms is always used, often with a possessive pronoun, which gives rise to a very curious idiom. Thus, 'he is a mason' is in Irish tá sé 'n a shaor, which is literally he is in his mason: 'I am standing' is tá mé a m' sheasamh, lit. I am in my standing. This explains the common Anglo-Irish form of expression:—'He fell on the road out of his standing': for as he is 'in his standing' (according to the Irish) when he is standing up, he is 'out of his standing' when he falls. This idiom with in is constantly translated literally into English by the Irish people. Thus, instead of saying, 'I sent the wheat thrashed into corn to the mill, and it came home as flour,' they will rather say, 'I sent the wheat in corn to the mill, and it came home in flour.' Here the in denotes identity: 'Your hair is in a wisp'; i.e. it is a wisp: 'My eye is in whey in my head,' i.e. it is whey. (John Keegan in Ir. Pen. Journ.)

      But an idiom closely resembling this, and in some respects identical with it, exists in English (though it has not been hitherto noticed—so far as I am aware)—as may be seen from the following examples:—'The Shannon … rushed through Athlone in a deep and rapid stream (Macaulay), i.e. it was a deep and rapid stream (like our expression 'Your handkerchief is in ribbons').

      'Where

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