English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 28

Bandle; a 2-foot measure for home-made flannel. (Munster.)

Bang-up; a frieze overcoat with high collar and long cape.

{214} Banshee'; a female fairy: Irish _bean-sidhe_ [banshee], a 'woman from the _shee_ or fairy-dwelling.' This was the original meaning; but in modern times, and among English speakers, the word _banshee_ has become narrowed in its application, and signifies a female spirit that attends certain families, and is heard _keening_ or crying aloud at night round the house when some member of the family is about to die.

Barcelona; a silk kerchief for the neck:--

'His clothes spick and span new without e'er a speck; A neat Barcelona tied round his white neck.'

(EDWARD LYSAGHT, in 'The Sprig of s.h.i.+llelah.')

So called because imported from Barcelona, preserving a memory of the old days of smuggling.

Barsa, barsaun; a scold. (Kild. and Ulst.)

Barth; a back-load of rushes, straw, heath, &c. Irish _beart_.

Baury, baura, baur-y[)a], bairy; the goal in football, hurling, &c.

Irish _baire_ [2-syll.], a game, a goal.

Bawn; an enclosure near a farmhouse for cattle, sheep, &c.; in some districts, simply a farmyard. Irish _badhun_ [bawn], a cow-keep, from _ba_, cows, and _dun_, a keep or fortress. Now generally applied to the green field near the homestead where the cows are brought to be milked.

Bawneen; a loose whitish jacket of home-made undyed flannel worn by men at out-door work. Very general: _banyan_ in Derry. From Irish _ban_ [bawn], whitish, with the diminutive termination.

Bawnoge; a dancing-green. (MacCall: Leinster.) {215} From _ban_ [baan], a field covered with short gra.s.s; and the dim. _og_ (p. 90).

Baws.h.i.+ll, a _fetch_ or double. (See Fetch.) (MacCall: S. Wexford.) I think this is a derivative of _Bow_, which see.

Beestings; new milk from a cow that has just calved.

Be-knownst; known: unbe-knownst; unknown. (Antrim.)

Better than; more than:--'It is better than a year since I saw him last'; 'better than a mile,' &c. (Leinster and Munster.)

Bian' [by-ann']; one of Bianconi's long cars. (See Jingle.)

Binnen; the rope tying a cow to a stake in a field. (Knowles: Ulster.)

Birragh; a muzzle-band with spikes on a calf's or a foal's muzzle to prevent it sucking its mother. From Irish _bir_, a sharp spit: _birragh_, full of sharp points or spits. (Munster: see Gubbaun.)

Blackfast: among Roman Catholics, there is a 'black fast' on Ash Wednesday, Spy Wednesday, and Good Friday, i.e. no flesh meat or _whitemeat_ is allowed--no flesh, b.u.t.ter, eggs, cheese, or milk.

Blackfeet. The members of one of the secret societies of a century ago were called 'Ribbonmen.' Some of them acknowledged the priests: those were 'whitefeet': others did not--'blackfeet.'

Black man, black fellow; a surly vindictive implacable irreconcilable fellow.

Black man; the man who accompanies a suitor to the house of the intended father-in-law, to help to make the match.

{216} Black of one's nail. 'You just escaped by the black of your nail': 'there's no cloth left--not the size of the black of my nail.'

(North and South.)

Black swop. When two fellows have two wretched articles--such as two old penknives--each thinking his own to be the worst in the universe, they sometimes agree for the pure humour of the thing to make a _black swop_, i.e. to swop without first looking at the articles. When they are looked at after the swop, there is always great fun. (See Hool.)

Blarney; smooth, plausible, cajoling talk. From Blarney Castle near Cork, in which there is a certain stone hard to reach, with this virtue, that if a person kisses it, he will be endowed with the gift of _blarney_.

Blast; when a child suddenly fades in health and pines away, he has got a blast,--i.e. a puff of evil wind sent by some baleful sprite has struck him. _Blast_ when applied to fruit or crops means a blight in the ordinary sense--nothing supernatural.

Blather, bladdher; a person who utters vulgarly foolish boastful talk: used also as a verb--to blather. Hence _blatherumskite_, applied to a person or to his talk in much the same sense; 'I never heard such a blatherumskite.' Ulster and Scotch form _blether_, _blethering_: Burns speaks of stringing 'blethers up in rhyme.' ('The Vision.')

Blaze, blazes, blazing: favourite words everywhere in Ireland. Why are you in such a blazing hurry? Jack ran away like blazes: now work at that job like blazes: he is blazing drunk. Used also by the English _peasantry_:--'That's a blazing strange {217} answer,' says Jerry Cruncher in 'A Tale of Two Cities.' There's a touch of slang in some of these: yet the word has been in a way made cla.s.sical by Lord Morley's expression that Lord Salisbury never made a speech without uttering 'some blazing indiscretion.'

Blind Billy. In coming to an agreement take care you don't make 'Blind Billy's Bargain,' by either overreaching yourself or allowing the other party to overreach you. Blind Billy was the hangman in Limerick, and on one particular occasion he flatly refused to do his work unless he got 50 down on the nail: so the high sheriff had to agree and the hangman put the money in his pocket. When all was over the sheriff refused point-blank to send the usual escort without a fee of 50 down. So Blind Billy had to hand over the 50--for if he went without an escort he would be torn in pieces--and had nothing in the end for his job.

Blind lane; a lane stopped up at one end.

Blind window; an old window stopped up, but still plain to be seen.

Blink; to exercise an evil influence by a glance of the 'evil eye'; to 'overlook'; hence 'blinked,' blighted by the eye. When the b.u.t.ter does not come in churning, the milk has been _blinked_ by some one.

Blirt; to weep: as a noun, a rainy wind. (Ulster.)

Blob (_blab_ often in Ulster), a raised blister: a drop of honey, or of anything liquid.

Blue look-out; a bad look-out, bad prospect.

Boal or bole; a shelved recess in a room. (North.)

Boarhaun; dried cowdung used for fuel like turf. Irish _boithrean_ [boarhaun], from bo, a cow.

{218} Boccach [accented on 2nd syll. in Munster, but elsewhere on 1st]; a lame person. From the fact that so many beggars are lame or pretend to be lame, _boccach_ has come to mean a beggar. Irish _bacach_, a lame person: from _bac_, to halt. _Bockady_, another form of _boccach_ in Munster. _Bockeen_ (the diminutive added on to _bac_), another form heard in Mayo.

Boddagh [accented on 2nd syll. in Munster; in Ulster on 1st], a rich churlish clownish fellow. Tom Cuddihy wouldn't bear insult from any purse-proud old _boddagh_. ('Knocknagow.')

Body-coat; a coat like the present dress-coat, cut away in front so as to leave a narrow pointed tail-skirt behind: usually made of frieze and worn with the knee-breeches.

Body-gla.s.s; a large mirror in which the whole body can be seen.

(Limerick.)

Body-lilty; heels over head. (Derry.)

Bog; what is called in England a 'peat moss.' Merely the Irish _bog_, soft. Bog (verb), to be bogged; to sink in a bog or any soft soil or swampy place.

Bog-b.u.t.ter; b.u.t.ter found deep in bogs, where it had been buried in old times for a purpose, and forgotten: a good deal changed now by the action of the bog. (See Joyce's 'Smaller Soc. Hist. of Anc. Ireland,'

p. 260.)

Bog-Latin; bad incorrect Latin; Latin that had been learned in the hedge schools among the bogs. This derisive and reproachful epithet was given in bad old times by pupils and others of the favoured, legal, and endowed schools, sometimes with reason, {219} but oftener very unjustly. For those _bog_ or hedge schools sent out numbers of scholarly men, who afterwards entered the church or lay professions.

(See p. 151.)