Irish slang and St. Patrick’s Day
Cead mile failte! One hundred thousand welcomes… With St. Patrick’s Day (actually it’s 5 days of partying) right around the corner on 17 March, I have been thinking a good deal about Irish culture lately. It’s also been awhile sense my last Irish culture post, so I’m long overdue.
I must say I’ve really been noticing the different accents lately. I’ve been in Ireland long enough to pick up some of the regional slang and such. For example, a friend from Dublin says he’s “going to get a bit ‘a kip,” meaning he’s going to go take a rest or nap at home. The Irish from Cork certainly sound different than the Galway Irish or those in Sligo or Donegal. Not all Irish drop the ‘h’ (or hay-ch, as they say) from ‘th’ words, as in “Tirty Tree Catedrals” or “Tirty Tree and a Tird.” Then there’s the insistence, usually by older ladies, as in “ahh, go on now,” when offering up some tea or biscuits. The extreme exaggeration of this can be found on any episode of Father Ted:
Mrs Doyle: “Would ya like more tea, Faaather?”
Fr Ted: “No thank you, Mrs Doyle”
Mrs Doyle: “Ahhh go on now.”
Fr Ted: “I reeeally shouldn’t Mrs Doyle, I’ve had 5 cups already.”
Mrs Doyle: “Ahh ya will Faaather.”
Fr Ted (giving up): “Ah, now that you mention it, I will have a bit of tea.”
Swearing
The Irish have a few tricks up their sleeves when it comes to swearing but still saying the actual curse word. Here’s one: “Jaysus! did you see that three-legged dog?!” Notice, it’s not really blasphemy since technically the word “Jesus” was not used. One of my favorite’s is feck. This is a word they can use on TV, or the telly if you prefer. Can you believe that a word only one vowel away for the king mother of all words is used on prime time television? It even sounds like the actual word if you’re not paying close attention in a passing conversation. It certainly caused my head to turn when I was walking along one day and one sweet old lady turns to another and when referring to a third woman they had been gossiping about says, “aw…she can just feck off!”
A few more examples…
When getting change at the corner shop, the woman gives you the change, smiles and says, “Now…” I guess this one is an affectionate, almost motherly goodbye, as if to say, “now…run along and play and play and be back in time for dinner.”
When someone is telling a story and they can’t think of the subject’s name as in: “I was talkin’ to yer man yesterday…”
Then there’s will I… as in “Will I get you a coffee?” and “Will I meet you for tea at 2 then?”
One of my favorites is the use of like. Americans do this all the time but the Irish have a bit of a different take by using it only at the end of a sentence. We might say, “then she was like ‘you did what?’ and he was all like ’sure did!’ Here’s the Irish version: “I live across from the college, like.” Or, my ultimate favorite: “It was great craic last night. Ya knooow, like?” I’m not sure this is just a Galway thing or a West Ireland thing, does anyone know? Leave your comments below, I’m dyin’ to knooow, like.
I hope you’re ready for St. Paddy’s Day!
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9 very welcomed comments so far...
Your comments are very welcome:
A few notes. Firstly, it’s a bit of a misconception that feck and fuck are related. They’re not, which is part of the reason why you’ll still here the two used alternately in the same conversation.
The ‘like’ thing isn’t the same either. In Irish English, the equivalent of the californian ‘like’ in discourse is to use the verb ‘go’, e.g. ‘And he went “blah, blah, blah”‘. Same goes for British English. It’s also more of a Corkism than anything else, but like many Corkism, it’s spreading throughout the rest of the country. The Cork ‘like’ is more like the Canadian ‘eh’ tag.
If you want something pretty much unique to Irish, listen to how we use the word ‘after’.
Thanks for clearing the feck vs. fuck issue up for me. :) I’ll keep an ear out for the difference in context. I’ll also listen for the after usage.
I guess I have noticed like is similar to a verbal pause, but I definitely see the connection to the Canadian, eh?.
Can you tell me what the deal is with this one?
When the Irish are talking about a team or a company, it is treated like a plural noun. e.g. Ireland are playing England in rugby at Croke Park. We (Americans and I think Canadians as well) would say: Ireland is playing England…
Is this a slang, or is it proper English grammar? I’ve been here six months and it still throws me off. I guess it’s difficult to change 29 years of knowledge in half a year. :)
Use usages are correct. It all depends on how you view the team or group. We rightpondians (because the Brits do it too) tend to view groups of people as a bunch of individuals whereas leftpondians ignore the individuals and refer to the group itself instead. Both correct, just a matter of perspective.
That’s what I figured, but I had only ever heard it in the Irish context. I say to-may-to, you say to-mah-to. I say gasoline, you say petrol…let’s call the whole thing off…:)
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The Like factor, is very much evident around cork city as well. Listen to Sonia O’Sullivan sometime. Every third word is like. I have a great article on Irish Slang, and how they gave Americans most of their gambling words, such as Mollah, slick, Case keeper. Love the layout of your blog.
Cheers
Danny of http://www.giftofireland.com/Siteblog
I’ll have to give her a listen. Is the article online? You should post it here if it is. The other day, a guy told me that I had a Galway accent, I guess it’s rubbed off on me a bit :)
Thanks for the compliment…see you around!