Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/123

 108 When a person gives much civil talk, makes plausible excuses or fair promises, the remark is made 'Soft words butter no parsnips.' Sometimes also 'Talk is cheap.'

A person who is too complaisant—over anxious to please everyone—is ‘like Lanna Mochree's dog—he will go a part of the road with everyone.’ (Moran Carlow.) (A witness said this of a policeman in the Celbridge courthouse—Kildare—last year, showing that it is still alive.)

‘The first drop of the broth is the hottest’: the first step in any enterprise is usually the hardest. (Westmeath.)

The light, consisting of a single candle, or the jug of punch from which the company fill their tumblers, ought always to be placed on the middle of the table when people are sitting round it:—‘Put the priest in the middle of the parish.’

‘After a gathering comes a scattering.’ ‘A narrow gathering, a broad scattering.’ Both allude to the case of a thrifty man who gathers up a fortune during a lifetime, and is succeeded by a spendthrift son who soon makes ducks and drakes of the property.

No matter how old a man is he can get a wife if he wants one: ‘There never was an old slipper but there was an old stocking to match it.’ (Carlow.)

‘You might as well go to hell with a load as with a pahil’: ‘You might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb’: both explain themselves. A pahil or paghil is a bundle of anything. (Derry.)

If a man treats you badly in any way, you threaten to pay him back in his own coin by saying, ‘The cat hasn't eaten the year yet.’ (Carlow.)