Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/180

 CH. XI.] being the most correct). The full Irish name is aghaidh-fidil, of which the first part agaidh, pronounced i or eye, means the face:—agaidh-fidil, 'face-mask.' This word was quite common in Munster sixty or seventy years ago, when we, boys, made our own i-fiddles, commonly of brown paper, daubed in colour—hideous-looking things when worn—enough to frighten a horse from his oats.

Among those who fought against the insurgents in Ireland during the Rebellion of 1798 were some German cavalry called Hessians. They wore a sort of long boots so remarkable that boots of the same pattern are to this day called Hessian boots. One day in a skirmish one of the rebels shot down a Hessian, and brought away his fine boots as his lawful prize. One of his comrades asked him for the boots: and he answered 'Kill a Hessian for yourself,' which has passed into a proverb. When by labour and trouble you obtain anything which another seeks to get from you on easy terms, you answer Kill a Hessian for yourself.

During the War of the Confederation in Ireland in the seventeenth century Murrogh O'Brien earl of Inchiquin took the side of the Government against his own countrymen, and committed such merciless ravages among the people that he is known to this day as 'Murrogh the Burner'; and his name has passed into a proverb for outrage and cruelty. When a person persists in doing anything likely to bring on heavy punishment of some kind, the people say 'If you go on in that way you'll see Murrogh,' meaning 'you will suffer for it.' Or when a person seems scared or frightened:—'He saw Murrogh or