Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/181

 166 the bush next to him.' The original sayings are in Irish, of which these are translations, which however are now heard oftener than the Irish.

In Armagh where Murrogh is not known they say in a similar sense, 'You'll catch Lanty,' Lanty no doubt being some former local bully.

When one desires to give another a particularly evil wish he says, 'The curse of Cromwell on you!' So that Cromwell's atrocities are stored up in the people's memories to this day, in the form of a proverb.

In Ulster they say 'The curse of Crummie.'

'Were you talking to Tim in town to-day?' 'No, but I saw him from me as the soldier saw Bunratty.' Bunratty a strong castle in Co. Clare, so strong that besiegers often had to content themselves with viewing it from a distance. 'Seeing a person from me' means seeing him at a distance. 'Did you meet your cousin James in the fair to-day?' 'Oh I just caught sight of him from me for a second, but I wasn't speaking to him.'

Sweating-House.—We know that the Turkish bath is of recent introduction in these countries. But the hot-air or vapour bath, which is much the same thing, was well known in Ireland from very early times, and was used as a cure for rheumatism down to a few years ago. The structures in which these baths were given are known by the name of tigh 'n alluis [teenollish], or in English, 'sweating-house' (allus, 'sweat'). They are still well known in the northern parts of Ireland—small houses entirely of stone, from five to seven feet long inside, with a low little door through which one must creep: