Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/198

 CH. XI.] In the old heroic semi-historic times in Ireland, a champion often gave a challenge by standing in front of the hostile camp or fort and striking a few resounding blows with the handle of his spear either on his own shield or on a shield hung up for the purpose at the entrance gate outside.

The memory of this very old custom lives in a word still very common in the South of Ireland—boolimskee, Irish buailim-sciath, 'I strike the shield,' applied to a man much given to fighting, a quarrelsome fellow, a swaggering bully—a swash-buckler.

Paying on the nail, paying down on the nail; paying on the spot—ready cash. This expression had its origin in a custom formerly prevailing in Limerick city. In a broad thoroughfare under the Exchange stood a pillar about four feet high, on the top of which was a circular plate of copper about three feet in diameter. This pillar was called 'The Nail.' The purchaser of anything laid down the stipulated price or the earnest on the nail, i.e. on the brass plate, which the seller took up: when this was done before witnesses the transaction was as binding as if entered on parchment. (O'Keeffe's Recollections.) 'The Nail' is still to the fore, and may now be seen in the Museum of the Carnegie Library building, to which it was transferred a short time ago.

The change in the Calendar from the old style to the new style, a century and a half ago, is noted in the names for Christmas. All through the South,