Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/199

 184 and in other parts of Ireland, the 6th January ('Twelfth Day') is called 'Old Christmas' and 'Little Christmas' (for before the change of style it was the Christmas): and in many parts of the north our present Christmas is called New Christmas. So in Donegal the 12th of May is called by the people 'Old May day.' (Seumas MacManus.)

Palm, Palm-Sunday. The usual name in Ireland for the yew-tree is 'palm,' from the custom of using yew branches instead of the real palm, to celebrate Palm Sunday—the Sunday before Easter—commemorating the palm branches that were strewed before our Lord on His public entry into Jerusalem. I was quite a grown boy before I knew the yew-tree by its proper name—it was always palm-tree.

Oliver's Summons.—When a lazy fellow was driven to work either by hunger or by any unavoidable circumstance he was said to have got Oliver's Summons, a common household word in parts of the county Limerick in my younger days, originating in the following circumstance. When a good plentiful harvest came round, many of the men of our neighbourhood at this time—about the beginning of last century—the good old easy-going times—worked very little—as little as ever they could. What was the use of working when they had plenty of beautiful floury potatoes for half nothing, with salt or dip, or perhaps a piggin of fine thick milk to crown the luxury. Captain Oliver, the local landlord, and absolute monarch so far as ordinary life was concerned, often—in those seasons—found it hard or impossible to get men to come to do the necessary work about his grounds—though paying