Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/290




 * Holy show: 'You're a holy show in that coat,' i.e. it makes quite a show of you; makes you look ridiculous. (General.)


 * Holy well; a well venerated on account of its association with an Irish saint: in most cases retaining the name of the saint:—'Tober-Bride,' St. Bride's or Brigit's well. In these wells the early saints baptised their converts. They are found all through Ireland, and people often pray beside them and make their rounds. (See 'Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland.')


 * Hool or hooley; the same as a Black swop.


 * Hot-foot; at once, immediately:—'Off I went hot-foot.' 'As soon as James heard the news, he wrote a letter hot-foot to his father.'


 * Houghle; to wobble in walking. (Armagh.)


 * Hugger-mugger: see Cugger-mugger.


 * Huggers or hogars, stockings without feet. (Ulster.)


 * Hulk; a rough surly fellow. (Munster.) A bad person. (Simmons: Armagh.) Irish olc, bad.


 * Hungry-grass: see Fair-gurtha.


 * Hunker-slide; to slide on ice sitting on the hunkers (or as they would say in Munster, sitting on one's grug) instead of standing up straight: hence to act with duplicity: to shirk work:—'None of your hunker-sliding for me.' (Ulster.)


 * Hurling; the common game of ball and hurley or commaun. The chief terms (besides those mentioned elsewhere) are:—Puck, the blow of the hurley on the ball: The goals are the two gaps at opposite sides of the field through which the players try to drive the ball. When the ball is thrown high up between two players with their