Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/32

CH. III.] This curious way of speaking, which is very general among all classes of people in Ireland and in every part of the country, is often used in the Irish language, from which we have imported it into our English. Here are a few Irish examples; but they might be multiplied indefinitely, and some others will be found through this chapter. In the Irish tale called 'The Battle of Gavra,' the narrator says:—[The enemy slew a large company of our army] 'and that was no great help to us.' In 'The Colloquy,' a piece much older than 'The Battle of Gavra,' Kylta, wishing to tell his audience that when the circumstance he is relating occurred he was very young, expresses it by saying [at that time] 'I myself was not old.'

One night a poet was grossly insulted: 'On the morrow he rose and he was not thankful.' (From the very old Irish tale called 'The Second Battle of Moytura': Rev. Celt.)

Another old Irish writer, telling us that a certain company of soldiers is well out of view, expresses it in this way:—Ní fhuil in cuire gan chleith, literally, 'the company is not without concealment.'

How closely these and other old models are imitated in our English will be seen from the following examples from every part of Ireland:—

'I can tell you Paddy Walsh is no chicken now,' meaning he is very old. The same would be said of an old maid:—'She's no chicken,' meaning that she is old for a girl.

'How are your potato gardens going on this year?' 'Why then they're not too good'; i.e. only middling or bad.

A usual remark among us conveying mild approval