Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/321

 little pot. We have partly the same term still; for everyone knows the celebrity of pot-still whiskey: but this is Parliament whiskey, not pottheen, see p. 174.


 * Power; a large quantity, a great deal: Jack Hickey has a power of money: there was a power of cattle in the fair yesterday: there's a power of ivy on that old castle. Miss Grey, a small huckster who kept a little vegetable shop, was one day showing off her rings and bracelets to our servant. 'Oh Miss Grey,' says the girl, 'haven't you a terrible lot of them.' 'Well Ellen, you see I want them all, for I go into a power of society.' This is an old English usage as is shown by this extract from Spenser's 'View':—'Hee also [Robert Bruce] sent over his said brother Edward, with a power of Scottes and Red-Shankes into Ireland.' There is a corresponding Irish expression (neart airgid, a power of money), but I think this is translated from English rather than the reverse. The same idiom exists in Latin with the word vis (power): but examples will not be quoted, as they would take up a power of space.


 * Powter [t sounded like th in pith]; to root the ground like a pig; to root up potatoes from the ground with the hands. (Derry.)


 * Prashagh, more commonly called prashagh-wee; wild cabbage with yellow blossoms, the rape plant. Irish praiseach-bhuidhe [prashagh-wee], yellow cabbage. Praiseach is borrowed from Latin brassica.


 * Prashameen; a little group all clustered together:—'The children sat in a prashameen on the floor.' I have heard this word a hundred times in Limerick