Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/335




 * Shaughraun; wandering about: to be on the shaughraun is to be out of employment and wandering idly about looking for work. Irish seachrán, same sound and meaning.


 * Shebeen or sheebeen; an unlicensed public-house or alehouse where spirits are sold on the sly. (Used all over Ireland.) Irish síbín, same sound and meaning.


 * Shee; a fairy, fairies; also meaning the place where fairies live, usually a round green little hill or elf-mound having a glorious palace underneath: Irish sidhe, same sound and meanings. Shee often takes the diminutive form—sheeoge.


 * Shee-geeha; the little whirl of dust you often see moving along the road on a calm dusty day: this is a band of fairies travelling from one lis or elf-mound to another, and you had better turn aside and avoid it. Irish sidhe-gaoithe, same sound and meaning, where gaoithe is wind: 'wind-fairies': called 'fairy-blast' in Kildare.


 * Sheehy, Rev. Father, of Kilfinane, 147.


 * Sheela; a female Christian name (as in 'Sheela Ni Gyra'). Used in the South as a reproachful name for a boy or a man inclined to do work or interest himself in affairs properly belonging to women. See 'Molly.'


 * Sheep's eyes: when a young man looks fondly and coaxingly on his sweetheart he is 'throwing sheep's eyes' at her.


 * Sherral; an offensive term for a mean unprincipled fellow. (Moran: South Mon.)


 * Sheugh or Shough; a deep cutting, elsewhere called a ditch, often filled with water. (Seumas MacManus: N.W. Ulster.)