Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/43

28 on me,' where on me means to my detriment, in violation of my right, &c. Chaill sé mo sgian orm; 'he lost my knife on me.'

This mode of expression exists in the oldest Irish as well as in the colloquial languages—both Irish and English—of the present day. When St. Patrick was spending the Lent on Croagh Patrick the demons came to torment him in the shape of great black hateful-looking birds: and the Tripartite Life, composed (in the Irish language) in the tenth century, says, 'The mountain was filled with great sooty-black birds on him' (to his torment or detriment). In 'The Battle of Rossnaree,' Carbery, directing his men how to act against Conor, his enemy, tells them to send some of their heroes re tuargain a sgéithe ar Conchobar, 'to smite Conor's shield on him.' The King of Ulster is in a certain hostel, and when his enemies hear of it, they say:—'We are pleased at that for we shall [attack and] take the hostel on him to-night.' (Congal Claringneach.) It occurs also in the Amra of Columkille—the oldest of all—though I cannot lay my hand on the passage.

This is one of the commonest of our Anglo-Irish idioms, so that a few examples will be sufficient.

'I saw thee ... thrice on Tara's champions win the goal.'

(: 'Lays of the Western Gael.')

I once heard a grandmother—an educated Dublin lady—say, in a charmingly petting way, to her little grandchild who came up crying:—'What did they do to you on me—did they beat you on me?'

The Irish preposition ag—commonly translated 'for' in this connexion—is used in a sense much like air, viz. to carry an idea of some sort of injury