Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/309

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people to be caused by a red little flesh-worm, and hence the name míol [meel], a worm, and cearr [car], an old Irish word for red:—Meel-car, 'red-worm.' (North and South.)

Meeraw; ill luck. (Munster.) From Irish , ill, and ráth [raw], luck:—'There was some meeraw on the family.
Melder of corn; the quantity sent to the mill and ground at one time. (Ulster.)
Memory of History and of Old Customs, 143.
Merrow; a mermaid. Irish murrughagh [murrooa], from muir, the sea. She dives and travels under sea by means of a hood and cape called cohuleen-dru: cochall, a hood and cape (with diminutive termination); druádh, druidical: 'magical cape.'
Midjilinn or middhilin; the thong of a flail. (Morris: South Monaghan.)
Mihul or mehul [i and e short]; a number of men engaged in any farm-work, especially corn-reaping, still used in the South and West. It is the very old Irish word meithel, same sound and meaning.
Mills. The old English game of 'nine men's morris' or 'nine men's merrils' or mills was practised in my native place when I was a boy. We played it on a diagram of three squares one within another, connected by certain straight lines, each player having nine counters. It is mentioned by Shakespeare ('Midsummer-Night's Dream'). I learned to be a good player, and could play it still if I could meet an antagonist. How it reached Limerick I do not know. A few years ago I saw two persons playing mills in a hotel in Llandudno; and my heart went out to them.