used to abuse the mayor, aldermen, and magistrates of Dublin, and say what they would not do to them.
Gorey.—Shouted after a person who leaves a door open. There was an attack made on Gorey by the insurgents, who carried off all the doors. A person who leaves a door open is supposed to have, been born in Gorey, or in a place without a door.
Munster for learning,
Connaught for breeding,
Leinster for feeding,
And Ulster for thieving.
In old times all the civilised world flocked to the great schools in Munster for learning. All the best families in Ireland were sent to "Hell or Connaught." Leinster having so much English blood has the English love for eating; while the Scotch settler and native Irish in Ulster were always robbing one another—one lifting their neighbours' goods by the laws they enacted themselves, and the other lifting by stealth. The word "lift" is so engrafted on their minds, that even at the present day they never buy or otherwise get anything, they always "lift it."
Bad cess to you.—In old times the soldiers were cessed, or billeted, on the inhabitants; there were good cesses, or soldiers that pulled well with the people, and bad cesses those whose presence in a house was a curse and not a blessing.
Pay the reckoning on the nail.—From an old custom in Limerick. Exchange of bargains were made at a pillar, and the earnest-money was laid on a copper coin nailed in the top of it.
Fire away! Flanagan.—A captain of a place besieged by Cromwell, or one of his generals, sent to say if they did not go at once he would fire on them. The general wrote on the back of his letter when sending it back, Fire away! Flanagan.
Nearly obsolete terms are the following:—
Codesfue.—The shank of a leg of mutton, but got to mean "what is the price? " as a buyer would take the leg by the shank and say "Codesfue."
Boxty Rasp, or Buck Cake.—A cake made from the rasping of
