Never burn a penny candle looking for a halfpenny.
Hibernicis ipsis hibernior=--More Irish than the Irish themselves.
This is a nation of runaways. Every person comes from somewhere else. Even the Indians, they run once upon a time across the Alaskan land bridge. The blacks, they maybe didn't run from Africa, okay, but they ran from slavery. And the rest of us, we all ran from something. From the church, the state, the parents, the Irish potato bug. And I think this is why Americans are so restless.
I 'm sitting on the stile, Mary, Where we sat side by side.
Universal suffrage I will consult about the quality of New Orleans pork or the coarser kinds of Irish butter; but as to the character of men, I will if possible ask it no question.
I 'm very lonely now, Mary, For the poor make no new friends; But oh they love the better still The few our Father sends!
He turn'd him right and round about Upon the Irish shore, And gae his bridle reins a shake, With, "Adieu for evermore, my dear, And adieu for evermore."
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups -- alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat. -- Alex Levine
The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement In 1976 the European Economic Community pointed out to the Irish</p> Government that it had not yet implemented the agreed sex equality legislation. The Dublin Government immediately advertised for an equal pay enforcement officer. The advertisement offered different salary scales for men and women. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The curse of the Irish is not that they don't know the words to a song -- it's that they know them *___all*. -- Susan Dooley
Five people -- an Englishman, Russian, American, Frenchman and Irishman were each asked to write a book on elephants. Some amount of time later they had all completed their respective books. The Englishman's book was entitled "The Elephant -- How to Collect Them", the Russian's "The Elephant -- Vol. I", the American's "The Elephant -- How to Make Money from Them", the Frenchman's "The Elephant -- Its Mating Habits" and the Irishman's "The Elephant and
The six great gifts of an Irish girl are beauty, soft voice, sweet speech, wisdom, needlework, and chastity. -- Theodore Roosevelt, 1907
Q: What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? A: One less drunk.
Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others. Bozos are people who band together for fun and profit. They have no jobs. Anybody who goes on a tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street? Because there's a Bozo on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others. They're the huge, fat, middle waist. The archetype is an Irish drunk clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin. Fields, William Bendix. Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness. It has Oz in it. They mean well. They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes. They like their comforts. The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time, which is all the time. -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head"
"I do not know," said the man, "what the custom of the English may be, but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains." While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly increase. Their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger, which annoyed and in some degree alarmed me.
My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and very sensitive.
The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering from want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.
"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like a coster's orange barrow. I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they were--straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found ourselves in the office."
Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.
Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who, with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one end of the room.
_History._--Very little is known with certainty of the early history of Manchester.[1] A Roman station of some importance existed at Castlefield, and a fragment of the wall still exists. Another, perhaps earlier, was at Hunt's Bank. In the 18th century considerable evidences of Roman occupation were still visible; and from time to time, in the course of excavation (especially during the making of the Bridgewater Canal), Roman remains have been found. The coins were chiefly those of Vespasian, Antoninus Pius, Trajan, Hadrian, Nero, Domitian, Vitellius and Constantine. Investigations by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society and the Classical Association have brought to light many relics, chiefly of pottery. The period succeeding the Roman occupation is for some time legendary. As late as the 17th century there was a tradition that Tarquin, an enemy of King Arthur, kept the castle of Manchester, and was killed by Lancelot of the Lake. The references to the town in authentic annals are very few. It was probably one of the scenes of the missionary preaching of Paulinus; and it is said (though by a chronicler of comparatively late date) to have been the residence of Ina, king of Wessex, and his queen Ethelberga, after he had defeated Ivor, somewhere about the year 689. Almost the only point of certainty in its history before the Conquest is that it suffered greatly from the devastations of the Danes, and that in 923 Edward, who was then at Thelwall, near Warrington, sent a number of his Mercian troops to repair and garrison it. In Domesday Book Manchester, Salford, Rochdale and Radcliffe are the only places named in south-east Lancashire, a district now covered by populous towns. Large portions of it were then forest, wood and waste lands. Twenty-one thanes held the manor or hundred of Salford among them. The church of St Mary and the church of St Michael in Manchester are both named in Domesday, and some difficulty has arisen as to their proper identification. Some antiquaries consider that the passage refers to the town only, whilst others think it relates to the parish, and that, while St Mary's is the present cathedral, St Michael's would be the present parish church of Ashton-under-Lyne. In 1301 Manchester received a charter of manorial liberties and privileges from its baron, Thomas Gresley, a descendant of one to whom the manor had been given by Roger of Poictou, who was created by William the Conqueror lord of all the land between the rivers Mersey and Ribble. The Gresleys were succeeded by the De la Warrs, the last of whom was educated for the priesthood, and became rector of the town. To avoid the evil of a non-resident clergy, he made considerable additions to the lands of the church, in order that it might be endowed as a collegiate institution. A college of clergy was thus formed, whose fellows were bound to perform the necessary services at the parish church, and to whom the old baronial hall was granted as a place of residence. The manorial rights passed to Sir Reginald West, a descendant of Joan Gresley, who was summoned to parliament as Baron de la Warre. The West family, in 1579, sold the manorial rights for £3000 to John Lacy, who, in 1596, resold them to Sir Nicholas Mosley, whose descendants enjoyed the emoluments derived from them until 1845, when they were purchased by the municipality of Manchester for a sum of £200,000. The lord of the manor had the right to tax and toll all articles brought for sale into the market of the town. But, though the inhabitants were thus to a large extent taxed for the benefit of one individual, they had a far greater amount of local self-government than might have been supposed, and the court leet, which was then the governing body of the town, had, though in a rudimentary form, nearly all the powers now possessed by municipal corporations. This court had not only control over the watching and warding of the town, the regulation of the water supply, and the cleaning of the streets, but also had power, which at times was used freely, of interfering with the private liberty of their fellow-citizens. Thus, no single woman was allowed to be a householder; no person might employ other than the town musicians; and the amount to be spent at wedding feasts and other festivities was carefully settled. Under the protection of the barons the town appears to have steadily increased in prosperity, and it early became an important seat of the textile manufactures. Fulling mills were at work in the district in the 13th century; and documentary evidence exists to show that woollen manufactures were carried on in Ancoats at that period. In 1538 Leland described it as "the fairest, best-builded, quickest, and most populous town in Lancashire." The right of sanctuary granted to the town in 1540 was found so detrimental to its industrial pursuits that after very brief experience the privilege was taken away. The college of Manchester was dissolved in 1547, but was refounded in Mary's reign. Under her successor the town became the headquarters of the commission for establishing the Reformed religion. In 1641 we hear of the Manchester people purchasing linen yarn from the Irish, weaving it, and returning it for sale in a finished state. They also brought cotton wool from Smyrna to work into fustians and dimities. An act passed in the reign of Edward VI. regulates the length of cottons called Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire cottons. These, notwithstanding their name, were probably all woollen textures. It is thought that some of the Flemish weavers who were introduced into England by Queen Philippa of Hainault were settled at Manchester; and Fuller has given an exceedingly quaint and picturesque description of the manner in which these artisans were welcomed by the inhabitants of the country they were about to enrich with a new industry. The Flemish weavers were in all probability reinforced by religious refugees from the Low Countries. Entry: MANCHESTER
The population (78,618 in 1891; 69,343 in 1901) decreases owing to emigration, the decrease being one of the most serious shown by any Irish county. It includes nearly 90% of Roman Catholics. The only towns are Carrick-on-Shannon (pop. 1118) and Manor Hamilton (993). The county is divided into five baronies. It is within the Connaught circuit, and assizes are held at Carrick-on-Shannon, and quarter sessions at Ballinamore, Carrick-on-Shannon and Manor Hamilton. It is in the Protestant diocese of Kilmore, and the Roman Catholic dioceses of Ardagh and Kilmore. In the Irish House of Commons two members were returned for the county and two for the boroughs of Carrick-on-Shannon and Jamestown, but at the Union the boroughs were disfranchised. The county divisions are termed the North and South, each returning one member. Entry: LEITRIM
LOUTH, a maritime county in the province of Leinster, Ireland, bounded N.E. by Carlingford Bay and Co. Down, E. by the Irish Sea, S.W. by Meath, and N.W. by Monaghan and Armagh. It is the smallest county in Ireland, its area being 202,731 acres or about 317 sq. m. The greater part of the surface is undulating, with occasionally lofty hills; in the north-east, on the borders of Carlingford Lough, there is a mountain range approaching 2000 ft. in height. Many of the hills are finely wooded, and towards the sea the scenery, in the more elevated districts, is strikingly picturesque. With the exception of the promontory of Clogher Head, which rises abruptly to a height of 180 ft., the coast is for the most part low and sandy. The narrow and picturesque Carlingford Lough is navigable beyond the limits of the county, and Carlingford and Greenore are well-known watering-places on the county Louth shore. The Bay of Dundalk stretches to the town of that name and affords convenient shelter. The principal rivers, the Fane, the Lagan, the Glyde and the Dee, flow eastwards. None of these is navigable, but the Boyne, which forms the southern boundary of the county, is navigable for large vessels as far as Drogheda. Entry: LOUTH
The ancestor of the millstone was apparently a rounded stone about the size of a man's fist, with which grain or nuts were pounded and crushed into a rude meal. These stones are generally of hard sandstone and were evidently used against another stone, which by dint of continual hammering was broken into hollows. Sometimes the crusher was used on the surface of rocks. St Bridget's stone, on the shore of Lough Macnean, is supposed to have been a primitive Irish mill; there are many depressions in the face of the table-like rock, and it is probable that round this stone several women (for in early civilization the preparation of flour was peculiarly the duty of the women) would stand and grind, or rather pound, meal. Many such stones, known as Bullan stones, still exist in Ireland. Similar remains are found in the Orkneys and Shetlands, and it is on record that some of these stones have been used for flour-making within historic times. Richard Bennett in his _History of Corn Milling_ remarks that the Seneca Indians to this day boil maize and crush it into a paste between loose stones. In the same way the Omahas pound this cereal in holes in the rocks, while the Oregon Indians parch and pound the capsules of the yellow lily, much after the fashion described by Herodotus in his account of the ancient Egyptians. In California the Indian squaws make a sort of paste by crushing acorns between a round stone or "muller," and a cuplike hollow in the surface of a rock. Crushing stones are of different shapes, ranging from the primitive ball-like implement to an elongated shape resembling the pestle of a mortar. Mullers of the latter type are not infrequent among prehistoric remains in America, while Dr Schliemann discovered several specimens of the globular form on the reputed site of the city of Troy, and also among the ruins of Mycenae. As a matter of fact stone mullers survived in highly civilized countries into modern days, if indeed they are now altogether extinct. Entry: FLOUR
CORACLE (Welsh _corwg-l_, from _corwg_, cf. Irish and mod. Gaelic _curach_, boat), a species of ancient British fishing-boat which is still extensively used on the Severn and other rivers of Wales, notably on the Towy and Teifi. It is a light boat, oval in shape, and formed of canvas stretched on a framework of split and interwoven rods, and well-coated with tar and pitch to render it water-tight. According to early writers the framework was covered with horse or bullock hide (_corium_). So light and portable are these boats that they can easily be carried on the fisherman's shoulders when proceeding to and from his work. Coracle-fishing is performed by two men, each seated in his coracle and with one hand holding the net while with the other he plies his paddle. When a fish is caught, each hauls up his end of the net until the two coracles are brought to touch and the fish is then secured. The coracle forms a unique link between the modern life of Wales and its remote past; for this primitive type of boat was in existence amongst the Britons at the time of the invasion of Julius Caesar, who has left a description of it, and even employed it in his Spanish campaign. Entry: CORACLE
ERIE, a city, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Erie county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Lake Erie, 148 m. by rail N. of Pittsburg and near the N.W. corner of the state. Pop. (1890) 40,634; (1900) 52,733, of whom 11,957 were foreign-born, including 5226 from Germany and 1468 from Ireland, and 26,797 were of foreign parentage (both parents foreign-born), including 13,316 of German parentage and 4203 of Irish parentage; (1910 census) 66,525. Erie is served by the New York, Chicago & St Louis, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Erie & Pittsburg (Pennsylvania Company), the Philadelphia & Erie (Pennsylvania railway), and the Bessemer & Lake Erie railways, and by steamboat lines to many important lake ports. The city extends over an area of about 7 sq. m., which for the most part is quite level and is from 50 to 175 ft. above the lake. Erie has a fine harbour about 4 m. in length, more than 1 m. in width, and with an average depth of about 20 ft.; it is nearly enclosed by Presque Isle, a long narrow strip of land of about 3000 acres from 300 ft. to 1 m. in width, and the national government has protected its entrance and deepened its channel by constructing two long breakwaters. Most of the streets of the city are 60 ft. wide--a few are 100 ft.--and nearly all intersect at right angles; they are paved with brick and asphalt, and many in the residential quarters are shaded with fine elms and maples. The city has four parks, in one of which is a soldiers' and sailors' monument of granite and bronze, and not far away, along the shore of lake and bay, are several attractive summer resorts. Among Erie's more prominent buildings are the United States government building, the city hall, the public library, and the county court house. The city's charitable institutions consist of two general hospitals, each of which has a training school for nurses; a municipal hospital, an orphan asylum, a home for the friendless, two old folks' homes, and a bureau of charities; here, also, on a bluff, within a large enclosure and overlooking both lake and city, is the state soldiers' and sailors' home, and near by is a monument erected to the memory of General Anthony Wayne, who died here on the 15th of December 1796. Entry: ERIE
About sixty varieties known in gardens are figured and described in _The Ivy, a Monograph_, by Shirley Hibberd (1872). To cultivate these is an extremely simple matter, as they will thrive in a poor soil and endure a considerable depth of shade, so that they may with advantage be planted under trees. The common Irish ivy is often to be seen clothing the ground beneath large yew trees where grass would not live, and it is occasionally planted in graveyards in London to form an imitation of grass turf, for which purpose it is admirably suited. Entry: A
An Irishman is never at peace except when he's fighting.
The social and political condition of Ireland, and the pastoral occupation of the inhabitants, were unfavourable to the development of foreign commerce, and the absence of coined money among them shows that it did not exist on an extensive scale. The foreign articles of luxury (dress, ornaments, wine, &c.) required by them were brought to the great _oenachs_ or fairs held periodically in various parts of the country. A flourishing commerce, however, soon grew up in the Scandinavian towns; mints were established, and many foreign traders--Flemings, Italians and others--settled there. It was through these Scandinavian trading communities that Ireland came into contact with the rest of Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. If evidence were needed it is only necessary to point to the names of three of the Irish provinces, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, which are formed from the native names (_Ulaid_, _Laigin_, _Muma-n_) with the addition of Norse _staðr_; and the very name by which the island is now generally known is Scandinavian in form (_Ira-land_, the land of the Irish). The settlers in the Scandinavian towns early came to be looked upon by the native Irish as so many septs of a tribe added to the system of petty states forming the Irish political system. They soon mixed in the domestic quarrels of neighbouring tribes, at first selling their protection, but afterwards as vassals, sometimes as allies, like the septs and tribes of the Goidel among themselves. The latter in turn acted in similar capacities with the Irish-Norwegian chiefs, Irish tribes often forming part of the Scandinavian armies in Britain. This intercourse led to frequent intermarriage between the chiefs and nobility of the two peoples. As an instance, the case of Cerball, king of Ossory (d. 887), may be cited. Eyvindr, surnamed Austmaðr, "the east-man,"[8] son of Björn, agreed to defend Cerball's territory on condition of receiving his daughter Raforta in marriage. Among the children of this marriage were Helgi Magri, one of the early settlers in Iceland, and Thurida, wife of Thorstein the Red. Three other daughters of Cerball married Scandinavians: Gormflaith (Kormlöð) married Grimolf, who settled in Iceland, Fridgerda married Thorir Hyrna, and Ethne (Edna) married Hlöðver, father of Earl Sigurd Digri who fell at Clontarf. Cerball's son Domnall (Dufnialr) was the founder of an Icelandic family, whilst the names Raudi and Baugr occur in the same family. Hence the occurrence of such essentially Irish names as Konall, Kjaran, Njall, Kormakr, Brigit, Kaðlin, &c., among Icelanders and Norwegians cannot be a matter for surprise; nor that a number of Norse words were introduced into Irish, notably terms connected with trade and the sea. Entry: EARLY