(Published by Gill & MacMillan)
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Terry Dolan, if you’ve never heard him discussing Hiberno-English on Newstalk radio, is the Associate Professor of English at University College Dublin. Affable on the radio and in person (he taught me in UCD), he’s an expert on this topic and not in the way many academics are: railing on their area of knowledge to anyone who’ll listen. Dolan manages to make something that could have been a lexical yawnfest, genuinely compelling.
Hiberno English (HE), for the uninitiated, is the English as spoken by the people of Ireland. Now this obviously has nothing to do with accent and you might think: “Hmmm, apart from banshee and gobshite, what else is there?” Well quite a bit actually. This is the dictionary’s second edition and there are over 1,000 new entries alone.
Calling it a dictionary is a bit off the mark; it’s a sort of dictionary meets encyclopedia with a bit of Schott’s miscellany thrown in. As well as lots of Hiberno English words from past and present, it contains proverbs, phrases and sayings – all backed up with handy information on usage, Gaelicisms, distinctive sounds and grammatical points of interest.
If that all sounds a bit technical, fear not, because there’s enough fascinating bits of information and absorbable trivia here to make you want to poke in and out of these pages. Among the many familiar entries are chancer, banjaxed, left-footer, skinnymalink, wall-falling (to be desperate for) bogtrotter, chisler, DART accent and piss-a-bed (dandelions!). The Bertie Bowl even merits a mention. There are lengthier explanations too, as in the geographical location (and dubious morality) of the Monto area of old Dublin.
You don’t hear a lot of these words anymore and I had to laugh when I reminded of doing my ‘eccer’ (homework) years ago. The book elucidates meanings, not just in the sense of words and letters, but in terms of politics, religion and culture. If it was compiled by any other academic, I don’t think it would have been half as interesting. Etymologically, this is a dictionary but it’s also a journey through the Irish psyche and oral consciousness. It may even provide an explanation – when you see all these words in one place – for Ireland’s rich literary tradition, which was once so rooted in the spoken word. Most surprisingly, it’s actually quite a page-turner and every good bookshelf should have one.
The DJ 
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