Fews Glossary, C

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Caddie boy, good-for-nothing personCadge  carry, ‘ye’ve had a long cadge o’ it’Cadger little, sometimes applied to…

Fairies leave Ireland

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‘She was a through-other oul’ bit an’ none too sonsy at that, for it wus often said she wus given till ridin’ a broomstick. 

Harl o’ bones wi’ no gumption!

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‘The very childer used till be afeared till daunder on the hill in the heel of the evenin’.  An’ no wonder.  Shure it wus said the wee people wud be dukeing in sheughs ready till grab them.  Many a mallyvogin I got meself because of them.  An’ sure the cattle themselves wudn’t as much as munch a bite once darkness had come.  Ay devil the blade wud they let in their gubs!

Damolly Mill

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Up until a generation ago if one was fortunate enough to find work locally as likely as not one worked in the mill.

Damolly Mill closed down twenty five years ago, in 1979.   For almost two and a half centuries it – under different guises – had provided employment and community life for ten generations of local people.


Cock of Slieve Gullion

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‘Finn McCool was on the mountain this day with he’s wife, which of them I won’t be sayin’, for they do tell me he had more than one.  An’ he was sore put about when he heared that the Scotchman wus comin’ an’ he jist after a wakeness of sorts an’ still shaky on his pegs.  He’s wife though had her wits about her.


Pulkowen

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In the oul’ days when the Johnston’s were at Roxboro’ that [Pulkowen, a rock in Umericam Bog, near Silverbridge] was one of their beheadin’ stones. 


An’ the blud-stains are upon it till this very day, an’ it’s few people wud pass it at night because of the ghosts that still be there.  Five pounds a head they wur paid for all that went to Armagh or Dublin.

Anal Wedges

‘The most common excuse is that they ‘fell unto’ these objects.  We frankly…

Breen’s Fort

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It is perhaps the folk tales of ill luck that befell those who interfered with hill forts that helped preserve these for thousands of years.