-
Dirige nos Domine — Latin, "Direct us, O Lord", the motto of Jim's school, Presentation College, Glasthule. - billing-boy — (("a boy distributing advertisements (bills)" – Partridge HS.))
- huckster's — ((huckster: "retailer of small goods, in a petty shop or booth"; also: "a person ready to make his profit of anything in a mean or petty way" – OED.))
- front door — in Jim's capacity as "schoolfellow", he has "front door status", i.e. the privilege of calling at the front door. In his capacity as "billing-boy", he has only "back door status", i.e. the duty to knock at the tradesman's entrance.
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settle-bed — a bench that unfolds to a bed for sleeping. (("By day it functioned as a long seat or settle, and at night it could be unhinged outwards and down onto the floor, to make a floor-level double-bed, enclosed on all sides" – Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art, 2008.)) …
Willed down, waited for, in place at last and for good.from Seamus Heaney, The Settle Bed, 1991.
Trunk-hasped, cart-heavy, painted an ignorant brown.
And pew-strait, bin-deep, standing four-square as an ark.
If I lie in it, I am cribbed in seasoned deal
Dry as the unkindled boards of a funeral ship.
My measure has been taken, my ear shuttered up. - dodge — (("shifty trick, an artifice to elude or cheat" – OED.))
- jibes — jeers, taunts. ((OED.))
- scragging — rough treatment. ((scrag: "to treat (someone) roughly, to manhandle" – OED.)) (("in Rugby football, to twist the neck of a man whose head is conveniently held under one's arm" – Partridge HS.))
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football — here, Rugby union football. …
rugby — "Football, which, as a game, is worth ten of cricket, is played in short flannel knickers with perfectly plain ends, bare legs, heavy hob-nailed half-boots of chrome leather, and a jersey. It necessitates a complete change before and after play, especially after, as a serious player, particularly of the Rugby game, is liable to have little of him visible, for mud, when the whistle blows 'time.' A very complete bath, with soap, is therefore indicated. Football in the Winter, and cricket in the Summer, are the only games treated seriously at good-class schools." – The Boys' Outfitter, 1920. - claim a fight — pick a fight. ((Slang.ie.)) In Dublin schoolboy slang to "claim" someone = to claim the right to fight with that person. The person chosen has then been "claimed": to decline such a fight would be dishonourable. cf (("Peter, still standing on his bench, shouted: 'I claim a fight'" – Walpole, Fortitude, 1913.))
- bullocky — like a young bull. (("resembling a bullock" – OED.))
- chatterer — (("a blow – esp. if on the mouth – that makes the recipient's teeth chatter" pugilistic – Partridge HS.))
- circle of honour — ? that group of onlookers which circles a fight, concealing, cajoling, and preventing retreat.
- chaffed him — scoffed at him. ((chaff: "to banter, rail at, or rally, in a light and non-serious manner, or without anger, but so as to try the good nature or temper of the person 'chaffed'" slangy – OED.))
- Grand Exhibit — punning "exhibit" (object on display) and "exhibition" (("an allowance or scholarship awarded to a student at a university or school" – Collins.))
- goosed him — made a fool of him / hissed at him. ((goose: "befool" slang – OED.)) ((goose: "to condemn by hissing" theatrical and general – Partridge HS.))
- piccaninnies — black children ((offensive – Collins.))
- Presentation Missions — an inaccuracy: there were no Missions organized by the Presentation Brothers at this time, nor any to Africa until the 1960s. PresBros.org.
- sea-wall — the shore wall and pathway from Kingstown to Sandycove
- scratch — impromptu. (("hastily assembled" – OED.))
- the Chief — a name for Parnell, used by his supporters. (The connotation is more of "chieftain" – head of a Gaelic clan – than of "boss".)
- passed over — died. (("associated esp. with spiritualism" – OED.))
- curious old harp — strange person. ((quare harp: "odd individual" – Slanguage.))
- ozone — clean bracing air, as found at the seaside. ((informal – Collins.)) ((from an erroneous former belief that seaweed contains and releases ozone – Wiktionary.))
- urchinous — ? does not appear in any dictionary, but presumably from ((urchin: "a pert, mischievous, or roguish youngster" – OED.))
- Martello tower — a small "pepper-pot" defensive tower. ^
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French scares – the fear, quite founded at the time (early 1800s), of revolutionary French invasions of – or fraternal assistance to – Ireland. cf Generals Humbert and Hoche. - Forty Foot — a Gentlemen's Bathing Place in Sandycove. ^
- back of God speed — (("very remote, out of the way" – PWJ 1910.)) ((EDD gives "behind God speed".))
- swaddies — soldiers. ((British Army slang – DILR.)) (("now generally superseded by squaddie" – OED.))
- guard mount — ((guard-mounting: "the ceremony of installing the new guard and relieving the old one" – Farrow, Dictionary of Military Terms, 1918.)) sentry-go — sentry duty. ((OED.))
- shirked — evaded. ((OED.))
- reveille, Last Post — soldiers' morning and late evening bugle calls. ((OED.))
- spit and polish — (("the occupation of cleaning up or furbishing, as part of the work of a sailor or soldier; also in extended use, precise correctness, smartness; freq. as a derogatory expression in contrast with purposeful work or utility" – OED.)) jankers — punishment duty. ((services' slang – OED.)) Queen's Regulations — the British military code of conduct. ((Collins.)) "Queen's" because Mr Mack served under Queen Victoria.
- quartermaster-sergeant's English — (("the business-like itemised English affected by Quartermasters and their assistants in the Army. Thus gum boots > boots, gum" – Partridge.))
- forlorn hope — (("from Dutch verloren hoop, lost troop – a party of soldiers assigned to a particularly perilous duty" – Oxford Companion to Military History.)) (("with word-play or misapprehension of the etymology: a faint hope, a 'hope against hope'; an enterprise which has little chance of success" – OED.))
- horny — hardened, calloused. ((OED.))
- form — class or grade at school. ((OED.)) from the "form", or bench, pupils of similar abilities once shared. The term has connotations of fancy English boarding schools.
- acme of swell — height of fashion. ((swell: "stylishly or handsomely dressed" – OED.))
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sea-lace and thong-weed — varieties of seaweed. - crinolined lady on the wrapper — an anachronism. Lemon's sweets < didn't adopt the "Crinoline Lady" logo until the 1920s. Lemon's.
- jam — ((bit of jam: "attractive girl" – Partridge HS.)) but also ((jam: "the female pudendum" – Farmer 1904.))
- come the green — pretend to be innocent. ((come: "act the part of" – Farmer 1904.)) ((green: "simple, inexperienced, gullible" – Farmer 1904.))
- sniff of the glue-pot — ? the smell of seminal fluid. ((the glue-pot has come unstuck: "he gives off the odour of a genital exudation or of a seminal emission" low catchphrase: from ca. 1890 – Partridge HS.))
- fetch yourself off — masturbate. ((fetch: "experience a seminal emission" colloquial: late C.19-20 – Partridge HS.))
- flocculent — (("covered with a short woolly substance; downy" – OED.)) ((of the atmosphere: "holding particles of aqueous vapour in suspension" – OED.))
- Muglins — an islet in Dublin Bay. ^
- toney — stylish. ((tony: "having a high or fashionable tone" colloquial, orig. US – OED.)) (("One tony relative in every family" – Joyce, Ulysses, 1922.))
- what cheer — colloquial greeting. ^
- scorched — ((scorch: "ride a bicycle at top speed" – Farmer 1904.))
| UK | US-h | US-p | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pages | 39-45 | 41-46 | 32-37 |
| POV | JIm | ||
| Where | Glasthule, the Sea-wall | ||
| When | Wednesday late lunchtime, May 5 1915 | ||
