Top ten Irish expressions an American picked up living there

How about 'I have to say I’m only after saying Bollocks for the love of God'

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Top ten Irish expressions an American picked up living in Ireland

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So you’ve heard recently on this site about Irishsims in America and Irishisms in Ireland. Here’s my top ten list of words I can’t shake as an American who lived in Ireland and now has returned.

You may note even only by my name I have not an ounce of Irish blood, but I did marry an Irish woman who’d been in the States much of her adult life, and we decided to move (back) to Ireland, about 7 miles outside Longford, in 2007. We lasted there a few difficult years, as the floor caved in beneath the economy and we were hard-pushed to get by. I mean, hard-pressed.

Overall I am of the opinion that the Irish speak English with more charm than any other peoples on the planet − even, or especially, those older codgers. And even when the origin of the expression might be British (e.g. bollocks, which dates back as far as the Wycliffe Bible of 1382), the Irish have a way of making it their own.

Read more: Top ten signs you’re losing your Americanisms to Irishisms - an American living in Ireland

So coming back to New York I found there are some expressions I’d adopted that are just difficult to drop − for sometimes , as Larry Donnelly pointed out, the Irish expression just beats out the American substitute (and don’t even get me started on how much I prefer and miss their spelling). Of course there must be a fine line drawn between the inclination to use a foreign expression versus the danger of appearing pretentious.

It isn’t easy to resist temptation, although usually one must. Take the Irish word ye, meaning you, second person plural. To my knowledge American northerners don’t have a word for this; in the south there’s the concatenated equivalent y’all but that would sound foolish coming from a New Yorker, except when served with irony. The best we can do is “all of you,” which, trust me, is lame. Yet to use ye here would seem even more insane; your friends would think you’d become a Shakespearian. 

Anyway here’s my list of 10 of the hardest to give back.

1.  “A load of bollocks.” Maybe because I didn’t grow up with it, bollocks just sounds so much more gutsy than any American equivalents. And please note that a person can be “a bollocks,” which also sounds fabulous. And speaking of cursing, which we must speak of, let us not overlook the curious euphemisms feck and shite, which are superior to our substitutions (although it must be said that, at least in proper company, the originals are preferred on both sides of the Atlantic, in my experience).

2. “For the love of God.” I’m sure I’m not the first to note that the Irish also are occasionally given to mildly blasphemous utterances of great richness, such as “For the love of God!” or “Holy Mother of Divine God!”… and in the country parts the abrupt Bejayzus! or any of its subtle variants. Not only am I not Irish, I’m not Catholic, but there are times I’d love to praise the Lord in this colorful manner, but must catch myself. I mean, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I’m not, after all, Irish.

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