Skelly; to aim askew and miss the mark; to squint. (Patterson: all over Ulster.)
Skelp; a blow, to give a blow or blows; a piece cut off:--'Tom gave Pat a skelp': 'I cut off a skelp of the board with a hatchet.' To run fast:--'There's Joe skelping off to school.'
Skib; a flat basket:--'We found the people collected round a skibb of potatoes.' ('Wild Sports of the West.')
Skidder, skiddher; broken thick milk, stale and sour. (Munster.)
Skillaun. The piece cut out of a potato to be used as seed, containing one germinating _eye_, from which the young stalk grows. Several skillauns will be cut from one potato; and the irregular part left is a _skilloge_ (Cork and Kerry), or a _creelacaun_ (Limerick). Irish _sciollán_, same sound and meaning.
Skit; to laugh and giggle in a silly way:--'I'll be { 326} bail they didn't skit and laugh.' (Crofton Croker.) 'Skit and laugh,' very common in South.
Skite; a silly frivolous light-headed person. Hence Blatherumskite (South), or (in Ulster), bletherumskite.
Skree; a large number of small things, as a skree of potatoes, a skree of chickens, &c. (Morris: South Monaghan.)
Skull-cure for a bad toothache. Go to the nearest churchyard alone by night, to the corner where human bones are usually heaped up, from which take and bring away a skull. Fill the skull with water, and take a drink from it: that will cure your toothache.
Sky farmer; a term much used in the South with several shades of meaning: but the idea underlying all is a farmer without land, or with only very little--having broken down since the time when he had a big farm--who often keeps a cow or two grazing along the roadsides. Many of these struggling men acted as intermediaries between the big corn merchants and the large farmers in the sale of corn, and got thereby a percentage from the buyers. A 'sky farmer' has his farm _in the sky_.
Slaan [_aa_ long as the _a_ in _car_]; a sort of very sharp spade, used in cutting turf or peat. Universal in the South.
Slack-jaw; impudent talk, continuous impertinences:--'I'll have none of your slack-jaw.'
Slang; a narrow strip of land along a stream, not suited to cultivation, but grazed. (Moran: Carlow.)
Sleeveen; a smooth-tongued, sweet-mannered, sly, { 327} guileful fellow. Universal all over the South and Middle. Irish _slíghbhín_, same sound and meaning; from _slígh_, a way: _binn_, sweet, melodious: 'a _sweet-mannered_ fellow.'