Instead of 'No blame to you' or 'Small blame to you,' the people often say, ''Tis a stepmother would blame you.'
'Cut your stick, now,' 'cut away'; both mean _go away_: the idea being that you want a walking stick and that it is time for you to cut it.
'I hear William is out of his situation.' 'Yes indeed, that is true.' 'And how is he living?' 'I don't know; I suppose he's living _on the fat of his guts_': meaning he is living on whatever he has saved. But it is sometimes used in the direct sense. Poor old Hill, while his shop prospered, had an immense paunch, but he became poor and had to live on poor food and little of it, so that the belly got flat; and the people used to say--he's living now on the fat of his guts, poor old fellow.
Tom Hogan is managing his farm in a way likely to bring him to poverty, and Phil Lahy says to him--'Tom, you'll scratch a beggarman's back yet': meaning that Tom will himself be the beggarman. ('Knocknagow.') Common all over Munster.
The people have a gentle laudable habit of mixing up sacred names and pious phrases with their ordinary conversation, in a purely reverential spirit. This is one of the many peculiarities of Anglo-Irish { 195} speech derived from the Irish language: for pious expressions pervaded Irish to its very heart, of which the people lost a large part when they ceased to speak the language. Yet it continues very prevalent among our English-speaking people; and nearly all the expressions they use are direct translations from Irish.
'I hear there is a mad dog running about the town.' 'Oh do you tell me so--the Lord between us and harm!' or 'the Lord preserve us!' both very common exclamations in case of danger.
Sudden news is brought about something serious happening to a neighbour, and the people say:--'Oh, God bless the hearers,' or 'God bless the mark.' This last is however generally used in derision. John Cox, a notorious schemer and miser, 'has put down his name for £20 for a charity--God bless the mark!' an intimation that the £20 will never be heard of again.
When a person goes away for ever or dies, the friends and people say 'God be with him,' a very beautiful expression, as it is the concentration of human affection and regret, and also a prayer. It is merely the translation of the Irish _Dia leis_, which has forms for all the three persons and two genders:--'with her,' 'with you, 'with them,' &c.