From Happy Valley, South Australia, Dymphna Lonergan wrote to inquire about some words of Irish provenance she has come across in the writings of Miles Franklin. One of the words she is in doubt about is kippeen, and this doesn't mean a twig; as Dymphna says it was used in the context of a suicide and seems to refer to the rope mark around the victim's neck: "So it's the nasty kippeen av a divil's collar he dresses wid."
I think the only part of that word that's Irish is the dimunitive, een. The kip in question was, very likely, imported from England, where it is still found in Yorkshire, Norfolk and Somerset; I've never heard it in Ireland. A country word, it means the skin of a young animal used for tanning. It's an old word.
"Kyppe of lambe a furre" was recorded in an English tract of 1530. The word's origin is uncertain, but you might compare the Low German kip and the Middle Dutch kip and kijp.
"A proper tike" is a phrase James Reilly, a Monaghan man who wrote from Aldershot, sends me. He remembers tike being used at home when he was young. Tike or tyke is in general dialect use in Scotland, Ireland and northern England and means a dog, a hound, a cur and, figuratively, a rough, ill-mannered person.
It is also applied to mischievous, tiresome children and, in Leeds, to men who chase women and to women who chase men. That it is the Shetland word for the common otter gives a clue as to its origin, the Old Norse tik, a bitch. Piers Plowman has the word: "But vnder tribut and taillage as tykes and cherles."
Lastly, Anne Reid from San try asks me if I ever heard the Dublin word slops used for the drawers with long loose legs re commended by reverend mothers to their pupils in days of yore. Before my time, Anne; but the word is in the English dialect dictionaries, sure enough.
Shakespeare had it too. In Much Ado About Nothing, Don Pedro refers to "a German from the waist downward, all slops". He had large wide trousers in mind in this case, but he would have called any loose outer clo thing slops. You may remember Mercutio saying: "Signior Ro meo, bon jour! There's a French salutation to your French slops." From Old Norse sloppr, a loose trailing garment.