My thanks to both Seamus O Saothrai of Blacklion, Greystones, and Harry Williamson of Ashley Park, Bangor, Co Down, for pointing out to me that the word Hurry, used in allusion to the 1798 rebellion, is found in Florence M. Wilson's celebration of Thomas Russell, hanged in Downpatrick in 1803 - The Man From God-Knows-Where: "In the time of the Hurry we had no lead/ We all of us fought with the rest/ An' if e'er a one shook like a trembling reed/None of us gave neither hint nor heed . . ."
Mrs Wilson was born in Lisburn in 1877 but spent most of her life in Bangor. Her only collection of verse was published in Dublin by the Candle Press and printed by Colm O Lochlainn in a limited edition of 450 copies. I would not be in the least surprised to hear that O Saothrai, scholar and bibliophile, has a copy.
He tells me, too, that the word pickeering, mentioned here recently, is not confined to Co Kilkenny. Pickeering, if I may refresh your memory, is the act of making romantic overtures to a woman. It was, he says, much used in his own boyhood in Co Westmeath. And in east Ulster (he doesn't say exactly where) the act of putting your arms around a girl and giving her an oul' hoult is referred to as giving her a Killinchy muffler.
Breege Cunningham, of Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, is puzzled by her mother's word, mungle demmery, and so, I must confess, am I. This is a mutant parsnip with two roots or legs. I have come across mungle in the dialect dictionaries of England, and it may well be related to the first element in Breege's word.
It - and its variant mundle - means a stick, often forked, used to stir cream in the dairy. People who visited farmhouses not far from where Shakespeare grew up were always invited in the old days to use the mungle in the dairy to deter the fairies from stealing the cream. Mungle/ mundle are of Norse origin. Mundull was Old Norse for a handle.
Mungles are found in various country phrases. Have a little, give a little, let neighbour lick the mungle, is one. It means that one should look after oneself first. I'll have a lick of the mungle before I burn my tongue, means I will have my pleasure even if I have to suffer for it. And to lick the mungle means to curry favour.
But demmery, I'm afraid has me baffled.