A dhuine uasail, - Regarding "An Irishman's Diary" of January 21st, the word "culchie", with due respect to the writer and also the people of Coillte Mach, is hardly a contribution to the English language! Rather it is a Dublin dialectism. As such, its origins may go further back than is commonly thought back, perhaps, to the days of Silken Thomas.
In the day when the Pale was still surrounded by the Gaeltacht, the people of Louth contemptuously referred to the people of the more mountainy Omeath as "Sleibhteoiri", meaning mountaineers or even backwoods men.
South of the Pale was a similar situation. In those days Wicklow was still forested, and all those lurking in the woods were obviously "Coillteoiri". One meaning of the word is simply "outlaw" (Scots Gaelic has a similar word: "coilltear"). May I suggest that here may lie the true origins of that word "culchie", a dialectical term of the people of Dublin for the untamed people of Wicklow, the wild O'Tooles and even wilder O'Byrnes? - Mise, le deamheinn,
Tobar Ri an Domhnaigh,
Corcaigh.