![]() ![]() “Be jabbers” means “by Jesus.” And a “spalpeen” is a young boy. “Arrah,” by the way, is an expression of disbelief. An English newspaper published in 1885 made fun of the word, suggesting that the Prince of Wales, when visiting Ireland, should familiarize himself with Irish slang such as “arrah,”’ “begorra,” “be jabers,” and “spalpeen.” We’ll start with “Begorrah.” What Does 'Begorrah' Mean?īegorrah is a euphemism for the phrase “by God.” You sometimes hear it in the phrase, “faith and begorrah.” It’s the Irish equivalent of an American saying, “by golly” or “by gosh.” Patrick is, let’s get back to words you might hear on this holiday. Partly due to this legend, shamrocks have become the national flower of Ireland, and are symbolic of all things Irish, especially St. Patrick is also supposed to have illustrated the Holy Trinity of Christianity by using a shamrock, showing its three leaves growing from a single stem. You could say he turned them into werewolves. The legends say he put a curse on them that turned one couple, every seven years, into wolves-wolves that spoke like humans and craved human flesh. Their spirit animal was a wolf, and they howled at Patirck when he came close. He’s even said to have placed a curse on an Irish clan who didn’t take kindly to his promotion of a new deity. He’s also said to have raised 33 people from the dead, some of whom had been buried for years. He’s best known for having driven all the snakes out of Ireland (which is probably a metaphor for driving out the druids). Believing he’d received a message from God, he returned to Ireland as a one-man missionary, spreading word of the Christian faith across the pagan island and baptizing people left and right. Later, as an adult, he dreamed that a group of Irishmen were calling him back to their land.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |