sane - sensible, rational
hippic - rel. to horses or horse racing
breezy - windy; fig. Characterized by brisk vigour or activity, lively, jovial.
BALDOYLE - Village, North of Sutton and Howth; site of race course.
go through the card - to consider or try all the possibilities offered + go through the card (Slang) - (of a jockey) win every race on the programme.
picker up - one who picks up or gathers
perkin - a pretender to the trone, or to any exalted position + Peter + Warbeck, Perkin (1474-99) - pretender to the English throne, who was strongly supported by the Irish.
peer - a member of one of the degrees of nobility in the United Kingdom
prole - a member of the proletariat
encourage - encouragement
hackney - a horse for ordinary riding
plate - in Horse-racing, a prize consisting of a silver or gold cup or the like given to the winner of a race.
photo finish - the finish of a race in which competitors are so close that the result has to be determined by reference to a photograph of the situation + tablecloth - a covering for a table, particularly that spread on it when it is 'laid' for a meal.
each (akh) (gael) - horse, steed + ek (Volapük) - some.
neach (nakh) (gael) - anyone + nek (Volapük) - none.
evelo nevelo (Volapük) - ever never
cream - yellowish white color
colt - the young of the horse (to the age of 4, or in the case of a thoroughbred, 5 years).
getaway - act of starting + (notebook 1923): 'a clean getaway'.
roe - a name given to the regular appearance of dark figures and spots in figured mahogany, which give a mottled effect, like a fish roe.
hinny - the offspring of a she-ass by a stalion
drummer - one who beats a drum for public or military purposes + drummer (Slang) - a horse with an irregular foreleg action.
coxon - coxswain
nondescript - not easily described or classified; of no particular class, kind, or form + depict = depicted.
breakneck - inviting danger, very rapid, very steep
odds - the ratio between the amount to be won and the amount wagered on a bet, difference.
bonny - pleasing to the sight, comely, beautiful
winny - whinny; wienie
widger - a gardening tool + (notebook 1922-23): 'Widger' + widge (obs. dial.) - a steed + jolly roger - the pirate's flag.
the daddy of them all - the best or finest example of som. pleasant or unpleasant + nappy - liquor, ale; napkin + James Joyce: Ulysses.14.1415: 'Thou art all their daddies, Theodore'.
James Joyce: Ulysses.15.3256: 'Neverrip brand as supplied to the aristocracy'.
top - to get or leap over the top of, to surmount
timber - wooden, dull + timber topper (Slang) - a horse good at jumping.
maggie - a girl + naggy - a small nag, a pony.
cove (Slang) - fellow + FDV: It was 2 coves of the name of Treacle Tom & Frisky Shorty off the hulks what was on the bum for a [an oofbird with good for a] jimmygogblin jimmygoblin as heard this reverend gent make use of the language which he was having a gurgle [on his own] along of the bloke in the specs.
wetter - one who wets; water + Wetter (ger) - weather.
renn- (ger) - race + Ren, or name of power (Egyptian mythology)
overt - open to view
vox (l) - voice
lande - an infertile moor, sandy barren bordering the sea + Song of Solomon 2:11-12: 'For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone... and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land'.
treacle - something sweet or clogging; to flow as treacle, to trickle (humorous nonce-use.) + Treacle Town (Slang) - Bristol.
in pop - in pawn or pledge + out of pawn (Slang) - out of prison [(notebook 1923): 'out of pawn (prison)'].
theft - the action of a thief, larceny
KEHOE, DONNELLY AND PAKENHAM - Ham and bacon curers, 12-14 Brabazon Street.
frisky - lively, playful
shorty - a person of short stature; a short drink + (notebook 1922-23): 'frisky shorty (tramp)' → Irish Times 18 Nov 1922, 9/6: 'Literary Vagabonds': 'stealing free rides on freight trains with kindred knights of the road known as "Boston Slim" and "Frisky Shorty"'.
punctilious - marked by precise exact accordance with the details of codes or conventions.
tipster - a man who makes a business of furnishing 'tips' or confidential information as to the probable chances of an event on which betting depends, esp. in horse-racing.
come off - to come away from a place in which one has been e.g. a ship.
hulk - a ship; the body of a dismantled ship (worn out and unfit for sea service) retained in use as a store-vessel, for the temporary housing of crews, for quarantine or other purposes; a vessel of this kind formerly used as a prison. Usually pl. + hulks (Slang) - prison ships.
bum - to go around in the manner of a bum, to wander
oofbird - a source or supplier of money, rich person, ''the goose that lays the golden eggs'' (from oof (Slang) - money) + (notebook 1923): 'oofbird'.
jimmy o'goblin - Rhyming slang for sovereign (twenty shillings)
un - one + thick 'un (Slang) - a sovereign or crown piece.
SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS - This famous British regiment is named for the last Earl of Seaforth (d 1781), who raised the original regiment, later the 2nd Battalion of the Seaforths. The band of the 2nd played in College Park, TCD on 16 June 1904, and the viceroy hears "My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl" as his contage passes.
colleen - a girl + colleen bawn = white or fair girl + Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn.
person + parson.
clobber - to hit; to thrash or 'beat up' + motor car - an automobile + clobber (Slang) - clothes.
law language - language pertaining to law
and so on - used as an abbreviating phrase to avoid further description or the enumeration of further details + edzo (Esperanto) - husband.
sunday - a sunday newspapers
to rub noses (with) - to touch noses in greeting (in token of friendship).
gurgle - a drink or draught of liquor
along of - on account of, owing to; together (with)
butty - a fellow workman + butty (Dublin Slang) - drinking companion.
bloke - man, fellow + bootblack - a person who blacks boots, a shoe-black.
specs - specifications + specs (Colloquial) - spectacles.
FDV: Now it was the habit This Treacle Tom to whom reference has been made had been absent from his usual wild and woolly haunts for some time previously (he was in the habit of frequenting common lodging-houses where he slept in a nude state in strange beds shakedowns) but returning on Baldoyle night to [his house of call at] Block Z, Pump Square, the Liberties [he sought his [warm] bed] he repeated the tale more than once during uneasy slumber and in the hearing of a ballad monger and a discharged drapery executive O'Donnell out of work for the moment Peter Cloran O'Donnell a secretary of no fixed abode who had passed several nights in a doorway and Hosty an illstarred streetsinger busker who, feeling suicidal, had been tossing on his doss in the hope of soon finding ways & means for getting a loan of some chaps' parabellum to go & find some quiet dive somewhere off the main tram line blowing & blow the napper off himself in peace & quietness. He having been trying for over a year to get into Jervis street hospital without having been able to wangle it anyway. O'Donnell [& Peter Cloran [as an understood thing,]] slept in the same bed one bunk with hosty when day dawned and the housewife dawn-of-all-work had not been many hours furbishing potlids, doorbrasses, scholars' applecheeks & horny buttons when that busker the busker and his bedmates bedroom suite was were up and afoot crosstown thrumming his square crewth fiddle and after a visit to a public house near not 1,000 miles from Parnell's statue [where the trio were] in company of two decent boys joined by another casual & a decent sort who had just pocketed his weekly insult where all had stimulants [[in the shape of gee and gees stood by the decent sort] at the decent sort's expense [& came out of the licensed premises wiping their mouth on their sleeves]] the world was the richer for a new halfpenny ballad first sung from the under the shadow of the monument of the dead legislator [to an audience overflow meeting [fully filling the visional area] representative of every section of the Irish people [ranging from slips of boys [with pocketed hands, ladychairs, [a few old souls obviously under the spell of liquor] & emergency men [in search of an honest crust]] to busy professional gentlemen.]] Word went round and etc. This on a slip of blue paper headed by a woodcut soon fluttered on highway & byway to the rose of the winds from lane to lattice and from mouth to ear, throughout the 5 corners of the land of Ireland, and round the land his rann it ran and this is the rann that Hosty made:
wild and woolly - marked by boisterous and untamed ways of living and by lack of refinement.
counties - pl. of county + The Countess Cathleen - heroine of Yeats's play (1892, produced by the Irish National Theatre 1899) who sells her soul to the devil to feed the starving Irish + capaillin (kopilin) (gael) - little horse.
lodginghouse - a house, other than an inn or hotel, in which lodgings are let.
to be hail fellow well met - to be on such terms, or using such freedom with another, as to accost him with 'hail, fellow!'; on a most intimate footing + hailfellow - pal, a boon companion.
meth - colloq. abbrev. Methedrine; also, a Methedrine tablet + meth (Slang) - methylated spirit [(notebook 1924): 'meth (ylate)'] + methe (g) - strong drink; drunkeness.
cot - a portable bed, or one adapted for transport + FDV: in strange beds shakedowns
blotto - completely drunk, confused, disordered
divers - various, several; more than one, some number of
tot - a minute quantity of anything, esp. of drink
hell fire - the fire of hell
red biddy - a drink consisting of methylated spirits and cheap red wine; also, inferior red wine.
blue ruin - gin (usually of bad quality)
jenny - a female bird
Rhaeto-Romanic is spoken in the Swiss valley of Engadine
herbage - herbs collectively; herbaceous growth or vegetation + Herberge (ger) - hostelry
doggies - pl. of doggy - a small dog
galop - a lively dance
primrose - a well-known plant, bearing pale yellowish flowers in early spring, growing wild in woods and hedges and on banks.
Brighid (brid) (gael) - "strength"; fem. n.; goddess of poetry.